Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Boeing wants to remarket China’s airplanes. It’s costly and time consuming. April 28, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 19. April 25, 2025
- How good is the C929? Part 2. April 24, 2025
- Boeing First Quarter Results Update: China is 10% of the backlog, with 500 in “Unidentified” April 24, 2025
- Boeing First Quarter Results: Tariffs, Return flights, $10.55bn asset sale April 23, 2025
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of hydrogen. Part 17. Hydrogen airliner program
By Bjorn Fehrm
December 11, 2020, ©. Leeham News: We use this Corner to define the time table for our hydrogen airliner program and for what areas we need to conduct risk-reducing research before we embark on an actual design.
As we said in last week’s Corner, we aim to develop a hydrogen airliner for the heart of the domestic market after the COVID-19 Pandemic. It’s a 160 to 180 seat single-aisle turbofan driven airliner, using liquid hydrogen as the fuel.
Figure 1. Airbus ZEROe hydrogen-fueled airliner concepts. Source: Airbus.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of Hydrogen. Part 16. A Hydrogen airliner
December 4, 2020, ©. Leeham News: To dig a level deeper into the challenges of hydrogen airliners, as a next step we design such a plane (on a high level), now that we have covered the basics.
It will make us traverse the fundamental design tradeoffs of such a design. Reflecting on what we discussed in Part 3, “The Application Space for a Hydrogen Airliner,” we focus on the single-aisle short-haul domestic market, Figure 1.
Figure 1. CO2 emissions per aircraft type and range flown. Source: EU Hydrogen Powered Aviation report.
Bjorn’s Corner: 737 MAX ungrounding, ANAC’s and EASA’s decisions
By Bjorn Fehrm
November 27, 2020, ©. Leeham News: After the lifting on the grounding order by the FAA, ANAC (Brazils regulator) followed in the week, and EASA issued its plans for public comment.
What are the differences in the ungrounding conditions, and what are the reasons for any differences?
Figure 1. Circuit Breaker placement for the 737 NG and MAX. Source: Leeham Co. and Flightdeck737.be
Bjorn’s Corner: 737 MAX ungrounding, the technical background
By Bjorn Fehrm
November 20, 2020, ©. Leeham News: This week’s big news is the lifting of the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX.
I wrote about the changes made to the MAX Wednesday and why I believe it’s safe. Let’s use our Corner space to walk through what I wrote about, but with a more technical angle.
Figure 1. 737 MAX nacelles (right) compared with 737 NG nacelles (left). Source: Boeing and Leeham Co.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of Hydrogen. Part 15. Hydrogen cost
By Bjorn Fehrm
November 13, 2020, ©. Leeham News: In our series on hydrogen as an energy store for airliners, we now look at the cost of hydrogen.
The current cost-efficient production is predominantly by reforming natural gas, meaning it’s a process that involves carbons. Hydrogen as an energy transporter then makes no sense as the point is to de-carbonize our energy supply.
Figure 1. Cost of Hydrogen by 2040 as projected by the EU study. Source: EU.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of Hydrogen. Part 14. Supply of Hydrogen
By Bjorn Fehrm
November 6, 2020, ©. Leeham News: In our series on Hydrogen as an energy store for airliners we now look at how to create a supply industry for hydrogen.
The problem of a sizable and competitive hydrogen supply industry is a chicken or egg problem. To achieve a competitive and functioning hydrogen transport system we need an adequate hydrogen infrastructure and to get an adequate hydrogen industry we need large-scale consumers.
Figure 1. The CO2 problem and the main contributors. Source: Wikipedia.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of Hydrogen. Part 13. The supply of Hydrogen
October 30, 2020, ©. Leeham News: In our series on Hydrogen as an energy store for airliners we now address the problem of liquid hydrogen supply for air transport.
Before we go into the ecosystem and its costs, let’s start with a more principle discussion. Is continuing today’s consumption pattern a valid alternative?
Figure 1. World energy consumption by type and development. Source: Wikipedia.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of Hydrogen. Part 12. Safety
By Bjorn Fehrm
October 23, 2020, ©. Leeham News: In our series on Hydrogen as an energy store for airliners we look deeper at the safety of a hydrogen airliner.
Do the safety rules for the aircraft or the airport need to be written new or can the existing ones be used with changes?
Bjorn’s Corner: Do I get COVID in airline cabins? Part 13. DOD tests confirm OEM results.
By Bjorn Fehrm
October 15, 2020, ©. Leeham News: Yesterday the USTRANSCOM and its US Air Force Air Mobility Command (AMC) published the results of extensive airliner COVID infection risk tests. The tests, which were made to check the risks for DOD personnel using commercial flights, were made on United 777-200 and 767-300 aircraft in cooperation with United.
The tests checked aerosol dispersion of the virus in the cabins for both simulated flights and real flights. The result was you need to sit next to an infectious person for 54 hours to inhale a viral load that could make you sick (worst case).
Figure 1. DOD tests in the cabin of United aircraft. Source: DOD.
Bjorn’s Corner: Do I get COVID in airline cabins? Part 12. New results.
October 9, 2020, ©. Leeham News: We interrupt our series about hydrogen as an energy store for airliners to go back to our previous theme for a Friday or two: Do I get COVID in airline cabins?
IATA, Airbus, Boeing, and Embraer did a joint presentation yesterday about their latest knowledge about COVID and flying, and with the Pandemic entering the second wave in many countries it’s a timely subject.
Figure 1. IATA’s statistics over 1.2 billion passengers flying with 2839 contagious persons on board. 44 others got infected during the flights. Source: IATA.