Bjorn’s Corner: Flight control, Part 2

18 March 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Last week we covered the early days of flight control when the pilot controlled the aircraft’s movable surfaces (called movables; e.g. stabilator, rudder, ailerons, spoilers…) without the involvement of computers. We will… Read More

Minuscule demand for Boeing 747-8F

See Scott Hamilton’s new column for Forbes on-line, It’s time for hard questions for Boeing. Subscription Required Introduction One of Boeing’s white tail 747-8Fs. This, and another that has been stored, was painted in the livery of the… Read More

C-17: the end of an era

Dec. 1,2015: The last C-17 flew off the Boeing production line in Long Beach (CA) last week, ending aircraft production at the former McDonnell Douglas plant that began delivering Douglas DC-8s at the start of the jet age…. Read More

AirAsia update, Dec. 30: Key questions in the investigation

Dec. 30, 2014: With the apparent discovery of the main wreckage of AirAsia Flt 8501 in about 100 ft of water, recovery of the airplane and its black boxes should be a relatively straight-forward operation. Our previous posts… Read More

Lufthansa to use A340s in “lower cost” operation; our analysis against the 787

Subscription required. By Scott Hamilton and Bjorn Fehrm Introduction Low cost long haul service is gaining traction, but previous efforts proved difficult to be successful. Dating all the way back to Laker Airways’ Skytrain and the original PeoplExpress… Read More

Overlooked possibilities for the A330neo

There are overlooked possibilities for the Airbus A330-800 and A330-900 New Engine Options. What, you may ask, are these? The A330neo might give new life to the poor-selling A330-200F program and, perhaps more importantly better position Airbus to… Read More

Replacing the 747-400

Replacing the venerable Boeing 747-400s remaining in passenger service is a prime objective of Boeing and of Airbus. The business case for their respective 747-8Is and A380s rests in large part on this approach, though for Airbus the… Read More

Odds and Ends: Airbus’ frustration over A350 fallout–blame yourself; DC-10 grounding retrospective

Airbus’ frustration: Airbus says it has a Plan B for its lithium ion battery design and the CEO says he’s frustrated over the attention the A350 is getting as a result of the Boeing 787 issues. Airbus has… Read More

Why US transport producers failed

Defense analyst Loren Thompson picks up the old refrain about Airbus subsidies running McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed out of the commercial airliner business. We add our thoughts at the end of his article. By Loren Thompson Airbus subsidies… Read More