Jaunted

Potential passengers would sit in the middle of the airplane, and all of the engines would be placed toward the rear of the plane. No engines dangling from the wings here, as it tries to emulate a flying wing—kind of like a bird or a B-2 bomber. There’s no planned stealth technology here, but a plane like this would likely be much quieter so you might not hear it coming.

Right now the biggest problem—besides the fact that only a mouse could fit inside—is that the design is difficult to control at low speeds. When landing the test model things become pretty tricky, but thankfully the in-flight computer has done a good job of handling things. A new computer will be installed later this year, and hopefully we’ll get one step closer to flying in giant wing. For now we’ll stick to following some of the more traditional airplane designs, but will keep an eye on the future.

Related Stories:
· NASA’s Mini X-Plane Completes Initial Flight Testing [Wired]
· The Boeing 787 Dreamliner Bends But Doesn't Break [Jaunted]
· Airplane News coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Wired via NASA/Boeing]