CFM Archives - Page 21 of 36 - Leeham News and Analysis

Bjorn’s Corner: Aircraft systems, the real nuts to crack

By Bjorn Fehrm

06 November 2015, ©. Leeham Co: COMAC’s C919 was rolled out in the week. We got to see a new shiny aircraft which looked ready to fly. The nicely curved fuselage and wings were immaculate, the paint was shiny and the CFM LEAP-1C engines were ready to go.

Yet many ask, when will it fly for the first time? It used to be that when the airframe was finished and the engines ran reliably it was time to fly. No longer! Today the most challenging part of an aircraft program is the integration of all the complex systems which hide under the skin. This is what kept the Bombardier CSeries on ground longer than it should and the Boeing 787 and Airbus A380 had the same flu (the latter also had to short wires).

It is the part of the aircraft which takes longest to get to work reliably. The A380 is known for its long period of nuisance warnings from the complex avionics system after entry into service and the reliability work for the 787 has to a large extent been one of software tuning of its system side.

As the system function of modern aircraft has grown more complex the whole architecture of how it was built had to be changed. Here’s how.

23 Comments

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Bjorn Fehrm

Airbus, Bjorn's Corner, Boeing, Bombardier, CFM, China, Comac, CSeries

737, 737 MAX, 777, 787, A320, A350, A380, Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Comac, CSeries

No fear of C919 for a generation

Nov. 4, 2015, © Leeham Co. The first COMAC C919 was rolled out of the factory over the weekend, China’s mainline entry into the fiercely competitive arena now “owned” by the Airbus-Boeing duopoly.

COMAC C919. Click on image to enlarge. Photo via Google images.

Although the two giants each has said China is the next competitor they will have to face, the Big Two have nothing to worry about for a generation to come.

Here’s why.

38 Comments

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Scott Hamilton

Airbus, Boeing, CFM, China, Comac

737-8, 737-800, 737NG, A300, A320, A320NEO, Airbus, ARJ21, AVIC, Boeing, C919, C929, CFM, Comac, LEAP

COMAC C919, first analysis

By Bjorn Fehrm

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Introduction

Nov. 04, 2015, ©. Leeham Co: COMAC rolled out China’s first modern airliner Monday. We have commented on its place in the market in a sister article. Here we will do a first analysis of its competitiveness compared to the established aircraft in the 150 to 200 seat single aisle segment.

The C919 is an aircraft which resembles another airliner which is assembled in China, the Airbus A320. Many think it is a carbon copy. While many dimensions and solutions are similar, there is enough original thinking on the aircraft to give China credit for having created their own first mainline airliner.

China is going the safe way and staying away from exotic solutions. Designing close to the most modern aircraft in this size bracket is no fault, it’s being prudent. There is no prior knowledge how to do such an aircraft in the country and the A320 is not a bad model. How good is the final result? We do a first analysis with our proprietary aircraft model and check if COMAC’s claim of 5% better aerodynamics than A320 and lower operating costs holds water.

Summary:

The C919 has the shape of an A320neo but with more modern nose and wingtips.
It is slightly longer than the A320 and has therefore one seat row more in the cabin.
COMAC has sensibly stayed with a fully conventional build-up of the aircraft. It has enough on its plate to learn the ropes of getting a mainline single aisle aircraft through flight testing and certification
The classical build and slightly larger dimension make for a heavier aircraft than A320neo. We check if its more modern wing can bring the performance past the A320neo benchmark.

4 Comments

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Bjorn Fehrm

Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CFM, Comac, CSeries, Premium

737 MAX, A320NEO, Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, CFM, CFM LEAP-1A, CFM LEAP-1C, Comac, CSeries, Pratt & Whitney

Bjorn’s Corner: Engine ratings

By Bjorn Fehrm

02 October 2015, ©. Leeham Co: After the article about the role of bypass ratio on a turbofan’s efficiency, we now look at other aspects of civil turbofan engines that are worth some light. It’s about how the engine OEMs create different versions of the same engine to cater for different aircraft variants.

