ICAO's new noise and CO2 regulations a miss!

The International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO’s) Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) proudly tells us that they achieved agreements  for future CO2  and noise regulations. Nothing particular is said about the CO2 standards, although they were already heavily criticized by Dimitro Simos, author of the Aircraft Performance Software PIANO when a draft of the plan was outlined in mid 2012.

Narrowbody Review 2012

Slowly, but inevitably, the year 2012 is coming to an end. Here are some thoughts about the current situation of the narrowbody market:

Orders

 

Boeing now has not yet fulfilled its own prophecy and has “only” 969 firm orders for the B737MAX in its books (with 819 orders in 2012), shy only 31 from the goal to have 1,000 by the end of 2012 and I guess that there will be another order (or more) in December to fill that gap..

Expected Airbus Order from China

As german chancellor Angela Merkel visits China this week, it is expected that China will order up to 100 Airbus narrowbodies. Looking at the delivery rate to chinese airlines and the backlog that chinese airlines have with Airbus, an order for 100 aircraft is not too much, even if the bulk of these would be for the ceo version. If I counted correctly there were 125 deliveries of A320 family aircraft between January 2011 and July 2012. The current backlog of chinese airlines is 186 aircraft - at the current delivery rate this is good for about 28 months. At the end of 2014 all the backlog would be gone.
There are an additional 42 orders from lessor ICBC and a MoU for 36 aircraft from CALC though, but these aircraft could also be placed outside China.  At best (here: when all aircraft are placed with chinese airlines) the backlog would be Zero at the end of 2015, just when the neo enters service but probably a long time before delivery slots would be available (although some chinese airlines or lessors may have reserved a limited number of slots in advance).
But before the A320neo will be available in larger numbers for chinese airlines (probably then coming from the chinese Airbus factory in Tianjin), Airbus can sell a bunch of ceo aircraft to chinese airlines meanwhile, thereby utilize also the Tianjin factory until the ramp up of the neo provides for a smooth transition there.

What is the situation at Boeing? There were 77 deliveries to chinese airlines from January 2011 until the end of July, a much slower pace than at Airbus. There are 212 open orders from China for the B737NG, good for 53 months of supply at the current delivery rate. This takes us into 2017 but well before the targeted MAX EIS and any open delivery slot for the reengined version of the B737. So another order for the B737NG from China is almost inevitable as well to satisfy the growing chinese aviation market.

A little unknown in the context of narrowbody aircraft supply to chinese airlines is the C919 and when this aircraft will enter into airline service. I do not know anybody who firmly believes that this aircraft will be on time (meaning a 2016 EIS). I would deem a 2018 EIS as a success, an even later date not to be a real surprise. And I would not expect a sudden ramp up to meet a significant part of the demand from chinese airlines.

The other unknown: the chinese economic activity. We are just seeing a considerable slowdown here. Highspeed Rail is another factor which could slow the growth in aviation. Boeing denied that possibility in their Current Market Outlook, but used numbers from 2009 in their presentation. Words from chinese airline managers sound different.

The chinese market is important for both Airbus and Boeing - 20% of all Airbus narrowbodies were delivered to China since January 2011 and 12.5% of all B737NG's went there. So a slowdown of economic activity in China is also of great risk for both manufacturers, in particular for Airbus.

UPDATE: About 30 minutes after I posted this entry, China Southern reported slumping profit due to the economic slowdown.

A320 and B737 backlog burndown

Scott Hamilton has a few more details from the Airbus Innovation Days.

He cites JP Morgan with an observation that not all of the delivery slots for A320ceo's are filled for 2015 (2014 is full) and therefore it would be a good decision not to boost output further.

Let's have a look at the current number of open orders for the A320ceo as well as those of the B737NG.

Here is how the backlog of A320ceo's develops if there would not be any new sale nor any cancellations. Of course there are some "risk positions" in the backlog: Kingfisher, the remaining Delta (Northwest) and United order and  Mandala come to mind...

As of May 1st, 2012, there were 2084 A320ceo and 1286 A320neo on firm order.

Embraer decides in favor of EJet's

Embraer decided to abandon plans for a new 5 abreast aircraft for now and instead opted to reengine to EJet's in the latter half of the decade - EIS could be in 2018. Given that Embraer could not do both at the same time - financially, but also due to manpower restrictions, as the KC-390 is in development also, this seems to be a wise decision.

Let us look at the timeline: in 2018 all new engines currently under development for the MRJ, CSeries, the A320neo, the B737MAX, the C919 and the MS-21 will be in service. Of course one could ask at least in case of the latter two if the EIS dates for these will stay where they are now. But Embraer will have a good idea how the engines - two versions of the LEAP (the C919 LEAP-1C will have the same turbo machinery as the A320neo LEAP-1A) and three types of the GTF (MRJ, CSeries and A320neo/MS-21) - are doing during development. An EIS in 2018 would probably mean an engine selection about 5 years earlier, around 2013, maybe 2014. By that time the PW1200G and PW1500G are flying at least on the respective aircraft prototypes and the first PW1100G engine should run on ground (the LEAP-1A seems to be a bit behind).

