From vision to world’s most successful commercial engine: 40 years of CFM

By: MURDO MORRISON published in flightglobal.com, Sep 29 2014

It began with a casual encounter in Paris and has flourished into a 40-year marriage with a remarkably successful offspring. CFM International – the union between the USA’s General Electric and France’s Snecma – is heading towards production of its 30,000^th engine. But the joint venture’s start, back in the 1970s, was stuttering. The first years of the transatlantic relationship were fraught with cultural and language challenges, questions over the structure of the enterprise, and concerns within the US administration over transfer of sensitive military technology.

But these were nothing compared with a much more pressing concern as the decade ended. Five years after its creation, and eight years from the informal 1971 meeting at the Le Bourget show where the GE and Snecma presidents had begun their courtship, CFM International had one product in the market – a 10-tonne, 20,000lb-thrust (89kN) engine – but no production contract. The CFM56looked a gallant failure and CFM may have been headed for the divorce court. Had that happened, the commercial airliner market would have turned out very differently.

The marriage was saved by Boeing. The airframer had chosen the CFM56 to power a version of the ageing 707 (later adopting it to re-engine its military tanker sibling, the US Air Force’s KC-135. Today the air force is CFM’s single biggest customer). A re-engining effort for another venerable, four-engined type, the Douglas DC-8, bought the programme more time. But it was Seattle’s decision to commission the 18,500lb- to 23,500lb-thrust -3 version of the CFM56 for its 737-300 in the early 1980s that was the breakthrough for an engine that had all along been intended to power a new generation of twin-engined narrowbodies.

The Leap-1A is one of the three variants of the newest CFM engine

CFM

It was the start of arguably the most commercially successful pairing in aerospace. The CFM56 went on to exclusively power the next generation 737 from the 1990s and its Leap successor will be the sole engine type on the 737 Max. Of almost 27,000 CFM56 engines, some 14,000 have been fitted to 737s. CFM’s narrowbody dominance was consolidated later in the 1980s when Airbus selected the 22,000lb- to 25,500lb-thrust -5A to compete with the International Aero Engines’ V2500 on its new A320. Since then, more than 7,500 of the CFM engines have powered Airbus narrowbodies.

The engine found another application too in the early 1990s, this time on a widebody. The CFM56-powered Airbus A340 made its service debut in 1993. While sales of the quadjet did not set the world on fire, CFM had the benefit of exclusive supply, powering all 246 of the -200/300 variants delivered.

With the arrival this decade of new versions of the 737 and A320, as well as a flurry of new narrowbody and large regional contenders from Bombardier, China’s Comac, Embraer, Russia’s Irkut and Mitsubishi, the battle in the ever-growing single-aisle market has taken on a new dimension. What began as the TECH56 technology studies in the late 1990s developed into the LEAP56 (leading edge aviation propulsion) project and eventually the launch of the Leap engine for new generation narrowbodies in 2008.

While it seemed likely that Boeing would retain CFM as solus supplier on any new narrowbody, it was Comac that was first to select the Leap when it launched its clean-sheet C919 narrowbody, in November 2010. The following month, Airbus – quicker off the mark than Boeing with its decision to re-engine its top-selling product as the A320neo – also chose the new CFM engine, albeit as an option alongside Pratt & Whitney’s PW1000G PurePower geared turbofan, which emerged around the same time as the Leap and was chosen initially to power the Bombardier CSeries.

In 2011, after much speculation over its future single-aisle strategy, Boeing announced that it would be re-engining the 737 rather than launching an all-new narrowbody, and the Leap-1B would be its sole powerplant. Seattle’s loyalty came as little surprise. The airframer said it had been working with its propulsion partner of 30 years on configurations for both re-engined and possible new types. With just under 6,000 CFM56-powered 737s in service, a global maintenance, repair and overhaul network for the legacy engine, and hundreds of content airline customers, it was the low-risk choice.

Now with a backlog of more than 7,800 Leap engines – as well as some 4,500 CFM56s – the priority for the latest CFM president, Frenchman Jean-Paul Ebanga, seems less about securing new business and instead managing what he calls “one of the most complex supply chains in the world, but also one of the best prepared to cope with this challenge”. CFM boasts that it has never delayed an airliner delivery, and – despite a production ramp-up from 1,000 engines in 2000 to around 1,550 this year and 1,800 by the close of the decade – it is not a record Ebanga plans to let slip.

The Leap-1A for the Airbus A320neo family, which has been undertaking ground testing since September last year, is expected to be certificated in the first quarter of next year, ahead of the first flight of the Leap-powered A320neo. The -1C for the C919 is due to enter flight testing this autumn, although the engine is not expected to be certificated until the end of next year. The Leap-1B for the 737 Max was fired up for the first time at Snecma’s Villaroche plant in June and is expected to be handed over to Boeing as a certificated engine in mid-2016.

