One possible design for a future commercial airplane that's much more environmentally friendly is the D8, or "double bubble," developed by a NASA-funded research team led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
One possible design for a future commercial airplane that’s much more environmentally friendly is the D8, or “double bubble,” developed by a NASA-funded research team led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The idea fuses two aircraft bodies together lengthwise to create a twin-aisle passenger area, and mounts the engines on top of the fuselage. It also uses composite, or nonmetallic, materials to lower overall weight, and is designed to do the same work as a Boeing 737-800 or an Airbus 320. The aerodynamic performance of a 1/11th scale model version of the D8 was recently tested in the 14 by 22-Foot Subsonic Wind Tunnel at NASA’s Langley Research Center.
Image credit: NASA Langley/David C. Bowman