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Posted by CGMthrowaway 3 days ago

The next steps for Airbus' big bet on open rotor engines(aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org)
98 points | 86 commentspage 2
drivebyhooting 3 days ago|
Won’t this be absurdly loud?
JorgeGT 3 days ago||
I talked with one of the aeroacoustic engineers working on it, she says they expect to match noise levels of current engines.
Etheryte 3 days ago|||
This is discussed in the article, was there a specific part that was ambiguous?
xattt 3 days ago|||
TFW does say there is an opportunity for reduced noise. However, conventional turboprops are very loud compared to their jet counterparts.

Each revolution of a prop blade sends out a shockwave of air against the airframe. The strength of the shockwave is likely proportional to the instantaneous thrust of the engine, and more blades are likely to weaken or smooth it.

A turbofan has a nacelle to contain the shockwave, and avoid the whole noisy mess.

ufmace 3 days ago||||
It's only discussed in a similarly ambiguous way - like that they know noise is a potential problem that they're working on. Though to be fair, the designers probably have no idea themselves, since apparently nobody has built a prototype engine that could be run at the rated thrust level in a way they could check the real-world noise and vibration on.
rgmerk 3 days ago||
I would assume that these days you can simulate that increasingly accurately before you need a full-scale prototype.

They could also use active noise cancellation, which is already used in some turboprops like the Q400.

drivebyhooting 3 days ago|||
It was glossed over and buried.
xattt 3 days ago||
Just an opportunity to sell premium quiet seats at the back, and pleb seats at the front.

With all seriousness, I am thinking whether there are parallels between this proposed plane and the Q400.

Stevvo 3 days ago||
The Antonov An-70 has been in service with "open rotor" engines for 30+ years. It's superior to its western counterparts in every way. i.e. greater speed and payload with less fuel consumption than a C-130 or A400M.
vel0city 3 days ago||
You know what makes the C-130 or the A400M superior? The fact there's more than one operational today.
nradov 3 days ago||
Huh? Only two An-70 prototypes were ever built so it's not really "in service". The early propfan designs, while efficient, were too loud for widespread civil use. Newer open rotor designs are much quieter.
havaloc 3 days ago||
I knew I had seen this before growing up as a child, Popular Science, 1985:

https://books.google.com/books?id=rgAAAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA69&dq=t...

ErroneousBosh 2 days ago||
Making aircraft slower would make it more efficient.

Big slow props, biplane wings, take twice as long, serve better coffee, give me somewhere to plug in my laptop charger.

I'll even wear a nice suit. Make flying An Occasion again.

api 2 days ago|
The extreme of this is airships, but also trains.
ErroneousBosh 1 day ago||
It's quite difficult to make trains work over water.
JumpCrisscross 3 days ago||
Then we can duct it.
cpursley 3 days ago|
Russia has also just modernized their IL-114s and got an order from India.
micwag 3 days ago|
Those are turboprop like the A400m or C-130. The article is about open-rotor engines which are a modern variation of propfan engines.
cpursley 3 days ago||
Thank you for the clarification!