Well if the A380 doesn't float, then the flying wing approach won't as the main advantage is bums on seats.The amount of cost and effort needed for the next thing will only be able to justify sub-orbital space hops. That means up, across and down for long haul.For short mid haul, not alot will change. Quite possibly the opposite will need to be explored, lower altitude flying which will place the advantage at the venerable properller...again! Less to climb, more efficient in the cruise, albeit slower. Short of firing people off on big rubber bands I don't see what the alternatives are. Maybe vegetable (rapeseed?) derived fuel will be the next real alternative (if they can get it to cope with temprature ranges). Sounds potty, but what is left. Nobody will allow uranium in the air (quite rightly!), hydrogen equipment is too heavy, room temprature fission is in the same league as the perpetual motion engine......hmmmm.

I'm simply commenting on what the reports say because I like to present some evidence for my assertions. See:http://www.nrel.gov/

Not being an aerodynamic engineer.. or well versed in airline or aircraft design politics.. this is my opinion.. and that's all..I don't think flying wing designs will really be feasible for a long time yet.. I have no doubt that the technology exists to build them, I am sure the technology also exists to build large supersonic aircraft, let's face it we've already built those and even a passenger variant a #### of a long time ago! So as for technology it's all there..The stability issue as far as I understand it.. is again a relatively mature technology, we've been developing it for fighter aircraft for a long time now.. So I don't see why it would be much more difficult to apply that on a larger scale.. Fighters are intentionally unstable to provide better performance in maneouvreability..I think the key reasons... why I think the industry won't be making the jump to wing design passenger aircraft.. will be the time and money invested in tube designs.. and that's not just the aircraft design and those flying, but the entire organisation.. is geared to build and develop these aircraft. Manufacturing of a wing aircraft compared to a tube aircraft wouldn't just mean an expensive development programme, but completely new manufacturing techniques, manufacturing facilities, equipment and not only that but a whole new airport infrastructure too.. the costs would be astronomical, 10's of billions and it would really be in no manufacturers interest to go this way.. Think of it... all old wing jigs useless.. all rivet machines useless.. tape laying carbon fibre machines useless as they are build to manufacture cylinders.. all this equipment would be redundant! What would they get out of it? Profit is their top priority and I couldn't see them making any, if not a fantastic loss! Much better to finance small development and research programmes.. like Boeing did with their sonic cruiser.. that was really a flex of the muscles I think rather than a serious development programme by boeing.. but useful research into improvements in speed.. and shape..What I think we'll see is a gradual evolution of the tube design.. an evolution effected by airport infrastructure.. customer demands.. transport policies.. airline trends.. manufacture costs.. and the availability of supporting technologies and materials.. And I think we're a LONG way off wing design aircraft for passengers and freight.. I'd be surprised if any were considered seriously this century let alone in the next 20 - 30 years.. I think the best we could hope for is a concorde replacement of some kind based on older research which is updated.. but since concorde never really made any money even this is a bit far fetched in itself.. concorde was more a pride thing for airlines than a money making machine.. a publicity and advertising feather in their cap.. What I think we'll see.. is more tube designs and upgrades that expand the efficiency envelope further and further.. that reduce pilot workload.. along with the comfort angle, entertainment and speed.. Once it becomes uneconomical to improve these designs they might look elsewhere.. but I imagine they'll stick with them a while as their whole infrastructure is geared to developing and supporting them.Just my opinion.. that's all..Craig