George Carty
Banned
In OTL, jet airliners were developed during the US/Soviet Cold War, and Soviet jetliners were noticeably different in design to Western ones:
How would jetliner design differ in a world with considerably different geopolitics to OTL?
Any thoughts?
- Many airports in the Soviet Union had only dirt strips rather than hard runways. This meant that Soviet airliners often had much bulkier landing gear than their Western counterparts. The Boeing 727 had 6 tyres in total, while the Tupolev Tu-154 (the Soviet equivalent of the 727) had 14 tyres, as many as the far larger Boeing 777.
- Poor Soviet runways also made rear-engined configurations more attractive, as this made it easier to design powerful high-lift devices for the wings, enabled a shorter (and stronger) landing gear, and reduces the risk to the engines from foreign object damage. However, because Soviet autopilot technology was inferior to the Western technology, the Soviets tended to go for anhedral wings so as to eliminate the need for a yaw damper.
- The Soviet Union did not develop high-bypass turbofan engines until the 1980s. This is because Soviet engine design was biased towards military aircraft -- where fuel consumption is less of an issue -- and also because the Soviet Union was a big oil producer (like the United States at time) while lacking the US car culture, which made oil far more plentiful there.
- Due to a lack of radio navigational aids, some older Soviet jet transports (like the Tu-134) had glass noses reminiscent of WWII bombers, for visual navigation.
How would jetliner design differ in a world with considerably different geopolitics to OTL?
- British designs, including the Comet and the cancelled VC-7 (designated by the RAF as V-1000), often had engines buried in the wings (as did all three of the V-bombers), unlike the American practice of underslung podded engines. Perhaps if Britain was stronger post-WWII, some other countries may adopt this configuration for a while. However, it would clearly be utterly impractical once high-bypass engines come on the scene.
- A German Empire in the mid-20th century (either Second or Third Reich) would probably be more concerned about fuel economy than either the US or SU OTL, as (unless it conquered the Caucasus) it would have no oil supplies of its own. Could this mean earlier high-bypass turbofans, or even mass adoption of propfans?
- If China or Japan was a major power in the mid-20th century, perhaps the dense population of those countries would make large/size and or short-field requirements important. Perhaps they may develop a huge turboprop aircraft similar to the OTL Antonov An-22, but for airline use.
- If there was a Muslim great power at the time when jet airliners were developed, I'd expect their designs to be similar to OTL Soviet ones, as a lot of the requirements would be similar.
Any thoughts?
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