The aircraft OEMs create different size variants from the same base model of aircraft by means of stretches. There is no better example of that than the Boeing 737. Over the years it has had more than 10 major versions. For the present in-service series, 737NG, there is three official variants, from the -700 to the -900ER. Originally it also had a smaller -600 variant.

These require engines from 20klbf to 27klbf. How this is achieved and what it means for engine characteristics and reliability is the focus of today’s Corner. We will also compare it to a typical long range engine, the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000/7000, which powers the Boeing 787 and Airbus A330neo.

42 Comments

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Bjorn Fehrm

Airbus, Bjorn's Corner, Boeing, CFM, Rolls-Royce

737, 737NG, 787, Airbus, Boeing, CFM, Rolls-Royce

Assessing the China market

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Introduction

Sept. 30, 2015, (c) Leeham Co.: The Boeing deals announced last week with China put the country into the spotlight about its commercial aviation ambitions.

For many, the various deals announced by Boeing raise alarm bells. For most, that fire horse already left the fire station. The smoke has been billowing out of China (or maybe that’s smog) for a long, long time.

Summary

Boeing announces 300 orders and commitments for China, though the company was vague about the details. We try to dissect what’s real and what’s smoke.
Additional deals announced by Boeing are driven by China’s pay-to-play approach to business.
Other OEMs, suppliers also have to pay-to-play.
China’s deals with Airbus and Boeing are only two elements of a national goal for commercial aerospace.
IP theft and technology transfer big concerns.

Evaluating airliner performance, Part 2

By Bjorn Fehrm

Subscription required.

Introduction

Sep. 24 2015, ©. Leeham Co: In the second part of our series about comparing and evaluating economic and operational performance of airliners, we look at the parts beyond fuel that make up the Cash Operating Costs (COC) for an airliner.

While fuel consumption, crew costs and aircraft maintenance costs can be evaluated in a way which closely resembles reality, other costs in the COC are too complex to model in their true form.

This is the case for underway or airway fees, landing fees and station fees. Here, just about every country/airport in the world has taken the liberty to invent its own charging principles and formulas. With several hundred different formulae for these charges, the way out is to use industry-accepted approximation for these costs.

Summary:

We establish how crew cost are modeled for our evaluation missions, taking into account the complex world of work time regulations for pilots and cabin crew.
We also describe how we handle airframe and engine maintenance costs and how these get allocated to our missions.
Finally, we describe how the complex underway and landing/station costs are modeled with the accepted approximations these require.

Evaluating airliner performance, part 1.

By Bjorn Fehrm

Subscription required.

Introduction

Sep. 21 2015, ©. Leeham Co: Comparing and evaluating operational and economic performance of competing airliners is a complex task that requires analysis of thousands of parameters.

It’s not unknown for smaller airlines to have limited capability to undertake these difficult analyses. Accordingly, they often rely on the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for their analysis on behalf of the potential customer.

Unfortunately, the OEM’s have little incentive to provide an unbiased view of either their products nor those of their competitors.

Thorough evaluations require quite some preparations. If these preparations are not carried out correctly, the result can be biased to the extent that the evaluation method dictates which’s the best aircraft and not the most suitability aircraft for the task. We will in a series of articles cover how aircraft evaluations are done and how evaluation pitfalls can be avoided.

Summary:

Aircraft evaluations are made for all direct operating costs that can be linked directly to the operation of the airliner.
The costs can be divided in Cash Operating Costs (COC), which covers the operation of the aircraft and capital costs. Combined these costs constitute the Direct Operating Costs, DOC.
The OEMs produce data for all COC cost items, but they do that in their own way. To make the costs comparable one need to know and understand their assumptions and neutralize these through independent modeling of the costs.
We describe what these assumptions are and how to neutralize them.

