Outbound Aerospace is designing the world’s first fifth-generation passenger aircraft, applying next-generation manufacturing, electric propulsion, and advanced aerodynamics. Founded by a team of aerospace veterans, the company is committed to transforming air travel through innovative engineering and accessible, sustainable design. The world’s first Fifth Generation Airliner is engineered with all-electric power by wire, software-defined avionics, and next-gen aerodynamics.
Outbound Aerospace is pioneering a paradigm shift in commercial aviation with the world’s first fifth-generation airliner. Their mission: to develop a 254-seat blended wing body (BWB) passenger jet defined by all-electric power-by-wire systems, software-defined avionics, and advanced aerodynamics. By leveraging cutting-edge tools such as SimScale’s cloud-native simulation platform, Outbound has reduced development costs, shortened timelines, and validated critical aerodynamic and structural design decisions without relying on traditional wind tunnel testing.
Founded by aerospace engineer and former Boeing employee Jake Armenta, Outbound Aerospace combines deep industry expertise with an agile, innovation-focused culture. Inspired by lessons learned from 3D-printed rockets and advanced drone systems, the team aims to bring the same disruptive manufacturing and design approach to civil aviation. Backed by investors such as Antler and Blue Collective, the company completed a pre-seed round and has already demonstrated key milestones under a $1M USD budget.
We spent the last year at Outbound building a 1/8th scale prototype of our BWB airliner, called STeVe (for Scale Test Vehicle). STeVe is a 300lb all-carbon fiber electric BWB demonstrator, which validated several aspects of our manufacturing process, as well as our vehicle architecture. We used SimScale to validate the airplane aerodynamics and the structural design for our retractable landing gear. BWB airplanes have notoriously challenging aerodynamics, and we needed to validate the aerodynamic design of our hull, our engine installation, and our flight control surfaces. We also designed our retractable landing gear in-house, and we needed to validate the structural design under the worst-case loading conditions.
Jake Armenta
CTO at Outbound Aero
Simulation has played a central role in the development of Outbound’s Scale Test Vehicle (STeVe), a 1/8th scale, 300-pound carbon-fiber demonstrator with a 22-foot wingspan. The STeVe prototype validated the aerodynamic architecture and novel production techniques intended for future full-scale aircraft.
Using SimScale’s platform, the team ran a wide range of CFD analyses focused on low-speed incompressible flow, control surface sweep studies, engine integration, and fuselage-hull optimization. Simulations were primarily conducted using SimScale’s Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) solver for unsteady flow visualization and OpenFOAM-based solvers for steady-state and multiparameter studies. These simulations allowed the team to correlate CFD data with empirical results, enabling rapid refinement of control surface designs and hull shaping.
With support from SimScale, Outbound developed an aerodynamic database critical to flight control simulation and stability analysis. CAD models were imported from Onshape into SimScale, enabling seamless geometry updates and parametric analysis. The team explored multiple flap and rudder configurations, optimizing flow behavior and lift characteristics across different angles of attack.
In parallel with aerodynamic validation, Outbound used SimScale’s FEA capabilities to evaluate the structural integrity of their in-house designed retractable landing gear. Simulations focused on worst-case loading conditions, including touchdown impact and lateral loads during taxi. This enabled a full structural stress analysis of gear supports, actuator linkages, and integration mounts without physical prototypes.
The STeVe demonstrator proved vital in de-risking aerodynamic assumptions and validating key control metrics. The success of this prototype has cleared the path for two increasingly larger demonstrator aircraft, leading up to the full 254-passenger commercial model scheduled for first flight by 2030. As Outbound continues to scale, SimScale remains an integral partner, supporting future simulations of high-speed compressible flows, high-altitude cruise conditions, and advanced FEA studies.
SimScale’s cloud-native architecture enabled Outbound to avoid the high cost of wind tunnel testing and on-premise HPC infrastructure. Simulations were performed entirely in the cloud, eliminating the need for expensive licenses or dedicated hardware. The user-friendly interface allowed team members without deep CFD backgrounds to run simulations with minimal onboarding. Compared to traditional simulation tools, SimScale delivered:
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