04 September 2010

I Am Not Sure if This Flies, or if It's Just So Ugly That it Repels the Ground

You have to credit the Russian aircraft designers, this eleptical fuselage transport aircraft, dubbed 'EkoJet', appears to be an interesting way of looking at how to get a large number of people on and off an aircraft.

But man, it is one fugly bird.

The designers claim that the aircraft can carry as many passengers as the Il-86 (around 350 in an all coach configuration), but that it would weigh 80 tons less, or about 40% less than the IL-86's 217t MTOW, which I simply don't find credible.

The problems with the Il-86 were always its propulsion, not its structure, and a 40% weight savings seems to violate the laws of physics.

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