Ebanga’s team have to handle not only a rapid ramp-up, but a transition from the CFM56 to the Leap starting in 2016. Although the CFM56 product developed significantly between the original CFM56-2 and today’s -5B and -7B variants, the Leap represents a huge advance in technology and will require considerable new infrastructure. Most of the industrial investment is in place, he says. A new fanblade plant will open in France in a few months, ground was recently broken on an assembly plant in Indiana and a final assembly line in Villaroche is “very advanced”.

As with the CFM56, Snecma and GE manage their own supply chains for the elements of the Leap they are responsible for – Snecma the low-pressure turbine and fan, and GE the high-pressure compressor, combustor and high-pressure turbine that make up the engine’s core. Ebanga describes the global supply chain – that includes company owned factories from North Carolina to China as well as dozens of smaller suppliers – as a “beehive” with every member of the community focused on just-in-time manufacturing and quality.

“The Leap engine is result of hundreds of thousands of daily actions across the world, everyone producing parts to the right standards and at the right time, so that in the end you have an engine that is just produced by CFM,” he says. Ebanga admits that moving from a testing and certification regime to mass production of a new product in just a few months will be an “unprecedented challenge” , but says that “by the time we get to serial production we will have all the risks back to the level we want.”

Supporting the engine in service is also a challenge. The popularity of the CFM56 has created a global network of maintenance centres, run by Snecma, GE and third parties. But repairing the Leap – with its technologies such as 3D-woven, resin transfer moulding carbonfibre fan blades – is a trickier proposition for traditional shops. It led CFM in 2008 to launch its own unified service network, and seven in 10 Leap engines ordered come under this scheme. Ebanga says one of the biggest achievements of CFM has been transitioning from a programme-focused venture at a time when “the services business did not exist” to one where CFM can present “one face to the customer for everything”.

The agreement between GE and CFM has been renewed several times since 1974 and the latest contract signed in 2008 lasts to 2040, when the Leap will be a mature engine and production of CFM56 engines, even for spares, will have all but stopped. However, just as the CFM56 engine was improved on, so too will the Leap, insists CFM. “We have hundreds of developments in our pipeline,” executive vice-president Cedric Goubet said at July’s Farnborough air show. The current engine is just “the first step in a new generation of technologies” being worked on by both partners.

In an era of high fuel prices, shaving every possible kilogramme of weight while improving efficiency remains a holy grail for engine makers, and with GE and Snecma both making advances in composite technologies and additive manufacturing, this will be a key battleground. CFM vice-president Allen Paxson, also speaking at Farnborough, predicted that increasing use of ceramic matrix composites and additive manufactured processes – currently used for fuel nozzles – will become widespread in the coming years.

The question remains as to whether the big airframers will be content with iterative improvements such as these, or will look to a breakthrough technology such as open-rotor to replace their current narrowbodies. Rolls-Royce – absent from the narrowbody market since it pulled out of the IAE consortium, unhappy with partner P&W’s decision to pursue a geared turbofan design – has said it wants to re-enter the market in the 2020s. Snecma has been pursuing an open-rotor concept which it plans to flight test on an Airbus A340 in 2019.

Any realignment looks unlikely, however, until the 2030s at least. Would-be challengers to the Airbus/Boeing duopoly – Bombardier, Comac and Irkut – have all opted for a CFM or P&W engine. Until then, it will be hard for any new propulsion player to break in and the CFM agreement prevents GE or Snecma from going it alone or joining with anyone else in that segment, even if they wanted to. If anything, says Ebanga, the development of the Leap has pushed the two partners even closer together.

Improved fuel-burn allowed carriers such as Ryanair to increase fleet utilisation, says Ebanga

Boeing

Back in 1974, a French state-owned enterprise and an American corporation, both with a heritage in military engines, might have seemed unlikely candidates to alter the face of short-haul commercial aviation, a segment utterly dominated by Pratt & Whitney at the time. But CFM has been a “unique organisation”, says Ebanga. “We brought in a new level in terms of fuel burn and reliability. This enabled guys to think about higher utilisation of these assets, and instead of flying twice or three times a day, Southwest and Ryanair were able to fly six or seven times. I’m not saying the CFM56 was the only reason they did this, but it was a key enabler in this huge change in aviation over the past 30 years.”

Rolls-Royce harvests a decade of research for new engine projects

By: MURDO MORRISON published in flightglobal.com, Oct 1 2014

As Rolls-Royce prepares to build and begin testing next year its seventh member of the Trent family – the 7000 for the Airbus A330neo – it is harvesting the fruits of a decade’s worth of research and development projects into two studies that could form the basis for a new generation of widebody – and even possibly narrowbody – engines in the 2020s.

