> Airbus is also assessing shielding the area of the fuselage closest to the engines to minimize the risk of a blade off — one or more composite blades breaking, which could dent or puncture the fuselage and, in the worst-case scenario, strike a passenger.

sightly terrifying

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mapt 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The cowling of the current turbines serves the same purpose, but needs to cover 360 degrees of rotation, so it's heavier and draggier. The blades have a bit more angular momentum in the propfan than in a high bypass turbofan, but there's fewer of them.

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dameyawn 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Instead of reinforcing the fuselage, I wonder if just having a 1/4 nacelle that shields the passenger side would work.

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pavon 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The impact area of the fuselage looks much larger than an unrolled cowling, and thus significantly heavier to reinforce. The smaller cowling will save drag through.

	▲	ahartmetz an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It might hit the fuselage at a flatter angle than it would hit a nacelle, which would help.

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fsckboy 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>The cowling of the current turbines serves the same purpose, but needs to cover 360 degrees of rotation

this doesn't make sense. if you are not worried about fan blades flying off in directions other than the fuselage, why cover 360 degrees? (and if you are worried 360, then why open rotor?)

	▲	somewhereoutth 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The cowling is its own structural support, so needs to be strong all around, otherwise it would fail on the other side and you'd get blade+cowling approaching the fuselage at high velocity.

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KolmogorovComp 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

not more terrifying than sitting in any turboprop airplane.

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danparsonson 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Reminded me of this: https://youtu.be/j973645y5AA?si=QJrNJe0gT-zwpElD

Seems like quite an engineering challenge with this new design...

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in_a_hole 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I had a sharp intake of breath after reading this and then clicking through to see the header image of the article.

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csours 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

High bypass turbo fans do this as well, it's just in the fan/engine housing, not the fuselage.

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roboror 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah I'd think you'd need some serious shielding to prevent a puncture