Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of hydrogen. Part 27. Fuel cell APU gains March 5, 2021
- The A350, Part 8 A350-1000 Intro March 4, 2021
- HOTR: Alaska begins service with 737 MAX March 1, 2021
- Boeing’s Ability to Finance the Next Airliner March 1, 2021
- Pontifications: Legislature weighs overdue actions for aerospace March 1, 2021
Outlook 2021: Russia and China
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By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
Jan. 14, 2021, © Leeham News: China and Russia are both developing a single-aisle domestic airliner in the A320/737 MAX class, a regional turboprop in the ATR 72 class, and is jointly working on an A330neo/787 widebody competing airliner.
While these are similar development programs, the countries are in very different positions in their markets and industries. China is a five times larger market for airliners than Russia, and its airlines are on the way back from COVID riddled passenger numbers. It has the fastest recovery from COVID-19 of any country and its civil airliner industry is on the rise.
Russia on the other hand has a stagnant market, still hit by COVID-19, and its market and industry have become introverted after a decade of flirting with Western markets and technology.
Summary
- China and Russia drive almost identical civil airliner projects to replace Soviet-era and Western airliners.
- While similar in their projects, they are different in their markets and state of industries.
- China is on the way up (albeit from a low state) to eventually compete on the world market, whereas Russia is falling back to a Soviet-style all Russian state-controlled model.
Pontifications: Outlook 2021 Series begins today
By Scott Hamilton
Jan. 4, 2021, © Leeham News: Beginning today through next week, Leeham News presents its annual Outlook series for the coming year.
We’ve been doing this for years. In recent years, the Outlook reflected continued growth in commercial aviation. The industry had the longest upward tick in the more than three decades I’ve been involved in the sector.
Not this year. As I wrote before the Christmas-New Year’s holiday period, 2020 was the worst year for commercial aviation I’ve ever seen in 41 years.
This year is the beginning of the end of the COVID crisis. Yes, the vaccines began distribution in December, but large spikes in COVID cases began simultaneously and are predicted to climb higher through the first quarter.
Over the coming days, as LNA provides its Outlook for 2021, readers will see what we believe will happen.
HOTR: With MAX nearing recertification, Boeing has bigger problem
By the Leeham News team
Oct. 27, 2020, © Leeham News: Boeing’s 737 MAX may be nearing recertification and airlines worry about passenger acceptance.
But Boeing’s larger MAX problem is its general product line-up.
LNA pointed out the poor sales of the 7 MAX in the past. We’ve also compared the lagging sales of the 9 MAX and 10 MAX compared with the A321neo.
As a result of the MAX grounding and now COVID-19’s disastrous financial impact on airlines around the world, more than 1,000 orders have been canceled or reclassified as iffy under the ASC 606 accounting rule.
Airbus doesn’t publicly reclassify the European equivalent of ASC 606. But LNA in July estimated how many A320s would be similarly classified. At that time, about 425 appeared to be similarly subject to ASC 606 if this accounting rule was applied to Airbus.
Pontifications: Boeing’s latest forecast raises more doubt than hope
By Judson Rollins
Oct. 12, 2020, © Leeham News: Every year, like clockwork, when Boeing publishes its 20-year Current Market Outlook, there is always another upward revision in forecast demand for new aircraft.
So, when the Chicago-based OEM admits that demand has taken a long-term hit, you know the situation must be dire.
Last week, Boeing belatedly published its annual CMO forecast for global commercial jet production and services. The forecast was quite a comedown as it marked a 2% fall from Boeing’s previous expectations for aircraft demand, with a whopping 10% drop for widebodies and freighters.
Airbus has withheld its 2020 Global Market Forecast while it continues to assess the impact of COVID-19. Read more
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of Hydrogen. Part 6. Tank placement.
August 28, 2020, ©. Leeham News: In our series on Hydrogen as an energy store for airliners we look at the challenge of placing the hydrogen tanks efficiently.
