February 2011 Archives

This is the first in a three part series on the development of Boeing's all-new jetliner. Part one examines market evaluations and the configuration and materials selection process. Tuesday's Part Two will explore the aircraft's systems, propulsion and performance and Wednesday's Part Three will look at the future production system and business model of the new jet.

Until now, few answers about Boeing's next aircraft have been available and while the majority of its attributes have yet to be determined - including its launch - the all-new jet will be one aircraft, not two, and whose configuration will match the familiar tube and wing that defines commercial air transport today.

In recent months, Boeing has been quietly polling the worlds most influential airlines, offering them a veritable "grab-bag" of technologies, say industry officials, with the goal of identifying their future needs for an all new jet that is intended to first see revenue service in 2019 or 2020.

The task Boeing is now preparing itself to undertake - the development of the airframer's next generation narrowbody - is now in the early planning phases. By the Paris Air Show in June, Boeing will announce the direction its intends to advance, deciding between an all-new design or a re-engined 737.

If Boeing can replicate the design resiliency of the original 1967 737-100 and -200, then "getting it right" now means laying the groundwork for an aircraft that will evolve well into the latter half of the 21st century. Boeing has succeeded in evolving the 737, making incremental improvements to the aircraft over time, without having to make the multi-billion dollar investment to fully replace the narrowbody, all while maintaining its existing industrial footprint for ever increasing production.

Despite that longevity, what the market doesn't appear to want, says Mike Bair, vice president of Advanced 737 Product Development, is a re-engined 737: "I kind of characterize it as more underwhelmed than overwhelmed and almost all of them want to know what more we can do with a new airplane, so that's kind of where our focus is right now."

Though standing in the path of the all-new aircraft are significant unanswered questions about the commercial success of the 787 and what technology from its long-range twin can be used in a smaller platform. In charge of this effort is Bair, who first must answer the question from which all other answers will be yielded: What does the market want?

Boeing is set to activate its 787 change incorporation facility in San Antonio, Texas, offering a much-need a release valve for the pressure of the near-overflowing ramp in Everett.

Tucked into a growing number of spots around Paine Field - including rented hangars, closed taxiways and newly-built ramps - are nearly 30 787s at various states of completion with more than 140,000 open assembly jobs requiring completion, say program sources.

Among those is Airplane 23, the first production GEnx-1B-powered 787 and the first in the colors of Japan Airlines to fly. Following its planned first flight, which could come as early as March 1, say company sources, Airplane 23, also known as ZA177, will ferry to Texas, activating the facility that is expected to employ at least 400.

Initially, the Boeing Aerospace Support Center at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio was due to support refurbishment and change incorporation of just the first six test aircraft, however as of early 2008, officials in San Antonio said the facility would support 'at least 20' 787s, though as required change incorporation has expanded significantly in recent years, that figure is almost certainly set to rise. Further, company sources indicate that 747-8s will be refurbished in Texas as well.

"Most people involved with the airplane were not aware of it," says Rob Pollack, Boeing Commercial Airplanes vice president Advertising, Brand and Market Positioning, and the chief architect behind the Dreamliner brand.

"We didn't have widespread discussion of it and that was kind of done on purpose. And when we moved the airplane the night before, we wrapped it, it was kind of fun to really surprise an audience of that size."

What was unveiled on February 13 in Everett - now known as the 747-8 'sunrise' colors - was a radical evolution of the company's rebranding that first began in 2003 with the blue 7E7 livery. Pollack says the need to differentiate the 787 among a global audience, as well as geopolitical realities, drove Boeing's development effort:

The Boeing livery itself had basically been unchanged from the introduction of the 757 and 767, so we were going on 20-25 years. The market for this airplane was going to be well over half outside the US. So one of the things we really thought about was from a customer standpoint.

This was 2003, Iraq had become an issue, the US government was not loved around the world and so our thought was, rather than do red, white and blue, why don't we do something that was more readily understood around the world, and blue as a color - the sky - so we decided to pursue that direction, but we also wanted to get something that looked really different from a livery standpoint because an airplane that is pretty consistent in its look, from a paint standpoint, doesn't really look that different. Everything we tried to do was to try and differentiate the product from what had come before it.

The company's branding of the 7E7 (subsequently the 787) had been part of a transformation by Boeing to offer a product to the airlines and their customers, representing a major shift by the airframer from a business to business focus to business to consumer. Pollack says in Boeing's history, its past commercial aircraft had been given a name along with its numerical designation, like the 307 Stratoliner and 377 Stratocruiser. 

