JetZero awarded BWB contract

Start up JetZero has been awarded a $235M contract to develop a blended-wing body prototype for the Air Force. The contract was awarded by the Defense Innovation Unit. The contract would see the aircraft make its first flight in 2027. JetZero has said it's a funds matching contract, so they'll have to put their own money into the program as well. They are partnering with Scaled Composites, and Pratt&Whitney. According to JetZero they're hoping to see a 50% improvement in fuel burn.

The Z5 was designed to carry 250 passengers over 5750 miles. A blended-wing body is different from a flying wing, in that it has a distinct fuselage and separate wing section. The rear mounted engines will reduce noise for anyone on board, and the shape will improve efficiency. The shape reduces drag by at least 30%. Using the entire aircraft to improve lift can reduce fuel consumption by up to 40%.

JetZero, a Long Beach-based company striving to make tube-and-wing airplane design a thing of the past, was awarded a massive government contract Wednesday to expedite the development of a greener aircraft.

The U.S. Air Force will invest $235 million over the next four years for the production of a blended wing body aircraft prototype. The investment will be going to JetZero, which has been refining the decades-old design since it was founded in Long Beach in 2021.

“It’s a huge shot in the arm,” co-founder and CEO Tom O’Leary said in an interview Wednesday, adding that the infusion of government money will expedite his company’s work.

lbbusinessjournal.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Curious since I have seen Boeing designs for the exact same thing. Why does this company get the government grant?

a reply to: greendust

Brand new in 2018. Appears their patents are years 2021-2023. This has to be a friend of 'someone'. Something's fishy here. That's a lot of money.

If I am correct in my research, they were previously 'Blended Wing Aircraft Inc.' which was only in business for a couple of years. Then switched to Jetzero. Only ever one contract for 4.5mil.

Other companies:

We've written many times before about blended wing designs – Airbus, NASA and Boeing are among the companies that have built and flown demonstrators, but none have committed to bringing one through into service. Halfway between a full flying wing design and a traditional airliner shape, a blended wing body uses a wide, flattish fuselage that smoothly blends outward into a pair of wide wings, with no clear dividing line separating the wing from the body.
newatlas.com...

There must be a reason there was no follow through. The design has issues like lack of escape doors in an emergency. But hey, no biggie.

This may be a case of all curtain and no substance. This could end up being like Obama's Solar ventures that were IMHO fraudulent. Employees sitting around playing cards all day, every day.

It looks like the Airforce awarded the contract????

*****

Ok, looks to be this:

Despite being a relative newcomer onto the scene, JetZero is a serious company and is already working with the US Air Force and NASA to develop its design. Also working in JetZero are long-term industry veterans such as co-founder Mark Page, who was a chief engineer at NASA in the 1990s and had worked on its blended-wing program.

simpleflying.com...

originally posted by: greendust
a reply to: Zaphod58

Curious since I have seen Boeing designs for the exact same thing. Why does this company get the government grant?

Because Boeing has screwed the pooch on so many programs in the last decade or so, that nobody in the Pentagon believes that they could find their butt with both hands any more. There was the 737 Max fiasco, the KC-46 fiasco, the Starliner fiasco, and the Space Launch System fiasco, just to mention the unclassified fiascos. All of them took too long, cost too much, and didn't work, in the end.

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: greendust
a reply to: Zaphod58

Curious since I have seen Boeing designs for the exact same thing. Why does this company get the government grant?

Because Boeing has screwed the pooch on so many programs in the last decade or so, that nobody in the Pentagon believes that they could find their butt with both hands any more. There was the 737 Max fiasco, the KC-46 fiasco, the Starliner fiasco, and the Space Launch System fiasco, just to mention the unclassified fiascos. All of them took too long, cost too much, and didn't work, in the end.

Or because some other reason? Man you are the weirdest. If the government says so, here you are defending it. Regardless of the subject matter. Its bizarre.

originally posted by: greendust

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: greendust
a reply to: Zaphod58

Curious since I have seen Boeing designs for the exact same thing. Why does this company get the government grant?

Because Boeing has screwed the pooch on so many programs in the last decade or so, that nobody in the Pentagon believes that they could find their butt with both hands any more. There was the 737 Max fiasco, the KC-46 fiasco, the Starliner fiasco, and the Space Launch System fiasco, just to mention the unclassified fiascos. All of them took too long, cost too much, and didn't work, in the end.

Or because some other reason? Man you are the weirdest. If the government says so, here you are defending it. Regardless of the subject matter. Its bizarre.

Nope. I know the decision makers in the Pentagon and NASA who had to deal with this. I know what they said and did.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Is $235M, matched for a total of $470M doesnt sound like an overly large development budget, am I wrong?

a reply to: Itherael

It’s right about in line for a prototype. Once the prototype flies there will be a follow on contract for further development, especially if it’s even close to the numbers they’re looking for.

a reply to: greendust

The KC-46 is looking at two more years for the new camera and boom actuator. It needs the new actuator just so it can refuel the A-10, which will be on the way out by the time it even sees testing. There are six Category One deficiencies, because they downgraded one. Every program Boeing has been involved in has been a disaster. From the sound of things they didn’t even bid on this one.