Different from carbon fuels, liquid hydrogen needs specially shaped and bulky tanks. It can’t be stored in the wingbox as today’s Jet-A1.
Figure 1. The Tu-155 Hydrogen research aircraft with its aft fuselage tank. Source: Tupolev.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of Hydrogen. Part 5. The Hydrogen tank.
By Bjorn Fehrm
August 21, 2020, ©. Leeham News: In our series on hydrogen as an energy store for airliners we start the design discussion of a hydrogen-fueled airliner by understanding the onboard storage of hydrogen better.
While there is present knowledge from for instance the space launcher industry, the storage demands for launchers are hours rather than days. Several implementations of longer storage aeronautical tanks have been done, among others by NASA/Boeing for high flying UAVs.
Airbus and the Russian aircraft industry were also active with research during the 1990s and Tupolev built a test aircraft that included a complete hydrogen fuel system (Figure 1).
Figure 1. The Tu-155 Hydrogen research aircraft. Source: Tupolev.
Looking ahead for 2020 and 2030 decades: UAC
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Fifth in a series.
By Bjorn Fehrm
Introduction
July 15, 2020, © Leeham News: UAC stands for United Aircraft Corporation, and is the name of the group owning the Russian aircraft industry.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the multitude of individual companies and design bureaus could no longer survive on their own. The Russian state, therefore, gathered them all in UAC to introduce necessary consolidation and reform.
While UAC has done much with the support of the Ministries of Industry and Defense, the changing political situation for Russia has made it harder for the Civilian aircraft side to achieve sales outside captive Russian markets for its jets.
Summary
- UAC is the holding company of the Russian aircraft industry since 2006. The UAC management has stopped pointless infighting and consolidated the industry, latest to a civilian and military side.
- But it’s ambitions on the civil side outside Russia is at mercy to state politics and the Kremlin has shown that world politics is more important than the development of its industries.
- This, and the rise of arch-rival and cooperation partner China, clouds the future for UAC civil aircraft.
Pontifications: Assessing the impact of COVID-19: today’s take
By Scott Hamilton
April 6, 2020, © Leeham News: It’s going to be quite a while before there is a clear understanding how coronavirus will change commercial aviation.
LNA already touched on impacts to Airbus, Boeing and Embraer. None of it is good. For Boeing, burdened with the additional stress of the 737 MAX, is in the worst position. Even when the MAX is recertified, there won’t be many—or any—customers in a position to take delivery of the airplane.
Bearing in mind that what’s true today will change in a day, or even an hour, let’s take a rundown of where things seem to stand now.
Can the DHC 8-400 compete with a CRJ550 for the 50 seat Scope Clause market?
By Bjorn Fehrm
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Introduction
November 14, 2019, © Leeham News: The US mainline airlines have large fleets of 50-seater regional jets that are getting old. The present Scope Clause limits on the number of aircraft with seating over 50 seats stop the mainlines from replacing these aircraft with larger aircraft. So there is a real need for an efficient 50 seater regional aircraft for the US market.
As there are no 50 seater jets in production, United is converting its 70 seater CRJ700s to 50 seaters to fill the gap and calls them the CRJ550. This is where de Havilland Canada sees a change for an adapted DHC 8-400 turboprop. It’s more efficient than a CRJ550 while offering the same comfort, says de Havilland. We check if this is correct and what chances a DHC 8-“550” have in this market.
Summary:
- The US Scope Clauses allow the three mainlines to have more 1,000 50 seater jets, yet no new ones are available to replace the more than 600 in the market.
- The in-production DHC 8-400 would be an alternative when looking at cabin size and dimensions.
Bjorn’s Corner: Aeroflot SSJ100 crash at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport
By Bjorn Fehrm
May 10, 2019, ©. Leeham News: An Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash-landed Sunday at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport and burst into flames.
We shall look closer at the likely cause of the accident, which involves the SSJ100 Fly-By-Wire (FBW) control system working in Direct law.
The SSJ100 involved in the accident. Source: Wikipedia.