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Author: Texirish   😊 😞
Number: of 3854 
Subject: Phantom 3500 - A Different Aircraft
Date: 10/13/25 1:22 PM
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No. of Recommendations: 6
Want 92% lower emissions, 43% lower fuel costs, greater range, shorter runways? Meet a new design concept - the Phantom 3500 executive jet by Otto Aerospace.

https://ottoaerospace.com/aircraft/#:~:text=The%20...

Flexjet has ordered 300 of them, even though the first one is yet to fly.

Their basic idea is to improve the aerodynamics and reduce the weight - giving a huge improvement in flight efficiency. They then combine that with SAF fuels - higher costs but lower emissions - to greatly reduce emissions.

Their idea is to eliminate windows, greatly reducing drag and weight, by instead using external cameras and interior screens for passengers. They then add expanded use of carbon fiber materials for further weight reduction. That also permits a new, teardrop, body shape. The new design is striking, as shown in the link above.

Seems like a better approach than hybrid-electric airplanes.

I sure hope it works

It should. Howard Hughes used the same basic concepts in his 1935 H1 aircraft racer to set new land speed records. Also the laminar flow wings of the P-51 mustang in WWII first permitted fighter protection all the way to Berlin and back. The problems might be in the details.
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Author: sykesix   😊 😞
Number: of 3854 
Subject: Re: Phantom 3500 - A Different Aircraft
Date: 10/13/25 4:31 PM
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Their idea is to eliminate windows, greatly reducing drag and weight, by instead using external cameras and interior screens for passengers. They then add expanded use of carbon fiber materials for further weight reduction. That also permits a new, teardrop, body shape. The new design is striking, as shown in the link above.

Seems like a better approach than hybrid-electric airplanes.


You could do both, right? One thing that makes me skeptical about these advanced jet design companies (the companies, not the designs) is that surely the legacy companies like Bombardier, Dassault Falcon, Embraer, Gulfstream, etc. understand the limitations of their current designs and the needs of their customers. They could also design and build a plane with a laminar floor design, hybrid powerplant, or both if they like.
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Author: PucksFool 🐝  😊 😞
Number: of 3854 
Subject: Re: Phantom 3500 - A Different Aircraft
Date: 10/13/25 4:31 PM
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That's a slick looking plane. I'm surprised it isn't called the Orca 3500 because it looks like a killer whale with wings. I wonder if the tech can scale up to 727 or larger aircraft.
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Author: Steve203 🐝  😊 😞
Number: of 3854 
Subject: Re: Phantom 3500 - A Different Aircraft
Date: 10/13/25 8:31 PM
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No. of Recommendations: 2
Their basic idea is to improve the aerodynamics and reduce the weight - giving a huge improvement in flight efficiency. They then combine that with SAF fuels - higher costs but lower emissions - to greatly reduce emissions.

Their idea is to eliminate windows, greatly reducing drag and weight, by instead using external cameras and interior screens for passengers. They then add expanded use of carbon fiber materials for further weight reduction. That also permits a new, teardrop, body shape. The new design is striking,


Nothing new under the sun department. The Lear Fan, forty years ago, with a cameo appearance by the Beech Starship.

Crosswind Take-Off -- Enterprise -- 1984 (Lear Fan, Ltd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n037eiIhYOI

The Lear was never certified. iirc, sales of the Starship were so poor, Beech started buying back the few they sold, so they did not need to provide parts support for them. Unfortunately, no-one has uploaded the sequence from "Wind" where a Starship makes a delightfully aggressive landing approach.

Some beauty shots of a Starship here.

Beechcraft Starship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lOxG071uQ

Steve







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Author: mungofitch 🐝🐝 SILVER
SHREWD
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Number: of 3854 
Subject: Re: Phantom 3500 - A Different Aircraft
Date: 11/10/25 12:36 PM
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What I know about aerodynamics could fit on a napkin. A small crumpled up one with a wine stain.

That being said, isn't the lozenge shape directly at odds with the "transonic area rule", or Whitcomb area rule, whereby one attempts to narrow the fuselage where it meets the wings so the overall cross section of the aircraft is closer to constant from fore to aft, reducing wave drag? Which I thought was a big deal just below or just above Mach 1. This is, I am led to believe, one of the reasons that the 747 hump ended where it did, but more often the reason that the fuselages of fighter jets are often wasp-waisted seen from above.

I do like the design philosophy in one high level respect, something I have used as a rule of thumb myself: when you have a huge list of too many tradeoff goals to meet, forcing you to compromise on all of them, sometimes completely throwing out one requirement entirely (no windows, in this case) can make all the other constraints work out very nicely.

Jim
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