You've either been reading Dan Raymer's "Aircraft Design, A Conceptual Approach" or something very similar! I believe he uses the Boeing B-47 in his comparison, but also uses the Vulcan for the low-AR case. It really does go against the conventional 'what pilots are told' wisdom, doesn't it?

One of the 'nice' things about how a flying wing (with a pod) compares to a 'conventional' plane in terms of how the wetted area is distributed is that the former concentrates the wetted area on a part of the airframe ( the wing) where it's relatively easy to obtain substantial laminar flow, whereas that's rather difficult on most practical fuselages. I believe that for most practical flying wing/flying plank variations, the total wetted area is roughly the same as would be a conventional airplane. I haven't done a broad numerical comparison. However, as mentioned above, most of that wetted area is in a relatively low-drag part of the airframe, so I would say that's a point to the tailless aircraft, in terms of actual parasite drag. Getting a reasonable induced drag on a swept flying wing while still preserving good stability and post-stall characteristics is rather more difficult, as I'm sure you've both seen in your own work. While I'm not working on a sailplane, my budget dictates a rather smallish engine, so I do have to pay attention to that to obtain a reasonable climb rate. The extra wing area does help that, however.

Hans, that's one nice-looking airplane! If you've used Nickel & Wohlfart's methods for a 'trimless' camber flap, then great. Just looking at it, I'd be afraid that there would be a trim change with flap deployment, but it's very hard to eyeball such things. With regard to your control surfaces, I've scanned over the section on multi-element pitch/roll controls, so if you can gear that mechanism simply, I imagine you'd get all the advantages N&W claim for that. I know Strojnik (Laminar Aircraft Technologies, etc.) claims that such a mechanism is simple to do, but I've never seen a drawing nor tried to design one myself. This is where the R/C model guys have it made with their fly-by-wire systems: they just 'dial in' whatever mix of control movement they want and the processor in their radio gear does all the work. Lucky so-and-so's...

I think the only concern I'd have about your design - and believe me, my qualifications to say this are minimal - would be the delta-esque center section when it comes to near-stall conditions (high AOA). You'll probably get some vortex lift on that section (because of the highly swept leading edge), and I'd be concerned that it might be enough to keep that part of the wing 'flying' beyond the point where the tips stall. It might also make the trim a little unpredictable in the middle-AOL ranges, as the vortex lift begins to form, perhaps with a little instabilty at first. Hard to say. Orion and/or Wimpso would probably be the guys to ask. I'm still learning this stuff, myself.

My 'paranoia' with tip stall stems from the fact that while one can certainly design an aircraft in which it's unlikely to happen, even that small remaining chance has consequences that are very drastic. Discovering new and creative curse words as the ballistic parachute lowers my broken airplane to the ground is the best possible outcome.

One last thing to note: X-plane has been discussed at length on this forum regarding testing of new designs. The consensus amongst the more experienced designers/engineers (Orion, etc.) is that while it's a decent tool for very rough checks on your design, it's not accurate enough to use for a definitive analysis of real-world flight characteristics. Even an R/C model would give a more-accurate picture, apparently. Just a word of caution; you may already be familar with that information.