The UK propulsion specialist wants to develop technology and products that will secure a 50% share of the twin-aisle market, as well as – perhaps more ambitiously – help it break back into the growing single-aisle sector, vacated when it abandoned the International Aero Engines consortium in 2012, just when a host of new narrowbody programmes were arriving on the market.

The company earlier this year revealed its Advance and UltraFan designs. Although both are far from being formal programmes, they are based on the three-shaft structure of the successful widebody Trent family, in particular the Airbus A350’s Trent XWB. R-R says they could, in theory, be ready to enter service as production engines as early as 2020 and 2025, respectively.

R-R says Advance and UltraFan are about highlighting its progress in a range of technologies, from composite fans to lower-emissions combustion systems. The company’s timescale for bringing these to market, however, means the engine studies are more than simply “what-might-be” concepts. It has already proved, or is currently testing, many of the engines’ novel elements.

The advance’s carbon/titanium fan system has been tested on a Trent 1000 at the Stennis centre

Rolls-Royce

Advance and UltraFan are not just Trents with tweaks, stresses Alan Newby, chief engineer, future programmes and technology. Although they rely on the same three-shaft architecture, the first of the two engines, Advance, will have a new core – with a larger high-pressure compressor and smaller intermediate compressor – as well as a composite fan and casing.

Other changes include an adaptive cooling system, a lower NOx combustor, “dynamic sealing” to minimise leakage and a wider use of ceramic-matrix composites. “Advance is the next generation in three-shaft engines and brings together a lot of the technologies that we’ve been working on for the past 10 years. There are a lot of differences. The HP and IP compressors are very different,” he says.

There is a clear commercial goal too. “We are getting the technology bricks in place, and when we get the call to develop [Advance] for an aircraft programme, we will,” adds Newby. “We won’t launch a programme until we have a requirement, but we think we will have de-risked all the technologies by 2015 or 2016 and be ready with a new application from 2020 onwards.”

The test or “slave” engine for many of the new core technologies is a Trent XWB, with its core removed and replaced by the trial HP and IP system. “It’s a good platform for testing. We have quite a big project team up and running on it,” says Newby. R-R has started machining components for the engine and other elements have been ordered from the supply chain.

Although the company has no plans as yet to fly the adapted Trent XWB independently, it will undertake ground tests next year. Separately, a carbon/titanium fan system, which will be used on both Advance and UltraFan, has just completed a phase of testing – on a Trent 1000 engine – at the company’s outdoor jet engine test facility at the John C Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

While R-R plans to test elements of its Advance engine separately, it intends to build a whole engine demonstrator for the UltraFan, with a vision of it taking to the air on a flying testbed by the end of the decade. “Given the amount of changes, we would need to verify it in flight,” says Newby. “Four or five years before entry into service is when you’d want to be maturing the technologies.”

Several engines are dedicated to research

Rolls-Royce

These technologies include a variable pitch fan, with gearbox, and a high-speed IP turbine, as well as possible adaptations to the core. “UltraFan takes the core configuration we will have developed for Advance and adds a lower-speed fan,” explains Newby. “This turns at a relatively low speed, so it makes sense to add a gearbox.”

Although UltraFan retains the Trent’s three-shaft compression system, the enhanced IP turbine drives the fan via a power gearbox, allowing the LP turbine to be eliminated. The gearbox is “critical technology”, says Newby. “We have experience through our work on the JSF [Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter] and elsewhere on the military side. We are not starting from scratch.”

The engine manufacturer has already allocated more than a dozen engines to the various technology projects that have led to Advance and UltraFan. Many of these have been supported with research and development funding from the EU and R-R’s “home” governments: the UK, USA and Germany.

Its ALPS study, intended to come up with a lightweight LP system, has used three Trent 1000s. The first phase of engine testing was completed in 2013 and the second has just finished at Stennis. A third Trent 1000, fitted with the composite fan, has been shipped to Tucson, Arizona, for flight testing on a Boeing 747 by the end of the year.

A second project, EFE, running since 2010, focuses on “hot end technologies” and also uses the Trent 1000. Testing on a fourth engine has just ended at R-R’s Bristol facility. A final study, ALECSYS, is about developing a “robust lean-burn combustion system” and involves flight testing two Trent 1000s converted with a lean-burn combustor in 2015 and 2016.

R-R claims that the bundle of technologies on Advance and UltraFan could improve efficiency by 20% and 25% respectively, compared with the first Trent, the Trent 700. Newby adds that the technology is scalable and could cover a range of thrusts from 30,000lb (134kN) to more than 100,000lb, a much broader band than the current family’s 53,000-95,000lb range.

