GE once thought super-efficient propfans were the future of air travel, until low fuel prices in the late 1980s moved fuel consumption down the list of priorities. Now, it's bringing them back with ...

CFM International’s new push to develop an open-fan engine – a design commonly known as a propfan – marks a return to technology that engine makers developed, then shelved, amid fluctuating oil prices ...

THE TEST PILOT of the Boeing 727 idled two of his three engines, turned and aimed for a low pass over the runway at the Mohave Airport. At 200 feet above the ground, he streaked by at more than 300 ...

Ah nostalgia: hoop skirts, bobby-soxers, big-band swing and airliners with propellers pulling them through the skies. Remember? Get set for a dose of deja vu. NASA and a bevy of big-time aeronautical ...

In the 1980s, Boeing unveiled the 7J7—a twin-aisle, propfan-powered aircraft designed to replace the aging 737 and 727 fleets. Promising 60% fuel savings and faster boarding, the 7J7 aimed to ...

A cooperative research program has provided the first high-speed wind-tunnel data on propfan inlets. In the initial phase of the program, two single-scoop or chin inlet configurations--one without a ...

WHEN A MODIFIED MD-80 airliner flew at the 1988 Farnborough air show in Britain, it was supposed to represent the future of air travel. One of its rear-mounted jet engines had been replaced with an ...

Will spiralling fuel costs and the prospect of carbon credits signal the return of the propfan? Engine makers are dusting off some old concepts On display in Boeing's Future of Flight centre in ...

Propfans, advanced highly–loaded propellers, are proposed to power transport aircraft that cruise at high subsonic speeds, giving significant fuel savings over the equivalent turbofan–powered aircraft ...

Ok, so this is an electronics publication but I know all you analog folks will delight in an entry in NASA Tech Briefs about inherently ducted propfans (pdf, page 46). I didn’t even know you could ...

WHEN A MODIFIED MD-80 airliner flew at the 1988 Farnborough air show in Britain, it was supposed to represent the future of air travel. One of its rear-mounted jet engines had been replaced with an ...