NZAV8R

If you observe closely you will see that the flight deck is positioned below the main cabin in the cargo bay. You are now a cargo pilot.

I like their concept; however, this looks like a big fancy RJ and I don’t see many regional airlines, or LCC's being willing to give up all the wasted space in the middle of the cabin just to let some pax play virtual golf. That's lost ASM capability right there!

DYNASTY HVY

You mean to tell me that there won,t be any shops or spas like on the A380



Ally

Cubdriver

As for the question I posed on why the tail is split and canted inward on the Sonic Cruiser, it is very similar to the SR-71 Blackbird and many of the same flight conditions apply. I went to my storage locker and got my trusty John D. Anderson Aircraft Performance and Design textbook out. See pg. 535.

The Blackbird has all moving vertical tails with no rudder surfaces. An investigation of conventional rudders early in the the conceptual design stage showed that very large rudder deflections would be required to balance an engine out condition. This was considered an inadequate control authority. Moreover, at such large rudder deflections, the rudder hinge line exposed to the flow would encounter a large stagnation temperature, causing local aerodynamic heating problems. The solution to both these problems was to dispense with rudders and use all-moving vertical tails. Although all-moving horizontal tails (equipped also with elevators) had been used as early as 1947 (eg. on the Bel X-1 and the North American F-86) the use of all-moving vertical tails (without rudders) for the Blackbird appears to be an innovative first.

The vertical tails were also not vertical. Figure 9.43 shows the front view of the airplane with the orientations of the vertical tails, one with the tails exactly vertical and one with the vertical tails canted inward by a 15 degree angle. When there is a side force on the vertical tail, the center of pressure on the tail is above the longitudinal axis through the center of gravity, hence causing a rolling moment about that axis. This is shown in Figure 9.43. By canting the tails inward, the side force acts through a smaller moment arm, hence reducing the rolling moment. The final design configuration of the Blackbird incorporated the the canted vertical tails, as seen in Figure 9.47.

If you read all that you might ask, why does the rolling moment matter so much on the SR-71 when every jet made since the first one basically had a single vertical tail with no cant?

1. If you have a single tail then obviously you are not going to be able to cant it inwards. Such an option only exists when you split the tail into two symmetrical halves.

2. The net improvement obtained by inward canting is that of reduced rolling moment during use of the tail for engine out yaw. At supersonic speeds with an engine out, you are looking at massive yaw forces. You want to introduce counter-yaw decoupled from the roll axis.