However, the company is quick to point out that this does not offer a direct clue to how it might re-enter the single-aisle market in the next decade. “Scaling down is possible, and in theory these technologies could form the basis of a new narrowbody engine,” says Newby. “But this is not necessarily the route we will take.”

Rolls-Royce makes progress with Trent 7000

By: MURDO MORRISON published in flightglobal.com, Oct 2 2014

Although understandably coy before Airbus’s Farnborough announcement that it was launching the A330neo, Rolls-Royce was by July quite far along the path of finalising the design for the Trent 7000, the 72,000lb (320kN) thrust engine that will exclusively power the re-engined widebody. Rolls-Royce already has a more than 50% share of engines on in-service A330s, with its original Trent 700.

The 7000 is based on the latest iteration of the Trent 1000 for the Boeing 787, the Trent 1000-TEN, and includes features such as weight-saving blisks in the compressors and a system that integrates engine dressings into composite raft-like structures. The first engine will be built and ground tested next year. Flight test engines will follow in 2016 ahead of the first actual flight test in 2017, with entry into service slated for late 2017.

Other changes compared with the original Trent 700 for the Airbus A330 – launched in March 1995 – include a 2.84m (112in) fan, rather than a 97in one that helps double the bypass ratio to 10 and improve specific fuel consumption by 10%. “For us, basing it on the TEN makes it a very low-risk programme,” says Peter Johnston, head of customer marketing.

The bigger fan means the engine and Aircelle-designed nacelle have to be moved forwards and upwards, compared with the Airbus A330’s Trent 700, to retain the same level of ground clearance and avoid “sucking in too much dirt”, says Johnston. The big architectual difference with the TEN is a new external gearbox because Airbus’s system is different to Boeing’s.

The engine manufacturer has a full dedicated project team in place for the 7000, which can pull in expertise from both the Ten and the Trent 700 teams, he says. The engine gives R-R itself a foot in two camps too, with a competitive position – against General Electric’s GEnx – on the Boeing 787, as well as an exclusive arrangement on the Dreamliner’s new direct competitor.

Airbus aims to line-fit A350 with lithium battery from 2016

By: DAVID KAMINSKI-MORROW published in flightglobal.com, Sep 30, 2014

Airbus is to work towards offering a lithium battery as the line-fit standard for its A350-900 from 2016, following certification of the type with nickel-cadmium cells.

The European Aviation Safety Agency has granted a type certificate for the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-84 powered jet, with US FAA approval set to follow shortly.

While Airbus had originally designed the A350 to draw electrical power from lithium batteries, it deferred this plan after concerns emerged over the use of such batteries in the Boeing 787.

“There was a period when we weren’t sure the certification requirement for a lithium solution would have been stable,” says A350 programme chief Didier Evrard. “We didn’t want to take any risks.”

Airbus conducted tests of both battery types on its A350 prototype fleet although the last development aircraft, as the certification standard model, retained a nickel-cadmium battery.

“We gave a little time to the authorities to review the certification requirements for a lithium solution,” says Evrard.

“We didn’t have to change our initial design – the certification basis we’d taken into account, ourselves, was not changed.”

He says that Airbus considers its design “absolutely” safe and that, with the certification basis in place, it can progress towards completing the certification work on a lithium option for customers, which it intends to have in place in 2016.

The aircraft has been approved to operate at a maximum altitude of 43,100ft.

EASA’s certificate states that the A350 and A330 are “variants of the same type of aircraft” for purposes of pilot type ratings. It adds that the aircraft is cleared to transport 385 passengers with its basic exit configuration, and up to 440 with an optional exit layout.

Boeing raises 737 yearly delivery target to 624 in 2018

By: STEPHEN TRIMBLE, published in flightglobal.com, Oct 2, 2014

Boeing has announced a plan to further increase 737 production to 52 aircraft per month, or 624 aircraft per year, in 2018.

The latest capacity boost adds to existing plans to raise production from 42 currently to 47 per month in 2017, as Boeing introduces the 737 Max in the third quarter of that year.

“Our thorough analysis tells us the single-aisle market continues to expand and is the fastest growing, most dynamic segment of the market,” says Boeing marketing vice-president Randy Tinseth, in a news release.

Boeing has more than 4,000 orders for the 737NG and the 737 Max in the backlog.

The 737NG is expected to remain in production through the second quarter of 2019, with the last delivery to Ryanair.

Beginning in mid-2015, the 737NG will be produced side-by-side with the 737 Max on three assembly lines in Renton, Washington.

The third line is opening next year to support assembly of the 737 Max flight test fleet.

