alt Hacker NewsThe 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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pavon • yesterday at 8:13 PM
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.
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fsckboy • yesterday at 6:29 PM
>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?)
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Instead of reinforcing the fuselage, I wonder if just having a 1/4 nacelle that shields the passenger side would work.