What might planes of the future look like?

Did you know there’s over 23,000 planes in active service across the world and that around half of them are flying at any one time?

And that over 1,000 new planes take off for the first time each year!

But before all of that, it can take at least 5 years to design a new passenger plane from concept to first commercial flight, and then up to a further 18 months to build each plane!

Let’s find out how they do it.

The first job is deciding what your new plane needs to do so that everybody is on the same page… like whether it’s going to carry VIPs superfast or large numbers of people going on holiday.

As well as making sure the design complies with safety and environmental standards like being super energy efficient. Once they know what sort of plane they want to build, you have to bring together the clever minds of designers, engineers, supply chain and manufacturers and many others to ensure you have all the right ingredients to build a plane people want!

Design involves a wide range of roles… from aircraft architects who create the overall concept and integrate solutions to ensure a balanced design to aerodynamicists who figure out the best shapes to help it slice through the sky. Quite often, they’ll look at mother nature and see how animals soar through the sky… or through the water. Some are already working on blended wing designs that look more like a stingray than a bird!

Once the designers have created a concept, it will need to be tested to make sure it’s robust and can deliver what’s needed of it. This can be done using digital mock-ups, with virtual and artificial reality helping evaluate the design.

Stress engineers will access the designs’ structural integrity to ensure the plane can carry everything that people might want it to. Structural engineers, systems engineers and operability engineers will also play a part to make sure the design is robust, with costing experts making sure the design can be delivered within budget.

Engineers have a wide range of materials they can choose from to make sure it meets operational and safety requirements.

And don’t forget software engineers. As well as testing a plane’s design, they develop systems so future planes are super-smart, using artificial intelligence to help fly and fix themselves.

Now, once a new plane design has been approved, they can move onto building the plane itself. As well as manufacturing engineers, 3D printing specialists are also part of today’s team… printing plane parts using software and special materials, building them layer by layer…

As well building a planes’ shell, designers also need to things about the engines that will power the plane and also what the cabin will look like for passengers. That’s things like the kitchen areas, toilets and of course the seats. Designers will also think about lighting and acoustics… like lights that simulate sunrise and sunset to help reduce jet lag, and acoustic design to reduce internal noise.

Before a plane can enter service after it’s been built, it needs to be tested and certified. This includes structural tests that re-create the loads a plane will experience during its lifetime and over 2,500 hours of test flights to assess handling, operational performance and noise levels.

There are so many brilliant minds who are working to ensure planes soar safely! There are those who are designing the plane, the operational team building it, the aircraft test engineers and pilots, delivery teams, airline support people and so much more! You even need people to paint the plane! It’s a wonderful and exciting industry to be in with so many opportunities to connect the world through aviation.