Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- 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
- RTX Q1 2025 Earnings: GTF Talk Takes A Back Seat To Tariffs April 22, 2025
- Tariffs Tumult Takes Over GE Aerospace Q1 2025 Earnings Call April 22, 2025
Engine Development, Part 1: Launch to Entry into Service
Subscription Required
By Vincent Valery
Introduction
Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan
Aug 18, 2022, © Leeham News: LNA analyzed the evolution of commercial aircraft development timelines last month. The time between a program launch and entry into service significantly increased over time, including for derivatives.
The increase in development time is primarily the result of more complex and safer airplanes. Introducing new materials, notably a more extensive use of composites, also explain longer development timelines.
LNA now starts a new series on the topic of commercial aircraft jet engines. The goal is to go through significant innovations from the beginning of the jet age.
This first article analyses whether engine development time between launch and entry into service increased significantly over time.
Summary
- Military development led to the first commercial jet engines;
- The divergence between military and commercial programs;
- Pushing the envelope of the same fundamental engine architecture;
- Harder to identify development timeline evolution.
Pontifications: Rolls-Royce and the Next Boeing Airplane
April 18, 2022, © Leeham News: The aviation industry is waiting to see what Boeing will do when it comes to a new airplane.
By Scott Hamilton
The Next Boeing Airplane (NBA), whatever form it takes, will largely be driven by what advances in engines are available. Boeing CEO David Calhoun downplays the engine element. He’s said repeatedly that the next engine will only have about a 10% lower fuel consumption than today’s powerplants. He didn’t today’s name engines, but the benchmarks are now the Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbo Fan and CFM LEAP.
Calhoun places more emphasis on a moonshot in design and production advances to lower the cost of the airplane—with the theory the price paid by the customer will be lower as a result, providing a combined benefit of lower operating costs and lower capital costs.
PW agrees that by around 2030, the usual date (plus-or-minus a year or two) given for the NBA’s entry into service (EIS), it can get another 10% of improved fuel economy out of the GTF. CFM, on the other hand, is pressing ahead with what used to be called the Open Rotor concept. CFM now calls it an Open Fan. The company has a target EIS of 2035 and a fuel improvement of 20%. Emissions for the two engines would be reduced by roughly a corresponding amount vis-à-vis fuel burn.
Pontifications: The soup du jour
March 14, 2022, © Leeham News: You might call it the soup du jour.
By Scott Hamilton
EcoAviation is all over the place at aviation conferences these days. It was a key topic at last October’s Annual General Meeting of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Likewise at last month’s annual conference of the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance (PNAA). EcoAviation also was an element of the Speed News conference in Los Angeles early this month and at another event the following week. Investor Day events now routinely include ecoAviation discussion.
This is all well and good, but at last, some key members of the industry are putting caution and realism to the pie-in-the-sky stuff that is sucking up investment like the Dot Com era a few decades ago. Only a few ideas and technologies will be successful.
A Boeing 787-10 HGW, how good is it?
Subscription Required
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
February 24, 2022, © Leeham News: The CEO of Boeing Commercial Aircraft (BCA), Stan Deal, said at the Singapore Air show the company worked on increased gross weight versions of both the 787-9 and -10.
Target is to get the 787-10 to the range of the aircraft it shall replace, the 777-200ER and -300ER. It means more than 7,000nm of range against the 6,400nm of today.
How many tonnes of increased Gross weight does this mean, and what would be the performance compared with the Airbus A350-900? We use our airliner performance model to find out.
Summary
- The 787-10 can grow to a range of over 7,000nm with a modest increase of its gross weight.
- It will be competitive with the A350-900 but for the longest routes in such a variant.
Engine OEMs pushing ahead for next airplane, even as Boeing pauses
Subscription Required
By Scott Hamilton
Nov. 1, 2021, © Leeham News: David Calhoun may not be anywhere near ready to launch the Next Boeing Airplane (NBA), but the engine makers are actively researching and developing engines to hang of whatever that NBA will be.
Calhoun, the CEO of Boeing, repeatedly said the NBA will be more about reducing production costs through advanced design and production methods. For some time, Calhoun said the next engines available on the assumed timeline—to about 2030—will have only 10% better economics than today’s engines.
And 10% isn’t enough for the airlines or the commensurate reduction in emissions.
CFM/GE Aviation/Safran are developing an “open fan” engine that will reduce fuel burn and emissions by 20%. A target date for entry into service is in the 2030 decade. The open fan builds on R&D of open rotors that have been underway since the era of the Boeing 727 and McDonnell Douglas MD-80.
