Norwegian goes the American way...

That was a surprise this morning - it was long rumored that Norwegian is one of the airlines that already committed for the B737MAX (100 firm orders plus 100 purchase rights in addition to a follow-on order for 200 B737-800NG), in that case the -8 model. But that they also would order the A320neo (MoU for 100 aircraft plus 50 purchase rights) could not have been expected.
There are two possible explanations that come to my mind as reasons for that decisions to go away from a single-type fleet:

1. They went the AA way (of negotiating), meaning they negotiated with both Airbus and Boeing until they got a deal from both they could not resist to close them both.
2. Their anticipated growth is too large that one of the OEM's could deliver aircraft fast enough to satisfy that growth.

On the other hand it is a little bit discussable if a mixed fleet of B737-800NG and B737MAX-8 would be a single-fleet type anyway. The engines (CFM56-7BE and LEAP-1B) do not have anything in common and Boeing itself talks about 85% commonality between the NG and the MAX. So Norwegian would have had a two-type fleet anyway until the last -800NG would have been phased out. Now that Norwegian gets aircraft from both Airbus and Boeing the last -800NG will be phased out earlier so that the (at that scale) marginally higher costs through having a two-type fleet will be (probably) more than offset by the lower fuel costs.

The next interesting question will be the engine choice for the A320neo. Although the selection of the LEAP-1A to complement the LEAP-1B on the MAX-8 fleet would be the most logical choice, they maybe also go the AA way and buy from both engine manufacturers, like AA did it recently for their A319 (CFM56) and A321 (V2500). So the PW1100G could come into play - the factsheet that Norwegian provided with their press release shows the fan diameter of the PW1100G (81"), but that does not necessarily say anything...

The year 2012 in Aviation

The year 2011 is almost over and 2012 is ahead of us. So what did the year tell us in terms of aviation? And what does that mean for 2012? Well, here is an an excerpt of what I wrote one year ago: 
...
Maybe the first orders for the -NEO will be announced in January, as Scott Hamilton predicts.
Maybe we see some orders for the CSeries complete until the end of January, when the financial year of Bombardier ends.
If there is indeed a flush of orders for those aircraft, we should hear something out of Seattle (aka Chicago) regarding the future of the B737 soon. Southwest seems to prefer a reengining as they do not believe that Boeing will be able to pull out a successor around 2020...
...


There was certainly not a flush of orders for the CSeries - I expected some more (or at least larger - orders than what we have seen.
But the orders for the A320neo clearly made the B737MAX becoming a reality (eventually), so  Southwest gets what it wants.
In the light of the financial uncertainties surrounding the so-called Euro crisis, 2012 will be completely unpredictable in terms of new aircraft orders. But the future market is the narrowbody sector is clear: Airbus and Boeing are focusing on reengining, Embraer will follow after the B737MAX enters airline service. The only all-new aircraft of the western hemisphere will be the Bombardier CSeries and once the aircraft flies it should benefit from that fact.
The chinese C919 as well as the russian MS-21 could become good aircraft - both will have a lot of western technology built in. But if they will become true contenders is dubious. One just has to look how difficult it is for a well-known western OEM like Bombardier to break into the Airbus-Boeing duopoly.
Airbus has to show a lot of progress in the A350 programme to build confidence. The last few weeks showed first fuselage sections coming together, but at this point in time the B787 was on track as well...
Boeing has to deliver  - the B787 namely. Until today they lost against every delivery target they set themselves.
Bombardier has to show the same progress as Airbus for the A350 with their CSeries - a first flight towards the end of the year would be good for them.
Embraer said they want to decide about the engine for their reengined EJets until the end of 2012 -  the race is on between a LEAP derivative, a GTF (maybe PW1524G derivative) and maybe also an offer from Rolls Royce.
Tomorrow that new year (not just in aviation) starts - have fun everyone!

Technology Credibility

During the SWA web press conference about their B737MAX order, the CFM EVP Chaker Chahrour made an interesting statement. Leeham News and Comments has the quote here: "We believe we have much more credible technology than GTF."
Well, apart from that this might have been only some PR talking, I think we should shed some light on the credibility of the quote itself.

