RSS
Subscribe to our Newsletter
The Spruce Whale
A futuristic flying marvel the likes of which have never been seen! The WB-1010 is a concept plane made to make use of yet-to-be-invented materials and technology and aims to meet the demands the world 85 years from now will make. Speed, comfort, and space for a whole lot of people, that’s what this is all about. You’re in for a real treat of shocking and splendidly fantastic conceptual technology in one notorious BIG future plane!
The WB-1010 (stands for Wright Brothers) is an official entry into the current KLM Indonesia aircraft design competition. It’s purely a concept plane using technology that might be feasible in the future, but right now lies in the mind of the inventor. You know what that means! Conceptual Facts time!
It can seat more than 1500 people!
It can reach speeds of nearly 1000 kmph!
It’s made of materials similar to GLARE (“GLAss-REinforced” Fibre Metal Laminate (FML)), composed of several very thin layers of metal (usually aluminium) interspersed with layers of glass-fibre “pre-preg”, bonded together with a matrix such as epoxy. — thank you WIKI — similar to that used on the Airbus A380 (another gigantic plane I bet you might be aware of already)!
It has helium injected in the body to make the plane lighter!
It’s windows are made of “Smart Glass!”
It will be able to harvest wind energy in flight!
It has a super jet that will allow the plane to land on a normal runway or completely vertically!
Amazing super fantastic!
*Special BONUS actual real facts that have already happened in the past: the original “Spruce Goose” (Hughes H-4 Hercules, completed 1947) was built almost entirely of laminated birch, not spruce as its nickname suggests and at the time of this post STILL has the largest wingspan and height of any aircraft in history
Designer: Reindy Allendra
86 Comments »
AlienzExist says
Gotta say, pretty cool. Any links to see more?
Armin says
looks nice, but that is so not going to fly.
* you need 1m3 of Helium to lift 1kg 1m high
* the energy converter creates drag to make energy to create forward motion to power the energy converter. Unless it’s a perpetuum mobile, it’s not gonna work.
* if I see this correctly, the fuselage is going to create negative lift (the bulge should be on top, not the bottom)
still, looks sweet.
jinushaun says
Cool concept, but like Armin says, it will not work.
The energy converter will create drag, which will require more forward energy to propel the thing, which negates the whole point of the wind energy converter. There is no free energy.
aaa says
agree
Gordo says
I’m with Armin, though not even sure if it looks sweet: it just looks like a whale. Poor effort
Vladimir says
I'm glad that I'm not the only one to see the inner whale. Still, I'd be content to ride in a colossal sky whale, wouldn't you?
Yan says
Come on~ it lokks super cool. Even tough it seems hard to fly, who knows? maybe someday?
I’d loke to say it is nice work!!
I like it!
Victor Assis says
It should have been baptized over Howard Hughes, not the Wright Bros., because their planes actually flew. This whale, like the Goose, is not flying.
But, as a Brazilian designer, I have to say this: Santos Dummont invented the airplane, not the Wright Brothers.
Israel says
That’s sooooooo true, man!
Steve says
Depends on your definition of a “flight.” The famous flight of the Wright brothers occurred three years before Dumont’s flight.
Herĉeg says
I read it was some Kiwi dude called Richard Pearse who made the 1st flight, http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html and also invented ailerons.
HerÄeg says
I read it was some Kiwi dude called Richard Pearse who made the 1st flight, http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.ht... and also invented ailerons.
Keegan McCoy says
Nobody “invented” the air plane. It, like any creation of mankind, is the result of many designs created over centuries.
“If I have seen far, it's because I stand on the shoulders of giants.” -Tesla.
Adam Stevens says
The Spruce Goose flew. A short flight, but it flew.
Adam Stevens says
The Spruce Goose flew. A short flight, but it flew.
mif991 says
the white whale “Hotel” by Jean-Marie Massaud did it first. This is a rip-off.
Adrien Guérin says
exact!!! look “maned cloud” by Massaud.
for produce this flying hotel.
So, this french designer work with the ONERA (the french NASA
more info: http://avidedesigner.com/?p=481
Adrien Guérin says
exact!!! look “maned cloud” by Massaud.
for produce this flying hotel.
