Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 5. January 17, 2025
- What’s the future of the Boeing 787-8? January 16, 2025
- FAA understaffing affects air operations oversight; NTSB falls short, too January 13, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 4. January 10, 2025
- The market is ready for a 787F. But is Boeing? January 9, 2025
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 5.
By Bjorn Fehrm
January 17, 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 why the technical progress of battery-based aircraft has been slow. Now we look at what type of missions it can do this decade and beyond and why the limitations.
Figure 1. The Diamond eDA40 electric trainer. Source: Diamond. Read more
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 4.
By Bjorn Fehrm
January 10, 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 listed the different projects in the second Corner of the series that have come as far as flying a functional model or prototype. In Part 3, we went through some of the causes of the slow growth. It was a mix of inexperienced startup managments, all wanting to be the new Elon Musk but lacking elementary knowledge in the aeronautical field, to what is the real hard part of an alternative propulsion concept.
Many startups developed new electric motors for eAirplane or eVTOL use, a relatively straightforward development when the real hard part is the batteries. We described how batteries differ significantly from fuel as an energy source in Part 3.
Now, we add a market aspect that is poorly understood by most players.
Figure 1. The Pipistrel Velis Electro trainer. Source: Pipistrel.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 3
By Bjorn Fehrm
November 1, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to replace or improve hydrocarbon propulsion concepts for Air Transport. We will find that development has been very slow.
Last week, we listed the different projects that have come as far as flying a functional model or prototype, as we need this filter to reduce the hundreds of projects that have declared they want to develop such an aircraft type. We can see that we have only a certified two-seat trainer, and one project has a prototype that has started certification, the CX300 six-seater in Figure 1.
Why is the progress so slow?
Figure 1. The Alia CX300 six-seater started certification in 2023. Source: Beta Technologies.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 2.
October 24, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to replace or improve hydrocarbon propulsion concepts for Air Transport. We will find that development has been very slow.
We don’t have, and will not have, a certified and produced aircraft that can transport passengers using anything but classical propulsion concepts this side of 2028 and probably 2030 if we put the bar above five passengers.
This is 14 years after the flight of the Airbus E-Fan in 2014, which started a multitude of studies and projects to explore new, more environmentally friendly ways to propel aircraft.
Figure 1. The Airbus E-fan flying at the 2014 Farnborough Air Show. Source: Wikipedia.
Why is the progress so slow? Normal aircraft development takes seven to a maximum of nine years?
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 1.
By Bjorn Fehrm
October 18, 2024, ©. Leeham News: In Corners over the last years, we have covered new airliner technology and engine developments that would apply to the next-generation airliners in the largest segment of the market, the single-aisle segment, or as we like to call it, the Heart of the Market segment, as it’s not sure it will be a single-aisle aircraft.
The series has assumed this generation will be hydrocarbon-fueled gas turbine-propelled airplanes. Therefore, it has not covered the current state of alternatives to gas turbine-based hydrocarbon propulsion.
We will cover this now. We are now 10 years into the discussions and work of reducing Air Transport’s reliance on hydrocarbon fuels, which started in earnest when Airbus flew the E-Fan battery-electric aircraft at the Farnborough Air Show in 2014, Figure 1.
How are we doing?
Figure 1. Airbus E-Fan at Farnborough Air Show 2014. Source: Wikipedia.
Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 28. Wrapup.
By Bjorn Fehrm
October 11, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We have done an article series on why engine development takes longer than airframe development. Part of the reason is that advancements in engine technology can deliver considerably higher fuel consumption reductions than airframe advancements.
The change of engines for the A320 series and 737 MAX delivered a 15% improvement in engine efficiency. In contrast, the airframe improvement was less than half, mainly by stacking cabin seats closer together.
Figure 1. The 4:1 gear ratio Utrafan demonstrator in the Rolls-Royce test cell. Source: Rolls-Royce.
Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 26. New versus old, Trent 1000 vs. XWB
By Bjorn Fehrm
September 27, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do an article series about engine development and why it has longer timelines than airframe development. It also carries larger risks of product maturity problems when it enters service than the airframe of an airliner.
In our look at examples of recent developments with problems and these put in a historical perspective, looking at the reliability and durability of its predecessor we compare the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 for the Boeing 787 to the Trent XWB for the Airbus A350.
Figure 1. The Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 with its wide cord hollow titanium fan. Source: Rolls-Royce.
Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 25. New versus old, CFM56 vs. LEAP
By Bjorn Fehrm
September 20, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do an article series about engine development and why it has longer timelines than airframe development. It also carries larger risks of product maturity problems when it enters service than the airframe of an airliner.
In our look at examples of recent developments with problems and these put in a historical perspective, we compare the CFM56 to the LEAP, comparing their reliability and durability.
Figure 1. The CFM56 with its mid-span shrouded titanium fan. Source: CFM.
Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 24. New versus old, GTF versus V2500
By Bjorn Fehrm
September 13, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do an article series about engine development and why it has longer timelines than airframe development. It also carries larger risks of product maturity problems when it enters service than the airframe of an airliner.
We have covered the engine’s different parts and their technology challenges. We now look at some examples of recent developments with problems and put them in a historical perspective.
Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 23. Development risks.
By Bjorn Fehrm
September 30, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do an article series about engine development and why it has longer timelines than airframe development. It also carries larger risks of product maturity problems when it enters service than the airframe of an airliner.
We have covered the parts of an engine that involve challenging technology and which decide its reliability (dispatch consistency) and durability (time on wing). Now, we discuss why modern engine design is more challenging regarding these parameters than airframe design.
Figure 1. The Pratt & Whitney GTF in cross-section, one of the new engines. Source: Pratt & Whitney.