First B737MAX firm order

Southwest today firmly ordered 150 B737MAX and thus became the launch customer. Southwest also has 150 options for the MAX. The airline can accept both the -7 and the -8.
Southwest also ordered another 58 B737NG and changed all of their delivieries in 2012 and 2013 from the -700NG to the -800NG.
I think we can expect now some more firm orders for the B737MAX until the end of the year...

B787-8 analysis

Lissys, the software firm providing the PIANO software, did an analysis for early-built B787's and compared the fuel burn for a 5000nm mission carrying 22 metric tonnes of payload with the B767-300ERW (where W is for winglets). The analysis showed that the B787 with it's "near EIS" performance would burn only marginal less fuel than the B767 (50.1t vs. 50.7t, a difference of 1.18%).
But as the author says, the B787 cruises at Ma0.85, where the normal cruise speed of the B767 is Ma0.8. If one lets the B767 fly at Ma0.85, that would result in a fuelburn of 62.7t, so the difference at same speed is 20%. Of course this is not the oríginal claim from Boeing (well, at least I hope so...).

But let us look further into the model of the B787 and why the fuelburn is so high relative to what one should expect from that brand-new aircraft with state-of-the-art engines.
Lissys also provides a baseline model of the B787 from 2008, where the original performance Boeing designed the aicraft for is implemented.
We can now take this baseline model and do a "Point Performance" (click this option in the "Output" box)comparison: say, at 35.000ft, Ma0.85 and a weight of 180 metric tonnes.
Here is an excerpt of the output for the baseline model:
...
 Overall Lift / Drag Ratio = 20.25
 =================================
 Total Lift Force     1765206. newtons
 Total Drag Force       87169. newtons (43584.newtons per engine)
 Engine / Airframe Performance:
 ------------------------------
 Total Fuel Flow at Thrust=Drag:       4791. kg/hr
 Specific Fuel Consumption (SFC)       0.5390 kg/hr/kgf
 Specific Air Range (SAR)              .10226 nm/kg
 Emissions Index, NOx                  11.79 g/kg.
...

And here is the same output for the "near EIS" model:
...
 Overall Lift / Drag Ratio = 19.39
 =================================
 Total Lift Force     1765206. newtons
 Total Drag Force       91049. newtons (45525.newtons per engine)
 Engine / Airframe Performance:
 ------------------------------
 Total Fuel Flow at Thrust=Drag:       5116. kg/hr
 Specific Fuel Consumption (SFC)       0.5511 kg/hr/kgf
 Specific Air Range (SAR)              .09576 nm/kg
 Emissions Index, NOx                  12.03 g/kg.
...

What do we see?

1. Lift/Drag Ratio decreased from 20.25 to 19.39. This is about 4.24%. In other words, the aircraft needs 4.24% more thrust to hold that speed (Ma0.85) with that weight (180 t) at that height (35kft).
2. Specific Fuel Consumption is 0.5511kg/hr/kgf for the near EIS model, where it was 0.539kg/hr/kgf for the 4.24% lower thrust. This is an increase of 2.2%
3. Accordingly, fuel burn per hour is almost 6.8% higher for the near EIS variant.

From all what we know about the Trent1000 and the GEnx engines, the 2.2% miss in SFC is probably a good guess for the early build B787's.
What I do not understand is the 4.24% decrease in Lift/Drag ratio. That would mean that the wings of the B787 have an aerodynamic problem. If I remember correctly, Boeing onces stated that the wing of the B747-8 (which was designed in the same timeframe) is aerodynamically better than expected, so I would guess that the B787 wing is at least as good as it was planned to be.
So I have my doubts about that part of the analysis.

On the other hand:
If we compare the baseline B787 model and the B767-300ERW, the difference in fuel burn for the 5000nm mission is about 9.5% - significant, of course, but far from being 20% as Boeing always claimed.
Even if we add 4% fuel burn for the "non-wingletted" B767-300ER, we are not near the 20%.

So there is the old wisdom, that you need the right aircraft for the right mission...