So, this french designer work with the ONERA (the french NASA
more info: http://avidedesigner.com/?p=481
Tim says
I’m with mif991 here, looks very much like a ‘re-branded’ white whale ‘hotel’ to me…
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,533281,00.html
…with the addition of some “future” materials. Nice visuals but a bit of a fraud!?
Reindy says
Hi guys…i just see this, hum im really shock that the design is similar with “Jean-Marie Massaud” ….i have to admit Yes i took the inspiration from Blue Whale you can see it in my portfolio coroflot here’s the link
http://www.coroflot.com/individual/file_edit.asp?portfolio_id=2811130
im really sorry if i ripped off from A Whale…i didnt know that a whale was “owned by someone”…
i took a whale as an inspiration because its the one that fits in with may design background i need an inspiration of something represent big,aerodynamic,and aesthetically beautiful, i tried with an elephant but it doesn’t work really well …
anyway thanks for the comments and input really appreciate it…
mif991 says
It is better to say this is a further step from the White Whale hotel than to claim originality. Every designer needs to be aware what is out there, otherwise nobody will take you seriously. So no excuses please. I find your rework of the Jean-Marie Massaud a nice re interpretation of the original, but that is it.
powaz says
Yes and no. I’d never seen this thing before…. BUT If I was going to set out to design a whale shaped aircraft, I would have done some extensive research… and probably run across it.
mif991 says
That is the point. Research would have revealed it. Now, the designer has some different takes for which I give him props, design variations happen in every industry and these can be better than the original. The blue whale designer is encouraged to step it up and learn from this. He has talent and should be relevant to the future of trasportation design.
Robert Lucien says
Surely nothing is ever new and everything is done before. The designer must design from what he sees in his mind, his inspiration, he needs to focus on his own work and not care what others have done. Its a given rule that whatever you do someone else will have done something similar before.
The spruce whale might not be practical today but its much a more refined and better – and prettier design than the far less practical hotel.
As a future aircraft if its engines could meet the specification of 1000 mph it would easily have more than enough spare power for vertical or horizontal flight. Nowhere does Reindy actually say that it is LTA, and looking at the LTA French design for even half a second tells me that it would be too heavy to ever fly.
Ok the wind converter is silly but its shape actually balances the design.
As for naming it after the Spruce Goose that’s a pretty good name. The Howard Hughes plane might only have flown once but it was very important as a prototype for later large aircraft.
I have worked on the sketch design of a similarly huge aircraft myself, a machine intended to carry a thousand ton rocket up above the troposphere. My plane is totally different to the spruce whale though and is a largely open angular structure. Since its wings need to be absolutely huge they are constructed in a cantilevered box structure and a bi-wing design, possibly in two sets. To gain enough thrust it would/will need some 10 to 60 of the biggest jet engines available today, engines are a big problem. – The real problem with all such huge designs though is that the basic physics still hasn’t been done. Its 85 years specification is what makes your Spruce Whale actually realistic.
Ben says
Breakout the oars!
powaz says
And there are a staggering amount of similarities.
Reindy says
sorry the link isn’t work
the new one
http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_file.asp?from_url=true&individual_id=127326&portfolio_id=2811130&
mif991 says
Reindy. If you didn’t know about the White Whale when you designed this Blue Whale, then you are truly a visionary who has a unique gift of working outside of the box. I look forward to following your futuristic designs. You have raised the bar for yourself now.
Confucius says
But its made of impossibilium! It’ll work.
Tom says
feel so fresh
rob says
shocking and appalling rip off should be ashamed
stephen russell says
Airbus or Boeing BUILD THIS.
Ideal for TransPac flights & over Pole to EU alone.
Be neat to land Vertically.
Commence R&D on this Megaplane.
Other Apps for:
AF1
Air Cargo
MedEvac
Sciences Lab
ABL
FedEx Super Cargo Plane
Air Launch Spaceship 2 from Ext pods.
Palace for Dubai UAE prince.
Bunny Jet 2 for Hefner?
Logan says
Looks incredible. Keep at it and you might have something. I’m glad to see you taking the criticism and input from others and looking at your concept from their perspective; and making adjustments, etc. You might have a bright future ahead.
JFK says
I agree that zeppelins are the future, fuel efficiency wise.
I just wonder how the passengers are going to get out during an emergency, with just one exit and a ground clearance of some 30 to 40 feet…
bill says
it’s cool,it can finish my idea flying.
