Airbus Innovation Days, Part 2: No order bubble and a lot more

Airbus lifted the embargo on John Leahy’s presentation, allowing immediate publication. There is no aircraft order bubble, says John Leahy, COO-Customers of Airbus. Emerging markets and passenger traffic doubling every 15 years, bolstered by GDP growth, means orders… Read More

Low pressure turbine failed in CSeries incident: UBS, citing Bombardier

The low pressure turbine failed in the Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbo Fan engine on Bombardier’s CSeries, reports investment bank UBS, citing Bombardier. Writes UBS: BBD confirmed that recent GTF engine failure was in the low-pressure turbine and… Read More

War of Words between Airbus and Boeing over A330neo, 787

By Leeham Co EU We’ve seen it for decades: the War of Words between Airbus and Boeing around their competing aircraft. It hasn’t taken long for the WOW to emerge over the prospective A330neo. Only a few months… Read More

CSeries setback as PW GTF has reported uncontained failure

Exclusive interview with Robert Saia, vice president of the Next Generation Product Family at Pratt & Whitney. PW believes it has a “good understanding” of what happened. Flight testing might resume quickly, reducing risk of program delay. Customers… Read More

OEMs are ramping up services as profit centers

Original Equipment Manufacturers are ramping up their focus on services to increase these as profit centers for company financial performance. The news April 10 that Boeing will relocate its Commercial Aviation Services unit from Seattle to its fading… Read More

GE engines faces challenge from PW, RR GTF technology

The recent announcement by Rolls-Royce that their future engines will contain gearboxes has put GE and its CFM partner SAFRAN under considerable pressure. GE/SAFRAN were together with Rolls-Royce proponents to go directly from Direct-Drive turbofans to Open Rotor… Read More

Rolls-Royce plans for new single-aisle, twin-aisle airplane engines

Rolls-Royce may not be at a cross road but it’s certainly at a fork in the road. RR sought to be a dual-source supplier for the Boeing 777X, competing with GE Aviation for the privilege; it was generally… Read More

Investigative focus on MAS MH370

The following will be areas of focus for the investigation of the Malaysian Airlines MH370 crash, involving a Boeing 777-200ER equipped with Rolls-Royce engines. These are standard areas of investigation and at this point, listing them here doesn’t… Read More

Odds and Ends: Repairing composites; More on Rolls-Royce; Boeing layoffs; Book Review; A380 assessment

Repairing composites: Aviation Week has a good article about repairing composites: specifically the Boeing 787 that caught fire at London Heathrow Airport a year ago. More on Rolls-Royce: Aviation Week also has a longer article to follow up… Read More

Odds and Ends: Rolls follows Pratt with GTF technology; Airbus’ challenge;

Rolls-Royce and GTF: Rolls-Royce today said it will pursue technology for its next big engine that follows the Geared Turbo Fan technology of Pratt & Whitney’s smaller design. Aviation Week has this story and Bloomberg has this one…. Read More