"Some reason we had gotten away from that," he says, aiming to "build a personality around the name."

The Dreamliner name, selected in a worldwide vote of four possible names, edged out Global Cruiser (which was preferred by then-BCA CEO Alan Mulally) by 2,500 votes from more than half a million cast. Stratoclimber and eLiner, were a distant third and fourth. It was out of this marketing appeal, in part, that Boeing helped realized its significant market success with the 787.

It was with this branding in mind that Boeing started down the path of developing a unique colors scheme for the first 747-8I. First introduced with Pan American World Airways in 1970, the 747 and its iconic hump have made the jumbo universally recognized for the past four decades. Though re-introducing a 40 year old brand, especially in light of the market competition from the Airbus A380, required something extra. Boeing looked to the Porsche 911, first introduced in 1963, which has evolved significantly under the hood, yet its shape has remained fundamentally unchanged.

"We had the realization that although this looked like the 747s of old, enough had changed on this airplane that it really wasn't the same airplane as what people had come to know as the 747. So much of the airplane is new and we weren't, from a marketing perspective, satisfied that we were conveying well enough how completely new this airplane was." says Pollack.

Political turmoil across the Middle East and North Africa is having a chilling effect on tourism in the region, driving up the price of oil to above $105 a barrel, threatening airlines worldwide. But what of the health of the aircraft orders in one of the fastest growing parts of the world?

	Regional	Narrowbody	Widebody
Algeria		8	0
Bahrain		6	44
Egypt		14	6
Iraq	6	30	10
Jordan		7	11
Kuwait		29	20
Lebanon		2	0
Libya		9	14
Morocco		9	4
Oman	4	6	7
Saudi Arabia	8	43	27
Tunisia		11	6
Yemen		10	10
TOTAL	18	184	159

This post is an expanded version as one part of a cover story appearing in next week's issue of Flight International Magazine. See more photos from the premier of the 747-8 Intercontinental.

EVERETT -- I'm back in the factory overlooking the 787 final assembly line and sitting at position one in final body join is Airplane 34, the first Dreamliner for China Southern. China Southern joins ANA, JAL, Air India, RAM and LAN as 787 airframes in Everett.

EVERETT -- I had an opportunity to get up close with the 747-8 production system over the past two days and see the new jumbo freighter - and Intercontinental - on the assembly line. The pictures begin with production test flight departure (not delivery flight) of an Air New Zealand 777-300ER for Auckland, lead into the Everett factory's 40-21 and 40-22 buildings and culminates with photos from the premier, as well as the daylight roll-out of the 'Sunrise' livery. You've got 210 photos to sift through, so make sure you carve out some time after watching Movie Monday.

EVERTT -- This is RC002, a Boeing 747-8I, which will be delivered to a completion center later this year for reconfiguration as a Boeing Business Jet.

Developing - Speaking at Cowen and Co conference in NY right now:

"We're gonna do a new airplane that will go beyond the capability of what the [A320]NEO can do."

Update 7:46 AM PT:

"What we've seen so far is Airbus focused on their current customer base, which has shown some vulnerability to the CSeries. That doesn't mean that as they get deeper in the development they're not going to approach our customer base. I think they will. The NEO, on paper closes, the value gap that we have enjoyed on a typical cash on cash analysis, we tend to do better. And I think part of the rationale of the neo is to close that gap. Now, will that put some pressure on our margins. Yes. Maybe, but they've got to complete the development. We're gonna do a new airplane. We're not done evaluating this whole situation yet, but our current bias is to not re-engine, is to move to an all-new airplane at the end of the decade, beginning of the next decade.

"It's our judgment that our customers will wait for us, rather than move to an airplane that will obsolete itself when they do a new airplane. I understand why they're doing it, we haven't seen the need for it yet. I feel pretty comfortable we can defend our customer base both because they're not going ahead of us, they're catching up to us and because we're going to be doing a new airplane that will go beyond the capability of what the neo can do. I feel very good about our position there."

Update 9:59 AM PT: Here's my complete story on McNerney's comments. Boeing sought to temper them a bit saying it's "not a done deal", but the rhetorical shift moves his individual belief on 737 replacement (as stated during the 4Q10 earnings call) to a collective opinion of the organization.

Boeing boss green-lights all-new next generation narrowbody
Boeing CEO Jim McNerney has given a rhetorical green light to replace the venerable 737, announcing the airframer intends to build a new aircraft to eclipse the re-engined Airbus A320neo, with a service entry around 2020.

