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 27. June 20, 2025
- Pontifications: A Personal Note June 19, 2025
- Airbus books 142 firm orders as Boeing retracts from the Paris Air Show June 19, 2025
- AIN Media Group Agrees to Acquire Leeham News & Analysis June 17, 2025
- Five for Five: Air India crash points to systemic problems at Boeing that CEO Ortberg must fix June 15, 2025
P&W: the troubled GTF will be the best engine for the next single-aisle airplane
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By Scott Hamilton
June 11, 2025, © Leeham News: Three manufacturers are designing engines that could be used on the replacement aircraft for the Airbus A320neo and Boeng 737 MAX families.
Rick Deurloo, president of Pratt & Whitney Commercial Engines. Credit: PW.
GE Aerospace and Safran, via their joint venture CFM International, are designing the RISE Open Fan engine. As the name suggests, the fan on open to the air and not surrounded by a nacelle. The Open Fan is an off-shoot of the 1980s Open Rotor engine that was equipped with counter-rotating fans with no nacelle. The Open Fan has only one fan, with vanes aft of it that may be adjusted to tweak efficiency.
Pratt & Whitney is placing its bet on an evolution of the Geared Turbo Fan (GTF).
Rolls-Royce is developing a new turbofan engine called the UltraFan, a conventional nacelle-equipped GTF of its own.
PW and RR believe conventional engines are the best choice for the next single aisle airplane. GE believes the RISE is the best choice.
At a media briefing in advance of the Paris Air Show, PW president of Commercial Engines Rick Deurloo basically threw down the gauntlet to GE.
New RISE powerplant benefits from decades of GE research and development
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By Scott Hamilton
June 5, 2025, © Leeham News: Decades of research and development by GE Aerospace are a key element in the potential program of a step-change engine for the next new single-aisle airliner.
Mohamed Ali, SVP, chief technology and operations officer. Credit: GE Aerospace.
The RISE open fan engine, a joint project of GE and France’s Safran under the banner CFM International, has a huge fan without an engine nacelle, hence the name “open fan.”
One major concern about an engine without a shroud or nacelle to contain a blade failure is that the engine “throwing” a blade could penetrate the fuselage, causing injury or death to the passenger and substantial damage to the aircraft.
In a briefing last week by GE Aerospace, Mohamed Ali, the Senior Vice President, chief technology and operations officer, said the RISE’s composite blades benefit from millions of flight hours of composite blades on the GE90 (Boeing 777), CFM LEAP (Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A320neo), GEnx (Boeing 787) and GE9X (Boeing 777X) engines. None of these engines (which have nacelles) has ever thrown a composite blade.
GE says the RISE can reduce fuel consumption, and with it lower emissions, by at least 20%. RISE is currently a development program. However, the company clearly is betting that this is the wave of the future. Rivals Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce instead are betting on evolutions of conventional turbofan engines as a “safer” bet.
GE targets RISE’s entry into service in 2035. Officials say the R&D remains on track to meet this date.
Engine makers emphasizing durability, reliability
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By Scott Hamilton
Larry Culp, CEO of GE Aerospace. Credit: GE.
June 3, 2025, © Leeham News: Engine reliability and durability for the next new commercial aviation engine for the next new single-aisle airplane has emerged as the top demand of airlines and lessors.
Burned, frustrated, and angry by shortcomings in these areas in engines from every manufacturer, potential customers prioritize getting these areas right over reduced fuel consumption and lower emissions.
Airlines have had issues of varying severity with GE Aerospace’s GEnx (the Boeing 787); the CFM LEAP (Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX); Pratt & Whitney’s Geared Turbo Fan (Airbus A220 and A320neo and Embraer E2); and Rolls-Royce (Boeing 787, Airbus A350-1000). (GE is a 50% joint venture partner in CFM, with France’s Safran holding the other 50%.)
Tim Clark, the president of Emirates Airline, has been publicly vocal about his concerns regarding these issues with the forthcoming Boeing 777-9 and its massive GE9X engine, which is now undergoing flight testing. He’s also cited durability issues with the RR Trent XWB-97 engine on the Airbus A350-1000 as his key reason for holding off on ordering this model. Emirates has just taken delivery of the first A350-900s, the smaller version of the A350, powered by the Trent XWB-84. Reliability and durability issues have been reported for the smaller -900 and lower-thrust XWB-84 in the harsh Middle East environment.
In an appearance at an investors’ conference on May 28 hosted by Bernstein Research, GE CEO Larry Culp discussed these issues with the LEAP engine and how lessons learned apply to the RISE open fan.
Does an A220-500 need a new wing and engines? Part 3.
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By Bjorn Fehrm
May 29, 2025, © Leeham News: We are writing an article series about stretching the A220 to a capacity in the A320neo range. The idea is to replace the A320neo over time to make room in the A320/321 production lines for more A321s and extend the A220 family with a larger variant.
We analyzed what we need to change to bring the capacity to the level of the A320neo. We could achieve this with a fuselage stretch, but then the Maximum TakeOff Weight (MTOW) would need to increase to keep the A220 range. The wing and engines would then have problems, the takeoff run would get longer, and the climb to an efficient initial cruise altitude would be affected.
We now examine the potential fixes for these problems.