Pratt & Whitney sees an evolution of its Geared Turbofan engine. The GTF was under development for 20 years before an operating engine made it onto the Bombardier C Series (now the Airbus 220), the Airbus A320, and United Aircraft MC-21. The GTF also was selected for the Mitsubishi MRJ90, which launched the GTF program. However, Mitsubishi pulled the plug on the MRJ/SpaceJet program last year. PW remains committed to the GTF for future engines.
Rolls-Royce is developing the Ultra Fan and Advanced engines. GE’s Open Fan and RR’s engines adopt geared turbofan technology pioneered by PW but add new technology.
LNA takes a look at the new engines for the NBA or any other competing airplane in a series of articles.
Pontifications: Engines drive timing of new Embraer TPNG
The first report appeared Oct. 18, 2021.
By Scott Hamilton
Oct. 25, 2021, © Leeham News: Embraer appears marching toward launching a new turboprop aircraft next year with a targeted 2027 entry into service.
The timing will be determined by the engine. Pratt & Whitney, GE Aviation and Rolls-Royce have development programs. PW and GE are farthest along. PW is thought to have the best chance of winning Embraer’s business. (Pratt & Whitney supplies the engines for the E2 jet. GE supplied the engines for the E1.)
In an interview at the IATA AGM Oct. 3-5 in Boston, Arjan Meijer, the president of Embraer Commercial Aviation, said the competition remains open today.
The P2F freighters, 757-200P2F versus A321P2F.
Subscription Required
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
August 19, 2021, © Leeham News: In our series about freighters, we now look at domestic freighters based on the Boeing 757-200 and the Airbus A321. The 757-200 is a popular Passenger to Freighter (P2F) conversion, but as production of the 757 stopped in 2004, there is a limit to the conversion feed-stock for the model.
At the same time, older A321s are reaching market values where their cost enables competitive P2F conversions.
We use our performance model to check if the A321P2F is a good alternative to the 757-200P2F.
The first EFW A321P2F was delivered to Qantas in October 2020. Source: Qantas.
Summary
- The feed-stock for the Boeing 757-200 Passenger to Freighter conversions will diminish at some point in the future.
- The alternative in the same freight volume class is a converted A321. We check how well it fits the bill as an alternative to the 757-200.
The Airbus A350F versus Boeing’s 777-XF.
Subscription Required
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
August 5, 2021, © Leeham News: Two weeks ago we compared the launched Airbus A350 freighter with Boeing’s in-service 777F. We found the 777F is a freighter with a very high payload capability, but it faces an ICAO emission and noise ax by 2028, should the present engines be kept.
Boeing’s CEO David Calhoun recently said a freighter version of the 777X might replace the 777F. With seven years to 2028, a development decision for a 777-XF is then imminent. We use our performance model to look at how an A350F and 777-XF would compare.
Summary
- A new Boeing 777-XF freighter, based on the 777-8 (picture), has to equal or beat an Airbus A350 freighter both on payload and economics.
- Beating an A350F on capacity and payload is straightforward, the 777-8 is the larger aircraft. On operating costs, it’s a tighter race.
How good is an Airbus A350 freighter?
Subscription Required
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
July 15, 2021, © Leeham News: Airbus is working on a freighter of the A350 to compete with Boeing’s larger freighters, such as the 777F.
The 777F is quite a different aircraft than the 777-200LR, which shares its external dimensions, and the 777-300ER that has donated a lot of the internal structure. So will the A350 freighter be based on the A350-900, as the rumors say, or A350-1000? And how good will it be compared to the 777F?
We use our performance model to find out.
Summary
- The A350-900 is the rumored base for the new Airbus freighter that shall compete with the Boeing 777F.
- Is it the correct assumption? When we look under the hood with our performance model, we see it isn’t.
The Ultrafan Project
Subscription Required
By Vincent Valery
Introduction
June 21, 2021, © Leeham News: Rolls-Royce launched the Ultrafan in 2014, a project to develop next-generation geared turbofan engines. The engine OEM has been working on that project ever since.
The Ultrafan demonstrator started the final assembly this year at the OEM’s Derby facility, with a plan to start and complete ground testing in 2022. Rolls-Royce will await a new OEM program launch to finalize the development to a production engine after 2022.
While using a power gearbox has gathered most of the attention, the Ultrafan uses other new technologies to enable a leap in fuel efficiency. LNA analyzes the technologies used and what lies ahead for the program.
Summary
- An evolving rationale for the Ultrafan business case;
- Much more than the addition of a power gearbox;
- A break with the Trent design
- A significant infrastructure uplift;
- Awaiting the next OEM move.