As it reaches full speed, the third line increases the potential capacity of the 737 production system to build up to 63 aircraft per month. Boeing also has raised capacity on the 737 wing assembly line in Renton to support a potential capacity of 63 aircraft per month, as well.

Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kansas, builds 70% of the 737 structure, including the fuselage and the wing pylons. The General Electric/Snecma joint venture CFM International is the exclusive engine supplier, with the CFM56-7B and the Leap-1B for the 737 Max.

Growing Concerns About Aircraft Demand

By: Jens Flottau, published in aviationweek.com, Sept 29, 2014

Airline demand for civil aircraft is strong, financing is readily available for almost any kind of operator, and manufacturers are asking themselves whether they have to build even more aircraft. All is well. Or is it?

In spite of many good signs, aircraft financiers and other industry leaders are voicing concern that the industry could be in for a rude awakening. While the civil aerospace boom is unlikely to suddenly go bust, a number of industry executives attending last week’s International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading (Istat) Europe conference here expect some kind of downward correction to demand with a corresponding rise in aircraft cancellations or postponements.

“Somehow the stars are aligned; something has to happen,” says Gordon Welsh, director of aerospace at U.K. Export Finance.

Christian McCormick, managing director and global head of aviation finance at Natixis, says he is “a little bit concerned.” He notes that “we still have to really figure out whether this is double-counting”—several airlines ordering aircraft for the same markets.

Airbus and Boeing have been remarkably adept at buffering themselves from downturns by overbooking orders. But even John Leahy, Airbus’s chief salesman and normally one of the industry’s cheerleaders, is sounding a note of caution.

“Three airlines tell us they’re going to improve their market share by 10-15%,” he says. “But someone is going to be very successful, someone very unsuccessful and someone in the middle. So two or three don’t need all the planes they ordered.”

And Leahy would not be Leahy if he did not take a poke at Boeing and its plan to raise production rates for the 737 eventually to 52 aircraft per month, up from 42 now and a planned rate of 47 in 2017. “What worries me is this whole ‘Field of Dreams’ concept: ‘Build it and they will come,’” he says.

Randy Tinseth, Boeing vice president for marketing, counters that his company takes “a very thoughtful and measured approach” to aircraft output. “We have worked very hard to ensure that demand for these planes is real,” he says. “And we make rate decisions on the assumption that we’ll continue producing at those rates for a substantial period of time.”

Forecasting future demand remains tricky because there are still no concrete indications that increasing capacity is the wrong decision. In fact, Airbus is considering boostingA320 rates to 50 per month, up from 42 currently. Leahy says Airbus has the orders to support such a robust rate, but he concedes that delivery positions 7-8 years out are less certain.

Boeing is ramping up production rates for the 787 to a planned 14 aircraft per month and Airbus is bringing the A350 into service, with first delivery due by year-end. And the planned A320 and 737 narrowbody rate increases come in spite of the fact that both are transitioning to reengined models during the next few years. That should, in theory, have an impact on demand for the old versions. At around the turn of the decade, Boeing will be shifting from the 777 to the 777X.

The debate about optimal production rates gained momentum after UBS published a study signaling caution just days before the Istat event. While its sees a rough balance of supply and demand in the narrowbody market until 2018, production rates for long-haul aircraft need to be cut by up to 30%, it says.

The disconnect: While current widebody production plans suggest that demand will increase 6% a year until 2018, UBS is forecasting a more modest 4% rise. If UBS is correct, Boeing and Airbus would be producing 200-250 more aircraft per year than the market could absorb. The bank’s analysts suggest cutting A330 output to four per month from 10, decreasing the 777 rate to four from 8.3 per month, and freezing the 787 rate at 10 per month rather than raising it to 14. But UBS makes the most radical recommendation for the largest jets: Airbus should cut production of the A380 to one a month—from 30 per year—and Boeing should stop building the 747-8 altogether.

That, of course, is unlikely to happen, at least in the short term. Both manufacturers have pledged to keep production as stable as possible, although Airbus has conceded that A330 rates are likely to come down somewhat. UBS believes Airbus will build only 40 A330s in 2018, down from this year’s high of 110. But introduction of the A350 should more than compensate for that 70-aircraft reduction.

In fact, Leahy is more concerned that Airbus may not deliver as many A350s as would be in demand because of its conservative production ramp-up. “We are being prudent, but it bothers me,” he says. Airbus might soon decide to go for higher production rates, though: “I believe this will be decided sometime next year,” he adds. By year-end, the aircraft maker plans to be building three A350s per month, up from two now; by the end of 2015, it targets producing five A350s per month; and by 2018, 10 per month.

