A new (civil) engine OEM!

And now for something completely different! Well, not completely - at least, it is about aero engines. But smaller ones: Snecma and Cessna announced, that the new "Silvercrest" engine will power the Cessna Citation Longitude, a stretched version of the Latitude (both models share the same fuselage cross section). The Longitude will be the largest Cessna ever build. The choice of the "Silvercrest" comes with a little bit of surprise, as most Cessna models have P&WC engines. Also the shelved Columbus would have been powered by a P&WC engine, the PW810.
So here is Silvercrest - and with that engine (which will also power the next Dassault Falcon, the "SMS", as "rumours" know) we have a new civil engine OEM - until today, Snecma was "just" a military OEM. Of course, Snecma has a vast experience in the civil sector through CFM as a 50% shareholder. But the business aviation sector is a little bit different than the airlines business.
What strikes me is the claim that the engine will burn 15% less fuel than existing engines in the 10-12,000lbs class. I don't know any engine that is in that thrust class today - it is virtually a new thrust class, so the claim is a little bit misleading or at least difficult to understand.
But further looking into the configuration of that engine, I would say it should be a very efficient one: with a BPR of around 6 the propulsive efficiency is way better than engines we typically have in that arena. And with a 4 stage booster behind the fan and a 4 stage axial/1 stage radial  HPC the OPR should be also considerably higher than for a PW300 or HTF7000 or even the higher thrust BR710.
But I doubt that fuel burn is a decisive factor in that segment anyway. If you buy an aircraft for $26 million and spend (typically) some more million $ for the finishing inside, you do not really care about fuel burn. Business aircraft are only flying 400-500 hours a year.
So please welcome Snecma to the world of civil engine OEM's - and wish them good luck with Silvercrest.

The Superjet Crash

There are a lot of commentaries about the crash of the Superjet in Indonesia, killing all 45 people on board.
Almost all commentaries point out that future Superjet sales will take a hard hit because of the crash - not so fast, I would say: if the reason for the crash was a pilot error, then why should that hurt sales. In the end the Superjet is a modern design with all the latest western systems in it. Fuel burn could of course be better - the design of the SaM146 engine is, like the PW6000, build upon low maintenance costs, not on lowest fuel consumption.
Remember the crash of one of the earliest A320 in 1988 at Muehlhausen-Habsheim: a pilot error also, but many pilots pointed to the fly-by-wire system of the A320 as the root cause. Did it hurt A320 sales in the long run? Definitely not.
Also the crash of one of the A330 prototypes (due to a wrong autopilot input) did not hurt A330 sales.
So I would be careful to predict a slump in sales for the Superjet - it is too early to draw conclusions before we do not know what happened on board, especially in the cockpit.

B777-9 will (more than) challenge the A350-1000

UPDATE: Thank you for the comment! Of course I picked a wrong MTOW for the 777-300ER. I corrected it and the values coming out of it. The basic conclusion keeps the same, especially as the announced SFC reduction of the GE9X will be 10% rather than 7%.
Of course, even with the small increase in inner diameter of the B777-X a ten-abreast seating will be less comfortable than a 9 abreast-seating in the A350. And more capacity is always higher risk (for revenue vs. costs), but for all current B747-400 routes the B777-9 would be the ideal replacement. The A350-1000 will fly with lower costs per flight, so if you can fill the A350-1000 it will be a profit maker as well.
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The proposed B777-X models, the larger B777-9 holding about 405 passengers and the B777-8 with about 350 seats, should slash fuel burn per seat by 15% (B777-9 vs. B777-300ER) and about 10% (B777-8 vs. B777-200LR).
Is that possible? Let's have a look by taking a very simple approach and concentrate on the comparison

LEAP leaps ahead...

After Qantas announced that that they choose the LEAP-1A for their 78 A320neo, the CFM engine has a clear lead in the neo engine race. The first A320neo to be delivered will be operated by lowcost subsidiary jetstar. This is a blow to P&W and it's allies, as jetstar is a current IAE V2500 customer. But obviously GE's and CFM's leverage was better - GE supplies the GEnx for Qantas B787 and CFM of course has it's stakes at Qantas on the current 64 aircraft strong B737 fleet. Also the A330 fleet is equipped with the CF6-80.
This deal shows again that despite of current rumours about the LEAP engine being up to 4% behind the GTF in fuel burn (and I personally doubt that the number is actually that high), there are always other considerations driving business decisions at airlines. Fuel burn might have become more important in these days, but there is more to consider for an airline...

Am I biased?

In the airliners.net forum there is a discussion about my last blog entry and that I am biased towards Airbus and the GTF and against Boeing and GE/CFM.

Am I? Well, yes and no! I am partially biased - but only by knowledge (where applicable). After all I am an engineer always looking for the best technical solution.
And I am not biased - I have absolutely nothing against the B737MAX itself. In fact, if you look at a posts from June 2011  you will see that I was sceptical that Boeing will do a NSA (New Small Aircraft) but was in favor of the reengining. I am very sure that Boeing will build a very capable aircraft. If the fuel burn improvement comes out as advertised by Boeing, the range capability of the B737MAX-8 will be for sure better than that of the A320 family. The article from Aspire Aviation points it out, although with the same payload as the A320 (150pax) the B737MAX-8 range will be boosted more than 405nm (as this is the range increase at max payload), so the advantage for the MAX is even larger than 3645nm vs. 3510nm.
I have just (and admittedly not just one time) offered my doubts about the LEAP-X concept, especially for the B737, where the fan diameter is restricted. You just can't argue against physics. And I have seen and read that I am not the only one who have doubts - also regarding the LEAP-1A for the A320neo. And in my last blog I just quoted what was stated in the article with some own comments. I will quote now the preamble of this article to underline that these statements are not my statements, but that they seem to be well researched and credible:

(quote)
Before you read this article
In the course of its research Airline Economics has gained direct input from the signatories on both sides of agreements for the aircraft and engines in question, from airlines, original equipment manufacturers and lessors. We also have had input from people involved in deals and engineering input from those working on the programmes. Airline Economics is now aware how much was paid for what, what mistakes were made, and knows who is worried. See Airline Economics, issues one, two and three, 201, for background on these aircraft and their engines. Thank you to those that helped with this article.
(end quote)

Currently I am working on a comparison between the A350 family and the proposed B777-X. I am not done yet, but I can already say that the A350, especially the -1000 will not look too good. The -800 will be (if ever build, what seems to be doubtful) what Michael O'Leary would call a dogs dinner, but falls out of the comparison with the B777-X family anyway and does not look good against the B787 family.
Finally, I am a big fan of the GE90-115B fan - not to forget the rest of the engine!