he U.S. government is swinging behind a fledgling startup’s moonshot bid to dislodge Boeing BA 3.47%increase; green up pointing triangle as America’s only major maker of commercial airliners.
The aircraft that JetZero wants to do it with is no less radical than its ambition. It looks more like a manta ray than the tube-with-wings blueprint that has been the default for over 70 years. If JetZero can cross the line, the blended-wing aircraft would mark the biggest shift in passenger-jetliner design since the supersonic Concorde.
Forget one or two aisles, this one has four and is set to fly about 10,000 feet higher than today’s airliners. Initial designs replace passenger windows with digital screens and, to compensate, a skylight in the ceiling to flood the cabin with natural light. Each seat, the company says, has its own overhead luggage compartment. And each toilet has a dedicated waiting space.
JetZero, based in Long Beach, Calif., last week reached an early deal with the U.S. Export-Import Bank as part of its Make More in America Initiative for as much as $3 billion in loans and guarantees that the company needs to build its first factory. The preliminary agreement is helping JetZero’s chief executive answer a question that has been plaguing him for years: Is this thing even real?
“The question’s a good one…is it real?” Chief Executive Tom O’Leary said in an interview. He is targeting a first prototype flight of the aircraft, known as the Z4, by the end of next year. “How real it is is effectively, ‘Where’s all the money coming from?’ ”
The trick up JetZero’s sleeve is that its radical, new aircraft isn’t actually that new at all. Almost all of the Z4’s components—from controls to the use of previous-generation engines on its demonstrator—are taken from existing planes, meaning they have already obtained sign-off from the Federal Aviation Administration. The main new thing about his aircraft is the shape in which JetZero is piecing those components together, O’Leary said.
Even that shape, the blended-wing concept, stretches back to the early days of aviation. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration began updating research into it about 30 years ago, spending more than $1 billion and test-flying prototypes. Working with Boeing, NASA sought to learn how much fuel efficiency researchers could extract by designing a profoundly more aerodynamic aircraft that maximized lift and sharply reduced weight and drag.
The answer, according to JetZero, is about 30%, compared with later-generation jets like the 787, O’Leary said.
That said, there have long been skeptics of the blended-wing design and reasons an actual commercial plane has never come to fruition. Critics point out that passengers in the wings could be exposed to higher levels of uncomfortable gravitational force when the plane turns.
The lack of physical windows might exacerbate feelings of motion sickness. A quad-aisle layout changes how an evacuation would play out. Airport jetways weren’t designed to handle such planes.
JetZero says it has answers for those concerns. It has also managed to convert a growing lineup of believers, including probably its most important, the U.S. government. The Ex-Im Bank chairman said he wants the loan deal fast-tracked. The company separately has $235 million from the U.S. Air Force to build its prototype, and is backed by Northrop Grumman and RTX, which is providing Pratt & Whitney engines for the first demonstrator.
JetZero has also lured the backing of about 20 airlines including Delta Air Lines, Alaska and United, which has a conditional order for 200 of the Z4.