The UBS analysts forecast that Boeing 777 production will decline to 60 per year in 2018 from 96 now, and 747 and 767 rates will settle to one per month in 2016. By 2018, 140787s will be built per year, they project, up from 108 this year. Airbus will deliver 529 narrowbodies in 2018 (up from 483 this year), the analysts expect, and Boeing deliveries will increase by six aircraft to reach 490 over four years, UBS estimates.

UBS is not alone in its concerns. Earlier this year, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts issued similar warnings (AW&ST July 14, p. 24). And Thomas Hollahan, managing director at Citi, says that “this industry is still subject to event risk and it is always good to assume another one is around the corner.”

Welsh says that the U.K. Export Finance program is now typically receiving around 80 bids by banks for its business per transaction, compared to 2-3 only a few years ago. He says that some of the banks coming in with financing proposals for aircraft transactions are hardly known.

The availability of cheap financing is a key ingredient of the marked changes the aircraft business has undergone in the last several years. It is a function of the proliferation of new financiers in the market, including private equity, and it raises questions for banks established in aircraft financing and lessors. However, Air Lease Corp. (ALC) Chairman/CEO Steven Udvar-Hazy thinks many of the new entrants will disappear when the next crisis hits.

Adam Pilarski, senior vice president at Avitas, has been warning for some time that airlines are overordering. “If Middle East and low-cost airlines succeed, someone else has to fail,” he says. Boeing and Airbus have to assume “a huge number of retirements” in order not to end up in an overcapacity situation, he says. On the other hand, he concedes that both manufacturers have become sophisticated in overbooking narrowbody production, which is making shifts in delivery schedules easier to handle.

Pilarski also notes the unique set of conditions the industry has been operating in for some years: High fuel prices have led to the development of new aircraft such as theA320neo and the Boeing 737 MAX, which airlines can afford to buy in large quantities because financing is so cheap and easily available. But, he asks, what if one or two of the underlying parameters such as high fuel prices or cheap financing change over time?

Udvar-Hazy has concerns of a different nature. “There is a good symmetry between the backlog and production rates,” he says. “But our deeper concern is about how the very complex supply chain will deal with production.” While Airbus and Boeing are increasing output, other players such as Bombardier (with its CSeries), Comac and Mitsubishi are entering the market, and Udvar-Hazy worries that “some suppliers will have difficulties.” He adds that “galleys and seats have the longest lead times I have ever seen in my career. . . . We are reaching a point of saturation.” Therefore, ALC is urging manufacturers to not overbuild, he says, “because they may not be able to meet their contractual obligations.”

In terms of airline demand, Udvar-Hazy is less concerned. “We will see a massive shortage of certain types, and in other cases we will see a steady degradation of values,” he says. Overall, “Airbus and Boeing have sold more aircraft than they can build,” he notes. The ALC portfolio of orders, at least, is allocated to a large extent to replacing older aircraft rather than growing fleets.

Philip Scruggs, president and chief commercial officer of AerCap, says he is primarily concerned about careful management of production. If Airbus and Boeing are not vigilant, they could run into lead time and supply issues, he argues.

UBS Aircraft Delivery Forecast
	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Airbus
A320 family	483	483	523	529	529
A330/A340	110	100	70	55	40
A350	2	20	50	70	100
A380	30	30	30	30	30
Total Airbus	625	633	673	684	699
Boeing
737	484	490	490	490	490
747	14	16	12	12	12
767	11	12	12	12	12
777	96	96	72	60	60
787	108	120	120	140	140
Total Boeing	713	734	706	714	714
Total Large	1,338	1,367	1,379	1,412	1,481
Widebodies	371	394	366	379	394
Narrowbodies	967	973	1,013	1,033	1,087
Total Regional	263	264	280	282	263
Regional Jets	153	159	175	182	163
Turboprops	110	105	105	100	100
Total All	1,601	1,631	1,659	1,694	1,744
Sources: Company reports and UBS estimates

EASA Certifies Airbus A350-900

By: Jens Flottau, published in aviationweek.com, Oct 2, 2014

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has issued type certification for the Airbus A350-900, clearing the way for first delivery of the aircraft in the coming weeks.

 We dealt with a very mature aircraft,” EASA Executive Director Patrick Ky stated on Tuesday. “Airbus and EASA have learnt from experience and have established pragmatic working methods which have proved to be the recipe for a successful type certification and the way forward for future certification programs.” The A350 was the first ever all-new Airbus aircraft certified by EASA.

Airbus expects to also receive U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approvals “very shortly,” according to Airbus A350 Chief Engineer Gordon McConnell. “It is in process just now, but not completed yet.” McConnell does not foresee any issues. The initial Extended Twin Operations (ETOPS) clearance has also not yet been published by EASA and McConnell believes it may take several more weeks to get there. He says ETOPS will be “perfectly adequate” for the needs of the operators. The EASA certification document indicates that there will be an ETOPS 180-minute approval and a separate approval for ETOPS beyond that limit, neither of which has been issued yet.

