What kind of runway would this land on?! The A380 pushes the limits at many airports in terms of width, I'm guessing this thing would be extremely limited on the airports it could actually land on?
Salt deserts, at that time. =P
The largest airstrip nowadays has 5.5Km (
Qando Banda). But since this airport is circa 15.000 feets above the sea level, I doubt such a monster would be able to take off from there.
All the
others has circa 4Km length. Of course, I'm ignoring the tarmac strength.
The document says that most airports would not sustain the wingspan, but some would. And that the full loaded aircraft would need only 5% more runway than the 747. With similar load, the catamaran would need 40% less runway, due the larger wings and more engine power.
Thinking about it, that massive offset from the pilot's position to the centreline of the aircraft would create some very interesting problems both for landing and taxiing...
Not in a salt desert.
With regards to the tail:
Torsional loads can be minimized by means of active load alleviation control operating differentially on the ailerons and the two independent horizontal tails.
At that time? I'm not sure a fully digital computerized system would be feasible. The F-16 (first FbW fighter) were operational since 1974, but the first commercial airplane got it only in 2005.
It would be for sure an analog computer system, what would offer few (or none) proactive assistance to the pilot.
Interesting if this would be any easier with modern fly-by-wire kind of stuff.
The B-2 Spirit proves that you can fly a brick with proper computer aid!
