i've said it before, if you built brandy new DC-3's today with all new avionics etc., they would sell...
Posted on 11/25/2005 10:23:02 AM PST by lowbuck
Boeing’s decision finally to launch its first major 747 derivatives in nearly 20 years sets the scene for a battle at the high-value top end of the commercial airliner market and throws down the gauntlet to arch-rival Airbus to deliver on its promise that the all-new A380 will dominate the sector.
The US manufacturer expects the arrival of its stretched updated passenger and freighter 747 models to constrain sales of the 555-seat A380 to fewer than 500 over the next two decades. This would be achieved by taking more than half of what Boeing projects will be a 900-unit market for aircraft able to accommodate more than 400 passengers in three classes, of which around 40% will be freighters. Airbus has always insisted that it expected competition in this sector and, in contrast to Boeing, predicts a potential market of more than 1,600 aircraft over the next 20 years.
Spearheading Boeing’s attack on the A380 is the 747-8 Freighter, for which Cargolux Airlines will be launch operator, taking delivery of the first of 10 aircraft on firm order in September 2009. Japan’s Nippon Cargo Airlines has made a firm commitment to take eight. Including the options, the pair have signed for a total of up to 34 aircraft, worth $5 billion at list prices. The -8F will be 5.6m (18.3ft) longer than the -400F and provide 16% more cargo volume and a payload capacity of 140t.
The passenger version, stretched by only 3.6m and dubbed the “Intercontinental”, will follow but has yet to attract a launch operator, a situation that Boeing Commercial Airplanes president and chief executive Alan Mulally expects to be rectified “next year”. It will accommodate around 34 more passengers in a typical three-class layout and fly around 1,570km (850nm) further than today’s -400.
Mulally says the improvements being introduced to the 747 design – principally the use of state-of-the-art engines being developed to power the new-generation 787 and A350 twinjets – take “the performance of the 747 to the next level”. The manufacturer says the -8 designation was selected to “show the technology connection between the 787 and the new 747”.
Announcing the launch of the project in London last week, Mulally blamed the previous non-availability of such capable engines for the string of failed attempts to get a stretched 747 off the ground. The problem was that the airframe and aerodynamic changes that would have been needed to deliver the requisite performance improvements without the new powerplants could not be made economically viable, he said.
Designed to accommodate around 450 passengers in three classes, the 747-8 will provide about 20% more capacity than the 777-300 twinjet, but 20% less than the A380-800. “It’s right in the sweet spot of what we think the airlines will want,” says Mulally. He claims that the –8 will offer 8% lower seat-kilometre costs than the 747-400 and 6% lower than those of the A380, but with trip costs “25-30% less than the A380”, principally because the Boeing aircraft will weigh 13% less per seat.
The freighter will boast “15% better” tonne-kilometre costs than the 747-400 and “23% better than the A380”, Mulally claims. “The primary market will be Europe and Asia because it’s just expanding so fast in freight,” he adds. The two 747-8 variants will be exclusively powered by General Electric GEnx turbofans.
Production of the 747-400, which currently has an order backlog of 47, will cease following the entry into service of the -8 in 2009. List price of the -8 Intercontinental is $250-265 million and the -8F $265-275 million, compared with $205-237 million and $210-236 million for the -400ER and -400ERF, respectively.
...and then there's the suits concerning the newer runway for Airbus.
This is getting interesting.
A Big Factor will be that the 747-8 will use existing airports, and not require new oversized runways Taxiways and Terminals, all of which are required by the A-380 Flying Beast.
i've said it before, if you built brandy new DC-3's today with all new avionics etc., they would sell...
It isn't designed as a passenger plane. Even if the tooling still existed, no airline would pay a premium price for a plane that is primarily designed as an military over-sized cargo plane. The kneeling landing gear just adds weight and gives no advantage to a passenger airliner. The high wing puts the engines at the level where the passengers would be sitting making the cabin noisier. Lockheed wanted to make a civilian over-sized cargo version, but no one was interested back in the early 1970's or later in the late 1980's when the 50 C-5B models were built.
