Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Boeing, Airbus still struggle with supply chains and personnel shortages December 13, 2024
- Airbus procurement head “convinced” supply chain issues are on right path December 12, 2024
- CFM gets FAA and EASA certification for a more robust LEAP-1A turbine. December 10, 2024
- Global instability poses questions for aerospace industry December 9, 2024
- How Trump tariffs affected, and could affect, Airbus, Boeing and Embraer December 6, 2024
The production cost trap for eVTOL upstarts
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By Bjorn Fehrm
April 13, 2023, © Leeham News: Last week, we gave the example of a new propulsion principle 30-seat airliner as a project that would face the liquidity strain of initial production costs. We continue today with a look at the leading eVTOL projects, where development costs are passing $1bn and growing.
What will be the cash burn before these projects generate positive cash flow from serial production sales and services? We use our production cost model to analyze the situation.
Figure 1. Our generic eVTOL uses an early rendering of the Vertical VX4 as an illustration. Source: Vertical Aerospace.
Summary:
- VTOL projects promise early payback of invested capital.
- Our production cost model says otherwise.
Bjorn’s Corner: New aircraft technologies. Part 7. Propulsion
By Bjorn Fehrm
April 7, 2023, ©. Leeham News: This is a summary of the article New aircraft technologies. Part 7P. Propulsion. The article discusses how developments in the next-generation airliner propulsion system will be the second most important area for improved efficiency and lower emissions after we have decided on the fuselage type.
Figure 1. The CFM LEAP engine gained 15% efficiency compared to the engine it replaced, the CFM56. Source: CFM.
Bjorn’s Corner: New aircraft technologies. Part 6. Fuselage manufacturing
By Bjorn Fehrm
March 31, 2023, ©. Leeham News: This is a summary of the article New aircraft technologies. Part 6P. Fuselage manufacturing. The article discusses how a non-circular cross-section drives material use towards composites and the difficulties of manufacturing aeronautical composite structures in high volumes.
Figure 1. The elliptical NMA cross-section compared with A321 and 767 cross-sections. Source: Leeham Co.
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Bjorn’s Corner: New aircraft technologies. Part 6P. Fuselage manufacturing
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By Bjorn Fehrm
March 31, 2023, ©. Leeham News: This is a complementary article to Part 6. Fuselage manufacturing. It discusses in detail how to manufacture a non-circular fuselage that avoids fatigue problems.
Bjorn’s Corner: New aircraft technologies. Part 4. Fuselage trades
By Bjorn Fehrm
March 17, 2023, ©. Leeham News: This is a summary of the article New aircraft technologies. Part 4P. Fuselage trades. In the article, we discuss the trade-offs involved in designing a fuselage of an airliner with 250 seats using different architectures.
We examine what parameters decide the performance of an aircraft and how fuselage changes like single aisle versus dual aisle affect these parameters.
Figure 1. induced drag comes from the global air circulation from the bottom to the top of the aircraft. Source: Leeham Co.
Bjorn’s Corner: New aircraft technologies. Part 3P. Airframe improvements
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By Bjorn Fehrm
March 10, 2023, ©. Leeham News: This is a complementary article to New aircraft technologies. Part 3. Airframe improvements. It discusses in detail the areas of an airliner airframe where tangible improvement can be made to make it more efficient and thus lower cost combined with less Green-House-Gas (GHG) emissions.
Bjorn’s Corner: New aircraft technologies. Part 2. Target markets.
March 3, 2023, ©. Leeham News: We started a series last week that will look at what environmental and air traffic economy improvements we can get with traditional aeronautical technology developments.
Before we look at technology, we must define what air transport market has the highest impact from changes. Useful technology developments are not necessarily the same for Regional, Narrowbody, or Widebody aircraft.
Figure 1. The distribution of Available-Seat-Kilometer by airplane type 2019. Source: JADC.
Bjorn’s Corner: Aircraft technology developments. Part 1.
By Bjorn Fehrm
February 24, 2023, ©. Leeham News: In the Sustainable Air Transport series we finished last week, we described new aircraft technologies developed to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.
There was one area we didn’t discuss, the progress on conventional technologies to reduce the fuel burn of an airliner.
We now start a series, digging deeper into what we can do with conventional technologies to reduce the fuel burned per passenger kilometer and, thus, GHG emissions.
Figure 1. Truss braced wing, a way to reduce aircraft drag. Source: Boeing.
The Airbus A220-500, a deep-dive analysis, Part 2
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By Bjorn Fehrm
Jan. 23, 2023, © Leeham News: Following Thursday’s article about an up-and-coming Airbus A220-500, we now look at the operational cost for the A220-500 and compare it with the A320neo it should replace.
We put the data we discussed in Thursday’s article in our Aircraft Performance and Cost model, fly the aircraft on a typical single-aisle mission and look at the results.
Figure 1. A rendering of an A220-500 that takes 157 passengers. Source; Leeham Co.
Summary:
- The A220-500 would be a viable replacement for an A320neo.
- With the changes/improvements we discussed, it beats the A320neo on operational costs. The differences are not of the speculated level, however.
2023 outlook for Sustainable Aviation
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By Bjorn Fehrm
Jan. 16, 2023, © Leeham News: In the years from 2015, Sustainable Aviation awareness has grown from “something interesting, but will it be needed?” to “how do we fix the environmental issues we have fast enough.” Scientists saw what happened 20 years ago, but the general public didn’t react until it affected everyday life.
The development of more Sustainable Aviation solutions has taken a similar route. Until 2015 the changes to morph aviation into a more sustainable path were a scientific discussion. At Le Bourget Air Show 2015, Airbus presented the E-Fan (Figure 1) that would cross the English Channel the following month. It started an intense debate about sustainable propulsion concepts for aircraft.
Eight years later, where are we today, and what will happen in 2023?
Figure 1. Airbus E-Fan at the 2015 Le Bourget Air Show. Source: Wikipedia.
Summary:
- The year will witness the “separation of the wheat from the chaff.” Viable concepts will prove themselves, and thin concepts, technically or funding-wise, will fail.
- We have a number of first flights from interesting projects. Several are in the “wheat” category.
