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Burnelli must have very frustrated. I wonder why none of his designs were ever put into production. Were they slow?
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i don't think they where much slower than their conventional counterparts.
but comertial airliner designs haven't changed much over the last few decades, most designs in use today come from the early 70's and while lots of electronics have been improved since the basic shape stayed the same.
just imagine cardesign hadn't changed since the 70's.
designing a plane like a tube with the wings and tail stuck on it makes it easier to change components without redoing the whole plane. it's quite common practice to enlarge a plane by "simply" incerting an extra bit of fuselage "tube" or upgrade an aircraft by hanging other engines from the wings etc...
these inflated designs that started the post illustrate how far you can depart from the original design without redoing a lot of major components also having a plane made up out of a tube means you can manifacture it as a series of rings, maximising the ammount of identical components.
with a plane that's more integrated, like the burnelli designs this is much more difficult. especially when they are scaled up to commertial airline size.
on the other hand the carashworthyness of these planes seems to be much higher than that of todays designs, wich is something to think about, also the more boxy shape means cargo and passengers capacity can be much improved.