Hacker News

the tubular body is the structurally strongest shape for the amount of metal it uses

I'm actually curious, because in my non-aerospace engineer opinion, it might not be. The primary stress that the body of an airliner must bear is not static air pressure, but the stress coming from the wings and also dynamic air pressure. It's also a great question if the current semi-monocoque way of building those cylinders is the final, most efficient one.

That said, IIRC airliner research is into engine tech right now, apparently Airbus has some new design that would double the engine diameter but significantly lower fuel consumption, so they need some fancy wing design in order for that to fit, so they might want to have some semi-biplane design with extreme dihedral lower wings and a set of upper wings supporting it.

Other than that - with some sarcasm - the Chinese are mostly researching how to even build airliners to current standards domestically, while Boeing's research seems to be into how to extract just enough value that they can still deny it was them when the front falls off the jet.

I'd love if competition didn't just fall apart on airliners though.