Alaska, Virgin confirm merger

April 4, 2016, (c) Leeham Co.: Alaska Air Group and Virgin America confirmed weekend reports that they reached a deal to merge. The replay of the Alaska webcast/conference call, with slide show, is here. Rationale includes what LNC outlined… Read More

Bjorn’s Corner: Flight control, Part 4

1 April 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Last week we described the computer augmented flight controls that are possible with Fly-By-Wire (FBW) systems. We described the most common flight control laws by discussing the two most common control law… Read More

Airbus only one reason for Boeing cost-cutting

The bigger danger at Boeing is not Airbus pricing, but the potential for up to 15,000 early retirements this year by engineers, technicians and touch-labor. See Scott Hamilton’s column at Forbes online. Job cuts drive margin at Boeing, analyst… Read More

Bjorn’s Corner: Flight control, Part 3

25 March 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Last week we covered the natural stability of commercial aircraft and the most important movements the aircraft would go into if we had no pilot intervention. Now we will cover how Fly-By-Wire… Read More

Aircraft programme cost

By Bjorn Fehrm Subscription required. Introduction March. 21, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: There is quite a lot of talk about what a new aircraft program like Boeing’s Middle of the Market (MOM) would cost the airframe OEM to develop…. Read More

Bjorn’s Corner: Flight control

11 March 2016, ©. Leeham Co: We covered a bit on flight testing some Corners ago and the fact that test pilots like to fly in direct Fly-By-Wire mode for initial evaluation of the aircraft. There’s a lot… Read More

IRKUT MC-21 analysis, Part 2

By Bjorn Fehrm Subscription required. Introduction Feb. 24, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Two weeks ago we started our analysis of the new Russian single aisle aircraft, United Aircraft’s Irkut MC-21. We looked at key design features and compared these… Read More

Pontifications: Tax breaks in Washington State

Feb. 22, 2016, © Leeham Co.: A group of Democratic legislators in Washington State will introduce five bills aimed at repealing some tax breaks and also taking yet another run at holding Boeing’s feet to the fire by tying… Read More

PNAA Day 2: Airbus says Boeing has product gap.

Feb. 10, 2016 © Leeham Co. Boeing has a product gap that Airbus is filling with its airplanes, says Simon Pickup, strategic marketing director. Pickup said Boeing has a gap in its product line between the 737-8 and the 787-9…. Read More

Irkut MC-21, first analysis

By Bjorn Fehrm Subscription required. Introduction Feb. 08, 2016, © Leeham Co: We recently covered China’s COMAC C919 and now the time has come to the other new narrow body aircraft from the old Communist bloc, the Russian MC-21…. Read More