Of the surviving 126 C-5's 110 of them will undergo the Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) and later the Reliability Enhancement and Re-Engining Program (RERP). The C-5 was a victim of the Vietnam war. Congress underfunded programs to fix the C-5's problems and buy spare parts. The AMP and RERP programs will solve those problems using of the shelf commercial technology like the same CF6-80-2 engines used on what will be over 700 747-400's and hundreds of 767's. There are so many thousands of these engines that there should be no problem getting parts and service from the commercial sector for years to come. Several test C-5B's and one C-5A have already undergone the AMP part of the modernization program which puts a modern glass cockpit based on avionics processors used in the 777. The upgraded C-5's will be called the C-5M regardless of whether it is an upgraded A or B model. I'm not quite sure what the designation for the 2 upgraded C-5C's will be. The upgrades will improve the reliability so they will be available at least 75% of the time but possibly even 85% like the C-17 and other Air Force transports. It will increase the maximum takeoff weight while decreasing the runway length needed to take off fully loaded. The improvement in fuel economy will decrease operating costs by 34% per hour and 44% per ton mile. The first C-5M has just had its new engines mounted.
Here is an article about the first C-5M which just had its new eingins installed.
C-5 upgrades a bit more clear for Robins visionaries (Links to photos)
Macon.com ^ | Wed, Nov. 16, 2005 | Gene Rector
Posted on 11/23/2005 10:21:14 PM CST by Paleo Conservative
I'm sure it does. Every large, swept-wing aircraft is subject to dutch roll. A yaw damper is the only way to control it.
FACT: Airbus also underpriced their birds in order to outsell Boeing five years in a row because Airbus' "investors", i.e. several European countries, already had next year's Airbus' life support check in the mail.
"As of right now, Boeing leads Airbus for 2005, and it will take a clean sweep by Airbus of the three remaining contracts before year end if Airbus is to surpass Boeing this year."
Well if the business that was done at this year's Dubai Air Show was any indication of who will outsell whom for the remainder of this year, I wouldn't worry too much about Airbus' hitting the trifecta.
"Aitbus has been more than just a competitor.You lack facts on this issue."
True. Airbus Has been more than just a competitor.
It has been a joke based on a euro-marxist business model that now has to raise the prices of its birds in order to actually start making some money, and not simply doing what they do for cost.
So who the hell needs facts when he is certain that Airbus' four years of having outsold Boeing were hollow victories, since the fact was that the ghost of ol' Karl was gonna leap up and bite em' square on the ass sooner or later anyhow?
I hate the centralized, Marxist underpinning of Airbus just as much as you do. I just pointed out that you were factually incorrect since Airbus beat Boeing five years in a row, regardless of whether the competition was fair or not.
Fair enough - and yes, I was. lol
Yeah - Airbus bit the big one on their idiotic decision to pour about $16 billion into a plane they will be lucky to sell 500 of. Airbus building the modern-day version of the Concorde is akin to Howard Dean being chair of the DNC - the opposition could not have thought up anything better if they had tried. :)
A lot of that change had to do with the slow down of Boeing deliveries and new orders after 9-11 caused a serious decrease in passenger air travel especially in the US. Airbus didn't slow down its lines.
The designs that came out of the 60's and 70's continue to operate and astound:
Answer...The base only has two sets of jacks.<p.
Years ago we called such acft, "ramp roosters" and "hangar queens".
I want one.
You know why they can't come up with a fighter that's significantly better than the F-15? Because the pilots couldn't stand the gees. The avionics and stealth of the F-22 is far superior, but the performance can't be. They would have to remove the pilot altogether, and that's in the cards. As for the B-52, they had a replacement for it in the 1960s, the B-70 Valkyrie, which was awesome, but it was canceled in favor of investing in ICBMs.
Can you point me to some links about the 380 runway suits?
I was researching and saw lots of plans, or I guess plans-to-plan and didn't see anything on how these airports will pay (or be paid) for the runway reinforcements or new gangplanks.
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