Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Bjorn’s Corner: Faster aircraft development. Part 1.
By Bjorn Fehrm
August 1, 2025, ©. Leeham News: Four years ago I did a series about aircraft development together with Henry Tam and Andrew Telesca. Both worked on the Mitsubishi Spacejet program. You can find the series here.
It was about the arduous task of developing and producing a certified aircraft for the FAA Part 23 standard and its EASA equivalent. The idea was to better describe what’s ahead for the many upstarts that wanted to develop 9-seat and 19-seat alternative propulsion aircraft.
Now we do a series about recent ideas on how the long development times for large airliners can be shortened. New projects talk about cutting development calendar time by one-third or more. Is this realistic?
Figure 1. The A350 development schedule from December 2011. Source: Airbus.
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What’s the next new aircraft, Part 5
By Scott Hamilton and Bjorn Fehrm
July 31, 2025, © Leeham News: We wrap up our five-part series today on What’s the Next New Airplane in the coming decades. We now look at Airplanes 9-13 in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. The 13 airliners we look at in the series. Source: Leeham Co.
These are the (9) COMAC 929, (10) Eco-version of New Light Twin, (11) CFM Open Fan single aisle, (12) the Boeing 787 re-engine, and (13) the Airbus A350 re-engine.
What’s the next new aircraft, Part 4
By Bjorn Fehrm
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July 28, 2025, © Leeham News: In Part 4 of our five-part series on examining the potential next generation of aircraft in the coming decades, we take a closer look at Aircraft 5 to 8 in our Figure 1.
Figure 1. The 13 airliners we look at in the series. Source: Leeham Co.
These are the (5) GE, NASA, and Boeing hybrid airliner, (6) Airbus ZEROe hydrogen airliner, (7) Boeing’s NMA, and (8) the Boeing New Light Twin.
We examine the market for these aircraft, their technological challenges, and their potential future.
What’s the next new aircraft? Part 3
By Scott Hamilton and Bjorn Fehrm
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July 24, 2025, © Leeham News: In Part 3 of our five-part series on examining the potential next generation of aircraft in the coming decades, we take a closer look at Aircraft projects 1 to 4 in our Figure 1.
Figure 1. The 13 airliner ideas we look at in the series. Source: Leeham Co.
These are the (1) A220-500, (2) Boeing’s Transonic Truss Brace Wing (TTBW), (3) Boom’s Overture Super Sonic Transport (SST), and (4) the Blended Wing Body (BWB) aircraft suggested by leading proponent Jet Zero.
What’s the next new aircraft, Part 2
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By Bjorn Fehrm
July 21, 2025, © Leeham News: Our series about “What’s the next new aircraft” was introduced last week, where we look at what potential new aircraft could be introduced over the following decades, and what technologies these would use.
In Part 2 of the five-part series, we introduce some basics around aircraft efficiency and examine what areas these 13 new aircraft aim to improve to enhance their efficiency.
In the following Parts, we will look into these aircraft in more detail and write about how challenging it will be to develop and mature the needed technologies.
Figure 1. The 13 new aircraft concepts that we study. Source: Leeham Co.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 26.
By Bjorn Fehrm
June 13, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to improve the emission situation for Air Transport. We try to understand why development has been slow.
We have examined different ways to lower global warming over the course of the series. Over the last weeks, we have summarized what practical results we can expect from the different alternatives we have to reduce global warming from Air Transport. We looked at the following alternatives:
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 20.
By Bjorn Fehrm
May 2, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to improve the emission situation for Air Transport. We try to understand why development has been slow.
We have since we started in October last year looked at:
- Alternative, lower emission, propulsion technologies, ranging from electric aircraft with batteries as energy source, different propulsion hybrids and new concepts for Jet-fuel and hydrogen gas turbine engines.
- We have also reviewed recent research on the role of CO2, NOx emissions, and Contrails generated by airliners.
- Last week, we summarized the present situation around SAF, Sustainable Aviation Fuel.
Before we proceed, we shall examine some facts about the scale of the emission/global warming influences from Air Transport.
Figure 1. A picture of global Air Transport flying different routes. Source: Flightradar24.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 11.
By Bjorn Fehrm
February 28, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to replace or improve hydrocarbon propulsion concepts for Air Transport. We try to understand why the development has been slow.
Last week, we discussed the fact that Airbus has moved its hydrogen-fueled ZEROe aircraft into the 2040s and that it will be fuel cell based. It’s a bit of an irony that Pratt &Whitney announced major news for the alternative hydrogen burn alternative four weeks before. Let’s dissect what Pratt & Whitney announced.
Figure 1. Hans von Ohain’s first jet engine started on hydrogen in 1937. Source: Wikipedia.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 10.
By Bjorn Fehrm
February 21, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to replace or improve hydrocarbon propulsion concepts for Air Transport. We try to understand why the development has been slow.
Last week, we reviewed the present fallout of lower emission projects that have not reached their goals and where investors, therefore, have decided not to invest further.
There is a well-known project failing every month at the present pace. Some recent ones: Universal Hydrogen’s ATR conversions, Volocopter and Lilium’s bankruptcies, Airbus freezing the CityAirbus eVTOL (Figure 1) and pushing out the ZEROe hydrogen airliner, hibernation of the Alice battery aircraft, etc. There will probably be more in the coming months.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 9.
By Bjorn Fehrm
February 14, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to replace or improve hydrocarbon propulsion concepts for Air Transport. We try to understand why the development has been slow.
We have covered the progress of battery-based aircraft and hybrids. Last Corner started looking at hydrogen-fueled alternatives. A day after the Corner, the Airbus workers union Force Ovrier published information from an Airbus internal meeting, in which the airframer delayed the introduction of a hydrogen aircraft by 2035 to about 10 years later. As a consequence, it reduces the R&D spending on the development of hydrogen propulsion technologies.
Figure 1. The Airbus ZEROe concepts. Source: Airbus.