Airbus plans to deliver the first A350-900 to Qatar Airwaysbefore the end of the year. Program Chief Didier Evrard said the exact date will be defined jointly with Qatar Airways in the coming weeks. While flight and certification tests are concluded, Airbus is focusing on familiarizing Qatar Airways with the customization features it has chosen. That will require “a number of flights,” but Evrard said it is difficult to predict how many and how many flight hours that may involve. “If I was a golf player, I would say we are on the green.”

Evrard also confirmed that Airbus will return to lithium-ion batteries—all A350s will be delivered with those batteries beginning 2016. As a consequence of the battery fires experienced on the Boeing 787, Airbus decided to temporarily return to the more conventional nickel-cadmium batteries, because it was uncertain that certification requirements might change and it did not want to take any schedule risks. It turns out now that Airbus did not need to change its original design. “We were fully aware of the risks inherent in the (battery) design,” Evrard said. “We have put measures in place to mitigate that to zero.”

The A350-900 has been certified by EASA for a maximum-passenger number of 440, depending on the exit configuration. That will require a minimum of eight cabin crew members.

The maximum take-off weight (MTOW) for the basic variant is at 268 tons, but EASA has cleared an increase of up to 275 tons, which Airbus currently does not offer. According to Evrard, the A350-900 is about three tons heavier than initially planned. The aircraft is certified to fly up to a maximum operating altitude of 43,100 ft.

EASA has also concluded that the A350-900 “is determined to be a variant of theA330/340 series aircraft” and, more precisely, it is considered to be “a variant of the A330-200.” Pilots will be able to fly both the Airbus A330 and the A350 with the same type rating.

Suppliers Wary Of Further Narrowbody Rate Increases

By: Sean Broderick, published in aviationweek.com, Oct 2, 2014

Airframe suppliers are comfortable with manufacturers’ plans to push narrowbody production rates up to a combined 100 per month, but express concern that anything beyond that could strain the supply chain or dampen demand after a few years, trigging costly rate fluctuations, a Canaccord Genuity survey reports.

Airbus and Boeing are producing 84 narrowbodies per month—42 each—and have announced plans to go up to the mid-90s combined. Rumblings of 50 per month or more out of Boeing—a move likely to be matched by Airbus—could be supported by suppliers, the survey found. But added demand from emerging programs, like Bombardier’s CSeries, could muddy the waters. Suppliers also expressed doubt that the costly ramp-ups would be sustained for long enough periods to justify the investment needed to get them there.

“This survey raises questions about the sustainability of rates above 100/month for Boeing and Airbus,” Canaccord wrote. “We believe many suppliers are reluctant to invest to support rates above which have been announced for fear that they would be capitalizing for a rate that is not sustainable.”

Despite the long-term concern, suppliers—notably the crucial higher-tier ones—are confident that current and planned production rates are both sustainable and aligned with demand. Structures firms are the “most optimistic,” Canaccord noted, believing that rates exceeding 100 per month are feasible. Their optimism is “closely followed” by material suppliers.

The one supply chain segment expressing concern is interiors suppliers, which face both record production rates and increasing demand for retrofits as carriers capitalize on innovations such as slimline seats and new premium cabin offerings.

“Interior suppliers see the most to worry about with higher narrow-body production rates,” Canaccord said.

777 Rates

Regarding widebody aircraft, suppliers are mixed about whether Boeing will reduce rates before transitioning from the 777 to the 777X. Among the ones that foresee a rate cut, they believe Boeing will provide at least two years’ notice, meaning it will be business as usual well into 2016 at least.

Canaccord notes that it has no evidence that Boeing plans to cut rates and expresses optimism that the manufacturer can bridge the gap without building fewer current-generation models.

“We believe Boeing has 10-15% in pricing it can play with on the 777 before the program crosses the economic threshold whereby a reduction in rates makes more sense than further price concessions,” Canaccord suggested. “We believe investors, and suppliers, are being too pessimistic on the 777, and we still see a [greater than] 50% chance Boeing will be able to bridge the 777 order gap as it transitions to the 777X.”

Boeing is producing 777s at 8.3 per month, a rate it hit in January 2013. In 2011, it bumped rates from five to seven per month. Canaccord is projecting 98 Boeing 777 deliveries this year.

The Airbus A330-to-A330neo transition is more straightforward, Canaccord explained.

“Suppliers largely expect Airbus to eventually announce a reduction to A330 rates as part of its transition from the A330ceo to the A330neo. This is consistent with what Airbus has been signaling,” Canaccord added.

