WITH three massive decks, six huge engines, a panoramic viewing lounge in the nose, and enough space 800 passengers – could this concept plane be the future of air travel?
Dubbed the “Progress Eagle”, the enormous flying hotel-like design is bigger than the largest passenger aircraft in the world today – such as the Boeing 747 and the Airbus A380-900.
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It is hoped the aircraft would be able to stay airborne almost indefinitely, using an ambitious power supply based on solar collecting satellites.
And this would allow passengers to enjoy cruises around the world similar to an ocean-going liner.
The “One Flight” version of the Progress Eagle would feature cabins rather than banks of airline seats.
Cruise passengers would also be hoped to have access to onboard facilities such as a restaurant, a spa, a cinema, shops and a casino.
But this version of the aircraft would only have space for 300 passengers – rather than its more conventional layout which would have space for 800.
One of the concept plane’s most stunning features would be available to both however – the panoramic viewing lounge in the plane’s nose.
With the cockpit elevated above it on the second deck – the plane’s fuselage extends out to form a bulbous viewing deck.
Passengers who purchased the special “pilot’s class” tickets would have a truly luxurious experience with jaw dropping sky views.
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And elsewhere, the rest of the seats would be scattered throughout the three decks – with a tourist class, business class, and pilot class.
Seats would be laid out in 3-2-4-2-3 configuration for passengers – and the designer hopes all flyers would have space for a comfortable ride.
The plane is designed to be “self sufficient” – and is hoped to use less energy and be much quieter than conventional airplanes.
Progress Eagle has an incredible wingspan of 315ft and is some 263ft long – bigger than all of today’s commercial airplanes.
It edges out the Airbus A380-800 which comes in at 240ft and the 230ft Boeing 747.
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Spanish designer Oscar Vinals stresses that the Progress Eagle is very much a plane of the future – using technology that would be more readily available after 2030.
He believes only around half the technology needed to make his dream aircraft a reality is ready so far – but perhaps one day the Progress Eagle will take the skies.
The plane shrugs off fossil fuels in favour of using hydrogen fuel cells to power the six engines.
And the roof and wings would be covered in solar panels, along with an on board wind turbine to help it gather the energy it needs to keep its batteries topped up.
Vinals says the design is an evolution on one of his other concepts, the more conventional Sky Whale.
His design was featured with a one metre model at the GUHEM Aerospace And Aviation Training Center in Turkey.
He has previously dreamed up craft such as the HSP Magnavem, a massive double-decker nuclear airliner, and the Hyper Sting, a supersonic plane twice as fast as Concorde.
However, so far no one has committed to building and testing one of Oscar’s monster machines.
He first became interested in airliners as a hobby – with his main career working as a designer in high-performance cars and motorsport.
“I became interested in aeronautics, after a bad experience during a flight that fortunately ended only in a big scare,” Oscar previously told The Sun Online.
“My interest in knowing more about airplanes and all their aspects became in a more serious ‘hobby’ and with the goal of trying to ‘improve’ future commercial airplanes, designing concepts based on my personal studies about them and how it would be possible to get a feasible design.
“I don’t design concepts merely to be only beautiful or for a sci-fi experience, all projects are based on a previous technician studies with a lot of accurate information, so the result is a realistic and feasible concept.”
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