Leeham News and Analysis
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Carbon footprint: Regional jet versus turboprop, how large is the difference?
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By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
January 27, 2022, © Leeham News: Last week, we kicked off a series of articles where we will measure what difference our choice of flying makes to the primary Greenhouse gas emission, CO2.
We have upgraded our airliner performance model for the series to give a direct output of the CO2 emissions for the flights in different phases.
We start this week by comparing a typical domestic feeder flight of 300 nm, with an example route of Cleveland to Chicago O’Hare. What will be the time differences? And the fuel burn and CO2 emission difference?
To make it a fair comparison, we’ll use present generation aircraft flying on the US market, the Embraer E175 and De Havilland’s DH 8-400. We will fly the DH 8 at a high-speed cruise to keep the flight time differences within 10 minutes.
Horizon Air DH 8-400. Source: Wikipedia.
Summary
- As expected, the turboprop is the more efficient mode of transportation on the route. It consequently emits less CO2 per transported passenger.
- With new, more comfortable turboprops in the works, the drive for sustainability could see a return of the turboprop to the US market.
Bjorn’s Corner: Sustainable Air Transport. Part 3. Low hanging fruit.
By Bjorn Fehrm
January 21, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Whatever is done in terms of new Sustainable technology for the aircraft, will have a limited influence on the amount of Greenhouse gases that Air Transport emits before 2050.
We will only get the new aircraft types into operation about 15 years before the deadline and with, on average, 100 to 200 aircraft per year. That’s 1,500 to 3,000 of the total of 25,000 aircraft that operate in our skies daily. It will not reduce our Greenhouse gas emissions significantly.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel, SAF, will help, but only when it’s available in quantity and to a reasonable cost. We can do things that have a much faster effect, and that’s how we manage our flights.
Figure 1. The US flights as seen on Flightradar24 yesterday. Source: Flightradar24.
Bjorn’s Corner: Sustainable Air Transport. Part 2. The problem to solve?
By Bjorn Fehrm
January 14, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Before we dig into the different alternatives we have for more Sustainable Air Transport, let’s look at the problem and its sources.
Figure 1 shows the emissions of CO2 per person since 1900 and the rise of the world temperature. The increase in world temperature changes the weather, with increased weather-related emergencies in recent years.
Figure 1. The increase in CO2 emission per capita and the rise of the world temperature from 1900 to 2018. Source: Wikipedia.
Bjorn’s Corner: Sustainable Air Transport. Part 1. A deeper look.
By Bjorn Fehrm
January 7, 2022, ©. Leeham News: We finished a 34 article series before Christmas about the enormous work involved to get a new aircraft certified for passenger transport.
It was a background article series to the one we start now, a deeper series on what’s involved in designing air transport vehicles that are less polluting for our environment. We have seen a landslide of such projects in the last years, and from an experienced aircraft designer’s desk, most of these are doomed for failure.
Figure 1. The Embraer Energia concept aircraft. A credible Sustainable Air Transport research program. Source: Embraer.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 20. Production site and facilities
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca
September 10, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we looked at the Rig design and manufacture for ground and flight testing.
We are now at the stage in our program (Figure 1) where we shall have scouted and deliberated over our Final Assembly production site (Violet bars). We now need to decide on the site and what facilities we need to build and/or hire.
Figure 1. The program plan for our project. Source: Leeham Co.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 19. Test rigs for ground and air use
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca
September 3, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we looked at the Certification Compliance Planning we do concurrently with Detailed Design, Figure 1.
It’s now time for us to work on our Test rigs and systems for ground and flight testing. We need to get these defined before we freeze the aircraft’s configuration and start making our flight test aircraft.
Figure 1. The program plan for our project. Source: Leeham Co.
Sustainable Aero Lab disqualifies “Greenwash” investments
By Bjorn Fehrm
August 25, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Times change and the use of words with it. Today, the hundreds of UAM Air Taxi projects talk about how “environmentally friendly” this mode of transportation is, and Boom’s Overture is “the most Sustainable supersonic airliner.” The aerospace media recently focused on how we now have “Space Travel for everyone (in possession of the necessary pocket change).”
The head of Sustainable Aero Lab, Stephan Uhrenbacher, disqualifies these investments in a study on where to invest in fixing air transport’s pressing problems: “The startups receiving the most attention in aerospace recently have been doing space travel and urban air taxis. While these products make for exiting flying objects and satisfy human desire, neither air taxis nor putting more people in space address the problem facing commercial aviation: Flying needs to become carbon-free. And this needs to happen much faster than most people in the industry believe. It opens room for startups to provide components for future aircraft or even entire planes, but also new modes of operation.”
Figure 1. The promising Sustainable Aviation startups. Source: Sustainable Aero Lab.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 17. Detailed design
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca.
August 20, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we went through our second Design Refinement and how our Processes and Tools must be mature because the next step in the Post Launch phase is Detailed Design.
If the previous phases were about research and inspirational design work, where we measured, collated, and documented the overall design data for the aircraft, Detail Design is about a massive amount of work packages and execution.
Figure 1. The Design of wing structure in CATIA 5. Source: Youtube channel: Magic of Design Software.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 16. Post Launch.
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca.
August 13, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we went through the Certification Application, one of the most important milestones in the Pre-Launch phase.
Now we assume we got a Product Launch approval from our board/Investors. We start looking at the work packages that meet us in the Post Launch phase.
Figure 1. The Program Plan for our Green 19 seater. Source: Leeham Co. Click to see in full scale.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 14. The ATO.
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca.
July 30, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we went through the later tasks in the Prelaunch Phase. We talked about Concept refinement, Supplier selection, and Certification work.
Now we dig deeper into the important Authorization To Offer (ATO) milestone. This is where the project starts to promise stuff to customers and others, and it can be both good and bad.
Figure 1. The Program Plan for our Green 19 seater. Source: Leeham Co. Click to see in full scale.