Suppliers expect the current 10-per-month rate to drop to seven per month in 2017-2018, before stepping back up again, Canaccord said.

787-9 Test Lessons To Aid 787-10 And 777X

By: Guy Norris, published in aviationweek.com, Oct 24, 2014

Boeing has spent more than 50 years perfecting the art of the stretched derivative and honing a strategy that along the way produced the 777-300ER, one of the most successful long-haul designs in commercial airliner history.

However, as it looks to the development of the next-generation derivatives, the 777X and double-stretch 787-10, the company can ill afford a repeat of the missteps made in the building and testing of the original 787. The manufacturer faces aggressive competition from Airbus with the A350-1000, as well as pressure from an expectant market that has already placed firm orders for a combined tally of 425 777X/787-10s. There is little room for error in two such vital programs, which call for deliveries starting in 2018 for the 787-10 and 2020 for the first 777X variant, the 777-9X.

Both the 787-10 and 777-9X will be extremely long, stretched versions of the original models. Measuring 224 ft. overall, the 787-10 will be 38 ft. longer than the baseline 787-8, while the 777-9X will be the longest twinjet yet made, with a length of just under 251 ft., or around 42 ft. greater than the first 777-200s. Stretching the fuselage can directly change the longitudinal and lateral stability characteristics of an aircraft, resulting in follow-on effects on the flight control system and handling qualities. To help it avoid potentially costly redesigns and delays, Boeing is therefore banking on using valuable and, in some cases, unexpected lessons learned during the test and development of the latest stretch model, the 787-9.

Compared to the troubled 787-8, the test effort for the 20-ft.-longer 787-9 was virtually trouble-free. The flight-test portion was completed in eight months, compared to 20 months for the 787-8, and encompassed just over 1,500 flight hours, or one-third of the time required for the original variant. However, as revealed by 787-9 chief pilot Mike Bryan, not all went strictly to plan. “We found a lot of things matched our predictions very closely and we found some things that weren’t such a good match,” he said at last month’s Society of Experimental Test Pilots symposium in Anaheim, California. “We dealt with those and solved them. We also had aspects that taught us we could do things safer and smarter.”

Bryan said advanced flight testing using the 787-8 as a surrogate for the stretched model helped pave the way for some performance predictions more than a year before the first flight of the 787-9 in September 2013. This included fitting a 787-8 with artificial ice shapes to simulate performance in icing conditions. The design and predicted performance was later verified during 787-9 flight tests in Canada. Similar testing using a 787-9 is expected to feature in the run-up to the 787-10’s first flight, which is due to take off from Boeing’s facility in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2017. Part of the planning for flight testing includes arrangements for performing initial airworthiness sorties out of Charleston before transitioning the test aircraft to Boeing Field, Seattle, for the remainder of the certification program.

Boeing announced in July that the aircraft will be assembled exclusively at the East Coast site because 10 ft. of the aircraft’s overall 18.-ft stretch will be added to the mid-body section. This makes the 110-ft.-long unit too long to be transported in the fleet of specially converted 747-400 Dreamlifters that ferry parts to the assembly lines in Everett, Washington, and South Carolina. Assembly of the first 787-10 is expected to begin in 2016, with certification and initial delivery to launch customer Singapore Airlines in 2018.

Stability and control tests also yielded some unexpected results that required changes to the flight control system and may also help Boeing better prepare for the 787-10 and 777X. “If we knew how to predict all these things ahead of time, we’d be out of the business of flight test, and these are examples of where we needed to make changes,” says Nikos Mills, senior specialist engineer of stability and control at Boeing.

Mills, who now works on the 777X, says one such discovery was an unexpected interaction between the 787-9’s first body-longitudinal-bending mode and the aircraft’s maneuver load alleviation system. This flight control law activates with positive g and reduces structural loads by deploying spoilers on the outboard upper wing surface. The interaction was uncovered during the final flutter flight test at 380 kt. and an altitude of 25,000 ft. When the crew initiated a positive g pull, “the outboard spoilers were picking up the body mode and pinging the structure even more,” says Mills.” So we did additional flight testing and modified [software] filters so we were able to get a nice smooth pull-up without those things happening.”

In another instance, Boeing adapted the angle-of-attack control law to provide protection against stalls with flaps in the up position after flight tests showed the 787-9 did not exhibit the same pre-stall buffet cues in this configuration as the -8. “The pilot can now go to full aft stick, hold it there, and the airplane will just settle down at the commanded alpha,” says Mills. “It is very benign and very easy to fly.” Boeing also modified the flight control system to eliminate a slight vibration in the flight deck during final approach to landing. “It’s not a safety issue, but we ended up doing some additional flight testing to retune the filters, and so now it’s smooth and is active with flaps down,” he adds.