SmartFish: Lifting-body Prototype

[sarongsong]

April 9, 2007
A team of Swiss aircraft designers are now flying a small model prototype of SmartFish, a lightweight and fuel-efficient hydrogen fuel cell-powered...turbofan...with an aerodynamic configuration known as a lifting body...Whether this technology can scale up to a full-size aircraft is anybody's guess... SciFiTech

[Larry Jacks]

I saw that on AvWeb today. It looks very cool. Their design has a very low aspect ratio. which means it'll have high induced drag at higher angles of attack (such as takeoff, climb, and landing). That generally hurts climb performance - something that's very useful for those of us flying from high density altitude airports. Low aspect ratios are good for high speed cruising (see Concorde).

Since it uses a fuel cell, it appears to be an electric powered ducted fan rather than a turbofan. I know of a few attempts to create a full sized ducted fan private plane but I don't know of any really successful ones.