HE FIRST CENTURY of aviation design didn’t give trendspotters much to get excited about, with the vast majority of production aircraft remaining little more than tubes with wings attached. Later, boomerang-shaped outliers known as ‘flying wings’, such the Northrop YB-49 and Northrop Grumman’s B-2 Spirit, captured the aeronautical industry’s imagination with their futuristically stealthy looks, while military jets with blendedwing-body (BWB) configurations—notably the B-l Lancer and