Richardd Needham says
I think I read further up the top that there would be negative lift on this badboy. The air would flow faster over the top and would take longer to flow underneath which would naturally make the aircraft want to head south.
As for helium injection, I see the idea and in my mind I can see how much out the box you’ve thought, but it ain’t going to work purely because:
a)The weight saving is negligable if non existant, unless it was force injected at 50psi or something! But hey, I’m more impressed with the thought.
b) You’ve need thousands/millions of cavities and that isn’t sitting right in my mind as the structure would be compromised.
A better idea is to have a craft which took advantage of the earths magnetosphere and simply ‘Skated’ through the air with a series of aligned magnets or something.
Is it standing on a giant foot or something? As if it is you would need an ESP (electronic stability program) for high winds etc.
Ok, final thoughts? Get rid of the hydrolic entrance and keep with the idea that is on every other craft, the saving in weight will banish the need for helium and fly it in space… that way it won’t rip apart when flying through pockets of low air pressure!
Good luck!!
Kyle C says
You've got your principals of lift backwards. The airfoils you find on any aircraft are designed so that air flows over the top faster than the air flows over the bottom. The fast moving air over the top of the airfoil creates an area of lower pressure relative to the air pressure under the airfoil. The airfoil will want to be drawn or pushed up into the lower pressure area, not down out of it. Read up on Bernoulli's Principal if you want to read more in depth about how it works.
On the other hand, it does look like this design is kind of an upside down airfoil. So faster airflow on the bottom would pull this down. The shape is pretty abstract though so I'm not quite sure how it would work.
TonyP says
fun shape, but here is why it wouldn’t work as a flying machine:
1, Sir Isaac Newton stated that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Because of the shape of the rear of the craft, the air molecules would tend to be moved upwards (the action), causing the craft to be moved downwards (the reaction). At least at the rear of the craft.
2. The engine’s intake is shielded by the up-sloping rear of the craft, this would have detrimental effects on its performance.
3) The engine appears to be away from the centre line (in an up/down sense) which would mean that every time the pilot changed power settings, the pitch trim (nose up/down) would be affected.
4. The engine intake is below the craft. This is okay at altitude, but close to the ground it would act as a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking in solid material from the ground. This is known as FOD (Foreign Object Damage). The Americans protect their jet fighters against this by doing “FOD plods” – where large numbers of the ground crew slowly walk across the airfield picking up anything that could be ingested by the engines during taxiing. The Russians chose a different approach and have moveable doors that cover up the air intakes before take off (see the Mig 29 for example).
5. If the Helium is being used to make the craft lighter (than air), then pumping it in at 50psi (as suggested above) would be counter productive, as the more helium pumped in the heavier it would get. If you want a radical (straight from SF) solution, why not use a vacuum (ie. fill the voids with – literally – nothing. As there is nothing lighter than “nothing”). Of course this would cause other, structural problems, but would make an interesting project (working out the solutions).
Kerr says
Saweet. I think it looks quite smart, but it will never generate enough lift, would need hefty VTOLs to keep it up at 35,000ft.
I like it, but its just a little bit too ambitious.
Drew Becker says
Would’nt the helium in the compartments react with any sort of spark from either landing or taking off. I mean you gotta think with all of the moving parts it will tkae to move this…
Richardd Needham says
Two points to note on the above comments:
TonyP :
As there is nothing lighter than “nothing”
Yes there is. Helium! But 50 psi is obviously too much I agree.
Drew Becker:
Would’nt the helium in the compartments react with any sort of spark from either landing or taking off?
No. That’s hydrogen. Helium is a noble gas, which means that it doesn’t react with itself or another.
Hydrogen is highly flammable.
James says
forgive me for asking but is that speed almost the speed of sound so aren’t the wings kind of the wrong shape
Kyle says
Hi!!!
Great design but in a crash all the helium is a death sentance because helium goes BANG and people die. Look at the Hindenburg (wikipedia).
Still, great idea!
Guest says
As they pointed out on the show "Archer", helium is non-flammable. And it really is an inert gas, which means it doesn't really react to anything. The Hindenburg used Hydrogen, which burns like crazy. Hydrogen is what stars are mostly made out of, just to give you an idea of how well Hydrogen reacts.