Read more

1 Comment

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Bjorn Fehrm

Airbus, ATR, Boeing, Bombardier, CFM, Embraer, GE Aviation, International Aero Engines, Pratt & Whitney, Premium, Rolls-Royce

Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer

Bjorn’s Corner: Engine efficiency

18 September 2015, ©. Leeham Co: The debate around the market’s two single aisle combatants is quite heated, with fans of the one side saying “the limited space for a high bypass engine on the 737 MAX will cripple it forever” and the other side saying “the tighter design of the 737 will make it highly competitive against the A320neo, it is the A320 which has a weight and size problem”.

One of the arguments is that each inch of engine fan diameter brings 0.5% in increased propulsive efficiency. Therefore the A320 with up to 81 inches fans will win against the 737 MAX, which has a 69 inch fan. Having all the tools to check out if this is really the truth, I fed our airplane model with all the facts and looked at the result. It’s not so easy, guys…

103 Comments

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Bjorn Fehrm

Airbus, Bjorn's Corner, Boeing, CFM, GE Aviation, International Aero Engines, Pratt & Whitney

737 MAX, A320NEO, Airbus, Boeing, CFM, CFM LEAP-1A, CFM Leap-1B, GTF, Pratt & Whitney, PW1100

Airbus ‘confident’ engine makers can ramp up production

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Introduction

Sept. 17, 2015, © Leeham Co., Mobile (AL): Tom Enders, the chairman and CEO of Airbus Group, is “confident” engine makers can accommodate single-aisle airplane production ramp-ups being considered by Airbus and Boeing.

CFM makes about 50% of the engines on the A320 Family and has about 50% of the backlog for the New

Tom Enders, CEO of Airbus Group. Airbus photo.

Engine Option version. Pratt & Whitney has about the same market share for the NEO, depending on what month it is, with a large number of orders for which no engine has been selected.

Airbus and Boeing are each studying whether to ramp up production of the A320 and 737 families above the record rates already planned.

In an interview Sunday with Leeham News and Comment in advance of the A320 Final Assembly Line opening here, Enders said studies continue whether to take A320 production rates to 60 a month. Boeing is studying rates of 60-63 a month.

Summary

Decision whether to go to rate 60/mo should come by year end.
Suppliers, engine “partner” key to decision.
A380 sales “struggling,” but confidence remains.
More export sales for A400M program expected.

A320 FAL “good for US aerospace,” says Airbus

Sept. 16, 2015, © Leeham Co., Mobile (AL): The opening of the Airbus A320 Final Assembly Line here achieves a major set of goals set by the company 10 years ago for its own strategic purposes, but officials are also mindful of the larger impact on US aerospace.

David L. Williams, VP Procurement, Airbus Americas. Photo via Google images.

Top executives point out that the Mobile plant reestablished a second commercial aviation assembly site in the US since the last MD-11s and MD-95s rolled out of the former McDonnell Douglas plant in Long Beach (CA) after its acquisition by The Boeing Co in 1997. Boeing continued production of the MD-11 until the end of 2000 (with deliveries occurring in 1Q2001). The last MD-95, renamed the Boeing 717, was produced in 2006. There were 200 MD-11s and 156 717s produced.

With nearly 10 years elapsing between that last 717 and the first A321ceo coming out of Mobile, Airbus officials say the creation of the FAL is not only good for Airbus and Alabama, it’s good for US aerospace.

11 Comments

Posted on September 16, 2015 by Scott Hamilton

Airbus, Boeing, CFM, McDonnell Douglas, Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance, Pratt & Whitney

717, A320 final assembly line, A321ceo, Airbus, Airbus Mobile, Boeing, CFM, David L. Williams, McDonnell Douglas, MD-11, MD-95, Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance, PNAA, Pratt & Whitney

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Leeham News and Analysis

There's more to real news than a news release.

Leeham News and Analysis

Bjorn’s Corner: Aircraft systems, the real nuts to crack

No fear of C919 for a generation

COMAC C919, first analysis

Bjorn’s Corner: Engine ratings

Assessing the China market

Evaluating airliner performance, Part 2

Evaluating airliner performance, part 1.

Bjorn’s Corner: Engine efficiency

Airbus ‘confident’ engine makers can ramp up production

A320 FAL “good for US aerospace,” says Airbus

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