alt Hacker NewsEverything old is new again... McDonnell Douglas looked into the propfan thing. Boeing looked into the propfan thing. Now it's Airbus' turn. IIRC the technology has been ready for years but the passengers are freaked out by it.
Replies
dcrazy • yesterday at 6:45 PM
I think it’s a cool idea but I also know that the nacelles have a safety function of containing the rotor blades in the event of disintegration (e.g. from a bird strike).
If these fans have blades with anywhere near the same kinetic energy, I would be nervous.
➕ show 2 replies
Real problem was noise, not passengers. Immense advances in aeroacoustics over the past 40 years thanks to CFD is the main enabler here.