Guest says
As they pointed out on the show “Archer”, helium is non-flammable. And it really is an inert gas, which means it doesn't really react to anything. The Hindenburg used Hydrogen, which burns like crazy. Hydrogen is what stars are mostly made out of, just to give you an idea of how well Hydrogen reacts.
android says
it is beautiful mobile flyer.
jcreeh says
love the design
but it’s so unfeesable which s why i love it so much
jcreeh says
i want to see a picture of it in vertical landing position
Igor Kolar says
Beautiful =) Impossible, but beautiful.
I wouldn’t say it’s a complete rip off of the Massaud flying hotel, though more than likely ‘inspired’ by it.
The Massaud hotel having one significant advantage over this though, it actually seems feasible…
Ross says
Erm, given that its convinced to be built with technologies that haven’t been invented yet, how do you know it’s not going to work. For all you know that energy harvester thing could be covered with a frictionless reducing finish to make it economical and the helium injection could be backed up by a zero point anti grav generator (Both the designer and I said yet to be invented before any of you cry ‘those don’t exist’) Couple that with a super efficient ram jet engine and you’ve got a power to weight ratio that’s going to over come any negative lift. remember the important words here are ‘concept’ and ‘future’, stop applying present day logic to it. The world needs more imaginative thinking like this not people who can only think negatively.
John Wilson says
If I’ve got this right, you have a ‘wind energy’ convertor at the output of the ‘superjet’. Given the principal of how a jet engines work (by shooting matter out the back of the vehicle, thus accelerating it forward) placing a wind energy convertor right behind the jet will slow it down and reduce the forward thrust. Given the shared properties of a jet and a wind turbine generator (they both use a rotating shaft as the power sink/source), do you not think it might just be better to do what we’ve been doing for decades and couple the jet engine shaft itself to the power generator? That would certainly entail much lower power losses and result in a more efficient, modern design.
Gavin says
The first problem I see with this design is the arched path of the windows indicating either a sloped seating area or stairs either one is impractical. Second the ‘energy conversion’ thing on the back is directly behind the exhaust port for the engines. Ie, burning jet fuel to propel the exhaust into the energy conversion unit. Third, is the idea that this is for business travel, or travel for the purpose of getting somewhere not for touring like on a cruise ship. It doesn’t make sense to have everyone hauled (slowly) to one place where they would be further distributed.
It is a beautiful and a fantastic idea of how sleek and amazing the future could be.
hella G kimz says
was this thing designed by a third grader? if so, good idea, this thing will totally fly!! if you're lucky, the wind generator will even harness enough energy that you won't even need an engine, or a “super jet”
koryargonic says
how in the world is that thing going to get off the ground?
koryargonic says
how in the world is that thing going to get off the ground?
Cosmic says
Wow, really? Have you ever heard of something called “lift”?
This thing looks like a HD troll-physics comic.
I mean, even the little details.. An antenna on a plane?
Ben says
Santos Dummont didn’t fly a heavier than air craft under power until 2 years after the Wright Bros.
Ben says
Regardless of your nonsense physics will still apply unfortunately.
Because says
DaVinci made the first flight…it was a glide but even still.
Luke says
Just gotta say, looks awesome but it also looks quite heavy and aerodynamically it wouldn’t fly.
Vitorio Bugulin says
A idéia é fantástica,se tudo der certo provavelmente esta sera a nave do futuro.
TiagoTiago says
The engines don’t move it across the universe. It stays in place and the engines move the universe around it.
monkeyd says
…would still never fly with KLM ever again XD!
Simon says
I love it how they display the pitot tube. Like doing so makes it more real or something. Not to mention it is gigantic haha.
bloo says
OMFG its the wind fish =D
(but as an aeronatics engineer I must say… only futurama set the physics for this thing to fly XD)
aegers says
It’s the goddamn spaceship from Wall-E
anticrunch says
It’s pretty cool but i can’t help but feel like you went out of your way to make it look like a whale
taez says
Where will it land? On water?
taez says
Where will it land? On water?
Better it will land and sink underwater and dock underwater like a space shuttle docks with the space station in space.
shubham gupta says
This looks great
Boris says
This will happen and it will be herd to get a seat on one of those. Live now!
D says
Doesn’t even look like it can fly but who knows. But very cool.
t*****09 says
well don’t be such a negative nancy. by the time this actually happens, there will probably be a better, more efficient way of lifting the weight of the ship. Anyway, its just a design. think of it as a work-in-progress
Trackbacks