New UTC CEO throws cold water on PW GTF growth

The new chief executive officer of United Technologies Corp., Gregory Hayes, threw cold water on hopes and dreams of Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary, that the successful small- and medium-sized Geared Turbo Fan will grow into the wide-body… Read More

737 MAX 8 could be enabler for some LCC Long Haul

Subscription Required By Scott Hamilton and Bjorn Fehrm Introduction Figure 1. Nominal range of 737 MAX 8 from Oslo Source: Great circle mapper, Boeing. Click on Image to enlarge Dec, 8, 2014:The Boeing 737-8 MAX is the successor… Read More

Fundamentals of airliner performance, Part 5; Approach and landing

By Bjorn Fehrm Dec. 2, 2015: The time has now come to cover descent and landing in our articles around airliner performance. As many aspects of descent are similar to climb we will repeat a bit what we learned… Read More

Fundamentals of airliner performance, Part 4

By Bjorn Fehrm Nov. 25, 2014: In our article series around the performance of a modern airliner we have now come to the climb after takeoff. We started with cruise as this was simplest because the aircraft is… Read More

Interview: CSeries program update with Bombardier’s program chief Dewar

Subscription required. Now open to all Readers. By Bjorn Fehrm and Scott Hamilton Introduction Nov. 24, 2014: Bombardier CSeries flight testing has now passed 500 flight hours, and with the addition of Flight Test Vehicle 5 to the… Read More

Fundamentals of airliner performance, Part 3

By Bjorn Fehrm In our first article about how to understand the performance of a modern airliner we defined the main forces that are acting on an aircraft flying in steady state cruise. In our clinic we use the… Read More

A320 v 737: the sales winner is….

It’s one of the bitterest rivalries in the industrialized world: Airbus vs Boeing. Despite being world-class companies, executives at each often snipe at each other’s airplanes, claiming superiority in economics and passenger appeal. Like lawyers arguing a court… Read More

Boeing fails to assure on 777 production gap

Subscription required Introduction Boeing’s ability—or inability—to bridge the production gap for the 777 Classic to the 777X entry-into-service in 2020 was a top concern of a series of Wall Street types during a recent series of meetings we… Read More

Fundamentals of airliner performance, Part 2.

By Bjorn Fehrm In our first article on how to understand the fundamentals that make up airliner performance we defined the main forces acting on an aircraft flying in steady state cruise. We used the ubiquitous Boeing 737 in… Read More

Asian airline market: overheated, balanced or just some spot troubles?

The Zhuhai Air Show, underway this week, comes against the backdrop of rising concerns–and large orders announced in recent weeks–of an over-ordered Asian market. We’ve expressed concern about the large number of orders at Lion Air and AirAsia… Read More