The T-7A is years behind and over budget due to ejection seat problems, and problems with flight control software.

Add in non DoD programs and it’s even worse. They keep talking about Boeing launching a manned flight with Starliner, but it’s looking like it will be lucky to ever fly again. The 737-7 and 10 are having significant issues getting certified.

It sure looks like someone came to their senses at last.

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: greendust

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: greendust
a reply to: Zaphod58

Curious since I have seen Boeing designs for the exact same thing. Why does this company get the government grant?

Because Boeing has screwed the pooch on so many programs in the last decade or so, that nobody in the Pentagon believes that they could find their butt with both hands any more. There was the 737 Max fiasco, the KC-46 fiasco, the Starliner fiasco, and the Space Launch System fiasco, just to mention the unclassified fiascos. All of them took too long, cost too much, and didn't work, in the end.

Or because some other reason? Man you are the weirdest. If the government says so, here you are defending it. Regardless of the subject matter. Its bizarre.

Nope. I know the decision makers in the Pentagon and NASA who had to deal with this. I know what they said and did.

And finally it all makes sense. Thanks. No big, I actually am much more interested in what you have to say. From the horses mouth as they say.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: greendust

The KC-46 is looking at two more years for the new camera and boom actuator. It needs the new actuator just so it can refuel the A-10, which will be on the way out by the time it even sees testing. There are six Category One deficiencies, because they downgraded one. Every program Boeing has been involved in has been a disaster. From the sound of things they didn’t even bid on this one.

The T-7A is years behind and over budget due to ejection seat problems, and problems with flight control software.

Add in non DoD programs and it’s even worse. They keep talking about Boeing launching a manned flight with Starliner, but it’s looking like it will be lucky to ever fly again. The 737-7 and 10 are having significant issues getting certified.

It sure looks like someone came to their senses at last.

Do you think that Boeings issues have a bit to do with corporate culture - as in they dont hire the best guys, they hire based on DEI stuff these days. .. I have seen people from Boeing definitely complain about the Seattle side of production. On the Missouri side though it seems to be a more top down issue than a worker bee issue. But can I trust message boards? probably not. I am not in the loop, I am just a dude that loves airplanes really.

a reply to: greendust

When Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merged, the McDonnell Douglas board took over. Prior to that Boeing was run by engineers that came up through the company. Then it was bean counters, and profit became the driver. The culture totally changed, and over the years its worked its way to the production floor. A lot of the KC-46 problems have been stupid things like tools and FOD left in fuel tanks stopping deliveries twice. Then there was the time they had to take the fuel lines from #4 to put in #2 after they accidentally mixed up the barrels used to test the system and ran corrosive chemicals through the fuel system.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: greendust

When Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merged, the McDonnell Douglas board took over. Prior to that Boeing was run by engineers that came up through the company. Then it was bean counters, and profit became the driver. The culture totally changed, and over the years its worked its way to the production floor. A lot of the KC-46 problems have been stupid things like tools and FOD left in fuel tanks stopping deliveries twice. Then there was the time they had to take the fuel lines from #4 to put in #2 after they accidentally mixed up the barrels used to test the system and ran corrosive chemicals through the fuel system.

Trying to merge corporate cultures almost never works, but people keep trying it anyway. I'm thinking of Carly Fiorina taking over at Hewlett Packard and buying Compaq. It always seems to make sense from a bean-counting perspective, but it kills the kind of corporate culture where the engineers and workers out on the shop floor are trusted to make quality products that they themselves believe in and trust. As soon as the corporate bean counters take over and start making all the important decisions from the top down, the worker bees just start following orders and don't try to correct obvious mistakes that they've learned to avoid over the years but that the bosses don't know about yet. They just let the bosses go ahead and fail. Essentially, the company transitions from being an organization where all the workers share a common vision to a slave labor organization. When it does that, the corporate IQ gets cut in half, at least.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: greendust

When Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merged, the McDonnell Douglas board took over. Prior to that Boeing was run by engineers that came up through the company. Then it was bean counters, and profit became the driver. The culture totally changed, and over the years its worked its way to the production floor. A lot of the KC-46 problems have been stupid things like tools and FOD left in fuel tanks stopping deliveries twice. Then there was the time they had to take the fuel lines from #4 to put in #2 after they accidentally mixed up the barrels used to test the system and ran corrosive chemicals through the fuel system.

My old man worked at mac for 24 years. he said that two things screwed it all up, 1st was when old man mac either died or retired, i forget which, and then of course boeing.

Sort of like how centurylink bought qwest and then centurylink then became qwest even though it didnt want to. The bureaucracy of qwest was so large that even though they lost the game, they won. So in that i would agree. So yeah I get that, mac was bigger than boeing at the time and boeing bought them and even though the name is boeing, it is really MAC, interesting.

such a shame that the people that built the f15 screwed their own pooch such as they did.

More info:

www.flightglobal.com...
theaviationist.com...
breakingdefense.com...

a reply to: greendust

such a shame that the people that built the f15 screwed their own pooch such as they did.

That's just it. They didn't. The people who built the F-15 originally were long gone by the time of the Boeing/MD merger.