Figure 1. A rendering of an A220-500. Source: Leeham Co.
Summary:
- The A220-300 wing is not highly loaded compared to other Airbus single-aisle aircraft. With some modifications, it should be sufficient for an A220-500.
- The A220 engine is the mid-sized Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan, the PW1500G. It has limited thrust stretch capability. An alternative for a long-range (and thus heavier) A220-500 would be the CFM LEAP-1B from the 737 MAX.
Services are driving revenues and profits in difficult times, Part II
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By Karl Sinclair
May 22, 2025, © Leeham News: In our first look at OEMs in the aviation industry with a significant revenue stream derived from services, LNA analyzed airframe-makers.
Related Article
Now the focus shifts to engine and simulator manufacturers, and how after-market sales can pull a company through difficult times. It can even be the model, that a business follows.
Does an A220-500 need a new wing and engines? Part 2.
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By Bjorn Fehrm
May 5, 2025, © Leeham News: We started the articles series about stretching the A220 to a capacity in the A320neo range last week by going through the development of the A220-100 and -300, how it’s designed and compares to the competition in the 100 to 140 seat segment.
Now, we analyze what we need to change to bring the capacity to the level of the A320neo and whether changes to the wing and engines, in addition to prolonging the fuselage, are necessary when we increase its capacity.
We use the Leeham Aircraft Performance and Cost Model (APCM) to look at the design data for the A220-300 and discuss what it will mean to make the different changes.
Figure 1. A rendering of an A220-500. Source: Leeham Co.
Summary:
- The A220-300 has field and range performance that matches an A320neo.
- As we increase the length of the A220 fuselage to match the seating capacity of the A320neo, we run into tricky trade situations regarding range and field performance for an A220-500.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 13.
By Bjorn Fehrm.
March 14, 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 development has been slow.
Last week, we summarized the well-to-use efficiency gain of the Pratt & Whitney HySIITE engine process, which was announced in January. We found that with an expected 35% increase in engine efficiency, the liquid hydrogen chain, from the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen through liquefaction to burning it in the engine, used less renewable energy than if we used the same method to make Power to Liquid (PtL) SAF.
Pratt & Whitney was very clear in the presentation that the evolution of a HySIITE engine is a long-term project, with its possible use on the other side of 2040. There are just too many new components (heat exchangers, evaporators, etc.) that need development and maturation to think this is a near-term engine opportunity.
MTU’s similar WET engine concept, Figure 1, uses the same process ideas but with a different target. Here, the focus has been reducing emissions, like NOx and water content in the exhaust, to reduce contrail risk. This shall be achieved when burning jet fuel, SAF, and hydrogen.
Figure 1. An MTU WET engine with its straight core. Source: MTU.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 11.
By Bjorn Fehrm
February 28, 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.
Last week, we discussed the fact that Airbus has moved its hydrogen-fueled ZEROe aircraft into the 2040s and that it will be fuel cell based. It’s a bit of an irony that Pratt &Whitney announced major news for the alternative hydrogen burn alternative four weeks before. Let’s dissect what Pratt & Whitney announced.
Figure 1. Hans von Ohain’s first jet engine started on hydrogen in 1937. Source: Wikipedia.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 10.
By Bjorn Fehrm
February 21, 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.
Last week, we reviewed the present fallout of lower emission projects that have not reached their goals and where investors, therefore, have decided not to invest further.
There is a well-known project failing every month at the present pace. Some recent ones: Universal Hydrogen’s ATR conversions, Volocopter and Lilium’s bankruptcies, Airbus freezing the CityAirbus eVTOL (Figure 1) and pushing out the ZEROe hydrogen airliner, hibernation of the Alice battery aircraft, etc. There will probably be more in the coming months.
Earnings: Pay closer attention to the supply chain than to the OEMs
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By Scott Hamilton
Jan. 23, 2025, © Leeham News: Earnings season begins today. Among the companies followed by LNA, GE Aerospace and Hexcel report today. RTX and Boeing report next week. ATI and Spirit AeroSystems follow the week after. Other suppliers follow then.
Airbus doesn’t report until Feb. 20. Rolls-Royce reports on Feb. 27.
The manufacturers draw the headlines, but LNA found long ago that the supply chain often provides better information to draw conclusions about the future than listening to the OEMs. All it takes is one supplier to fall down on the job to muck up the works for the OEMs.
That’s not to say listening to the OEMs is not important. Clearly, it is. But there’s just no getting around it: the credibility of many of the OEMs is damaged. Airbus hasn’t hit its production ramp up targets in years. Quality control suffers. And deliveries are consistently late.
Steven Udvar-Hazy, executive chairman of the board for Air Lease Corp, says that every single Airbus aircraft, 250 of them, has been late since 2017. That’s long before the pandemic began in March 2020, which caused such disruption continuing to this day. Airbus was still delivering A320ceos during 2017 and 2018, which didn’t have engine issues.
Boeing’s credibility speaks for itself. It doesn’t matter that it has a new CEO. Until Boeing starts performing, anything it currently says is hope, not performance. Post-strike delivery recovery will be an important indicator of Boeing’s performance in the essentially truncated fourth quarter and January.
Suppliers often discuss information on their earnings calls that provides a better understanding of production rates at the OEMs and where downstream issues are or are emerging.