The "order battle"

Today Airbus did their yearly press conference to review the past year. The media does get over-hyped days before it and writes about the "order battle" between Airbus and Boeing and speculates about who won the "order race" - as if it would matter if one or the other got a few more orders than the other. For years now the number of orders are close at the end of the year, showing that there is some kind of natural balance in the civil aircraft duopoly. If there were not a balance, there would not be a duopoly.
That brings us to the future, there were will be no more a duopoly: Bombardier will  be the first to break into the territory with the CSeries - I still believe we will see one or two orders until the BBD financial year ends at January 31.
Then the next one could be Embraer, if they decide to build an aircraft similar in size  to the CSeries - or probably a little bit larger to undercut seat mile costs.
The chinese will take a little bit longer to make a difference, I think. Even if they would be able to bring their C919 to market in 2016 - and I doubt that - it would be limited either in numbers, as initial production numbers will be low in comparison to the A320(NEO) and B737 and geographically as I do not think that western operators will take that aircraft until reliability is proven and an acceptable maintenance network is in place.
The russian MS-21 will face the same problems - EIS in 2016 is an amitious goal and Irkut will have to work hard to sell aircraft outside the russian area of  influence. I wonder to whom the first firm customer, Crecom Burj, a new leasing company in Indonesia, will lease their 50 aircraft. Reportedly they want to serve the whole southeast asia market...
So at least in the narrowbody segment there is an end of the duopoly in sight. For the widebody sector the end is far further out. One day the chinese will do a C929 or C939 or whatever it will be called, but I would expect they will go through a second round with their C919 first, trying to make it really competitive to the (then) established products from Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and Embraer.

Don’t consider Pratt being dumb…

Again the “usual suspect”, writing on the GLG website, tries to tell us that P&W would be dumb enough to develop separate engines for the MS-21 and the A320NEO. He believes to know that the MS-21 (still – more or less – in the definition phase) needs 32klbf of thrust - and the fact that the A321 has a max. thrust of 33klbf drives him to the conclusion that P&W would have to start the design of a fourth engine to cover the A32XNEO thrust range.


Now – if you would be an engine maker: would you do that? Or would you design one engine that covers the full range up to 33klbf – especially as Airbus seems to be the far more important customer than the Russians?
Interestingly he does not see the need for CFM to come up with two different engines for the C919 and a potential B737 re-engining – just because a CFM official told him that the LEAP-X1C would fit under the wing of the B737. The C919 needs around 30klbf of thrust – the stretch version to be introduced later even more, far more than the B737 needs, so that the LEAP-X1C would be far being the optimal solution for the B737 – it seems that it would be better matched for the A32XNEO needs.
This might be an explanation why Boeing seems so skeptical about the re-engining.

But let’s wait what we hear out of Chicago after Airbus announced what they will do – I expect this to happen in late September or October…

aeroturbopower

The „war of words“ on the GLG website

The GLG website is a big fairground for those who wish to tell the audience what they think about the two engines currently in development for the new or re-engined narrowbodies. I found the most of the claims that are being made in the recent “expert contributions” as just plain wrong or as misunderstandings.


Take the contribution “CFM International LEAP-X Engine Anything But A Derivative” as an example. This article is nothing as plain anti-rhetoric against P&W’s GTF and pure PR for the LEAP-X, but has nothing to do with an objective analysis.

Both engines feature (or will feature) a complete new core, both will have a 2 stage HPT.

One can guess that the HPC of the LEAP-X is a scaled-down and advanced version of the GEnx HPC and the same is true for the HPT. New materials further improve the performance of the core, as less cooling is needed as with conventional materials. What we don’t know is if the HPT would basically need more cooling air than the GEnx HPT as it probably runs even a little hotter. This is unusually for a narrowbody engine, as maintenance costs play a significant role here in the equation.
The core of the GTF is all new and was already tested successfully (if you want to believe the PR from P&W).
Now take a look at the comparison the author makes:

He states that the baseline thrust of the GTF starts at 21,000lbs – wrong as the MRJ engine starts at about 15,000lbs for the MRJ70. The engine for the CSeries starts at 21,000lbs and the proposed engine for the A320NEO covers the full range of the thrust needed for the Airbus narrowbody family up to 33,000lbs. This engine would have an up-scaled core from the CSeries engine, as the NG34 (or TECH-X) from GE would get a scaled-down core from LEAP-X.

If the author would be right when he writes that the baseline thrust for LEAP-X would be 30,000lbs (for the C919), CFM would have a hard time to sell that engine to Boeing, as the B737 does not need more than 27,300lbs today and a downrated engine would be sub-optimal for the B737. So CFM might have to come up with a separate engine (maybe with a smaller core) to cover Boeing’s thrust needs.

If one claims that the GTF architecture is forty years old as the author does, he has to call the architecture of the LEAP-X at least forty years either, as it is nothing less but nothing more than a 2 spool turbofan.

SFC reduction for both is in the same range. CFM gives a certain number, P&W gives something like a range, but in the end they will end in the same area – it’s coming down to physics.

Please, bloggers, experts and who-else-writes-about engines: let’s do not just play CFM vs. P&W, just as others always play A. vs. B. on the aircraft side. It might be fun when you start but soon turns boring.