Speaking at the Cowen and Company Aerospace and Defense Conference in New York City, McNerney says: "We're gonna do a new airplane. We're not done evaluating this whole situation yet, but our current bias is to not re-engine, is to move to an all-new airplane at the end of the decade, or the beginning of the next decade."

Almost exactly a decade ago, Boeing Senior Technical Fellow, Dr. L. John Hart-Smith, presented a paper at the company's third annual Technical Excellence Symposium in St. Louis Missouri. That paper, ten years later is the subject of a Seattle Times Sunday Edition article on the "prescient" warning to the company on the perils of outsourcing.

The basic problem with being only a systems integrator is that it does not cover a sufficient fraction of the total work for a large company to remain in business. The engines and avionics alone typically represent some 50 percent of the cost of producing large aircraft. There is simply not enough structure involved for too much of it to be out-sourced. Surely even a 5 percent profit on 25 percent of the total work is more valuable that a 15 percent profit on only 2 percent? The latter goal is a guarantee that there will not be sufficient cash generated to ever launch new products, not even derivatives that are perceived as costing less than new aircraft but which are often found to cost just as much, for a product for which passenger comfort or performance might have been constrained by legacy from the earlier design to be less than state-of-the-art. Is it really all that difficult to comprehend that, along with the work involved, the revenue and profit associated with it have also been out-sourced?

Boeing rolled out its 1,000th 767 Wednesday, an aircraft that will soon be delivered to All Nippon Airways. This milestone is notable as it's only the second time a widebody aircraft type has achieved this production milestone (after the 747). Yes, Airbus says they've delivered more than 1,000 A330/A340 family aircraft, as the European airframer has always counted combined serial numbers for each type, but data from Airbus puts the A330 around 755 and 375 for the A340.

Flight covered the roll-out of the first 767-200 - VA001 - in August 1981, by noting:

The standard 767 takes up to 289 charter passengers in an eight-abreast, 30in pitch configuration; the stretched version could be available from 1985 and All Nippon Airways of Japan has indicated a strong interest.

Yesterday's unveiling of JA622A will be ANA's 91st 767.

Details are quickly emerging regarding a meeting held between Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh and company employees about the future of company product development, according to those present at the meeting. The meetings, which are held periodically are known inside the company as an "Excellence Hour" connects senior leadership with employees in a large auditorium setting.

12:31 PM ET: Those at the meeting say that Boeing aims to begin design additional upgrades on the existing 737 starting in 2012 and continues to see re-engining as hit to the value of the existing 737 fleet. No specific timeline for introduction was given, though Albaugh says he sees updates to the cockpit more in line with the 787, as well as further improvements to engine fuel efficiency.

12:37 PM ET: Albaugh says he sees a tanker decision from the Department of Defense in February, though adds (speculates) that political scrutiny on whatever the final decision is will push a final award in 2012. Update: Albaugh told the media Wednesday he anticipated an award announcement in March.

1:04 PM ET: Boeing 777 will be around for at least 15 years more, according to those at the meeting, signaling a medium term investment to improve the big twin. Additionally, Albaugh says he likes the idea of a blended wing body aircraft for a future Boeing jet, though he says the FAA is not keen to the idea and the funds required to make a major research and development investment aren't really there to answer the unknowns on issues such as pressurization.

2:53 PM ET: Albaugh said future orders for the 747-8 are on hold as customers wait to see the outcome of the rework related to the inboard aileron and modal suppression.

While Boeing declined to discuss a formal timeline for starting development on further updates for the 737, the airframer says "incremental improvements are going to happen to the 737 no matter what" not withstanding a decision to re-engining or a build a new airplane. Further, Boeing says the expectation is that technology will be shared across all its airplanes.

Though company did say that yesterday's RBC report saying "most" of the top 25 737s do not want Boeing to re-engine the narrowbody, was "consistent with what we're hearing from customers."

The first Boeing 747-8I left the Everett fuel dock and was towed inside the paint hangar Tuesday morning to receive its Boeing livery in preparation for its official debut on February 13. The aircraft, designated RC001, did not run its Pratt & Whitney Canada PW901C auxiliary power unit during its two days outside at Paine Field, says Boeing. What remains unclear is whether or not the company's largest jetliner will wear flight test lite colors like that of the 747-8 Freighter or full Boeing Dreamliner livery like the first 777-200LR, 777F and 787 all wore in recent years for their respective certification campaigns.

Photo Credit Moonm (3) Boeing (1 & 2)

Listen to an Embraer technical briefing on the Legacy 500/450 fly-by-wire system with Fabrício Caldeira, flight control laws manager (first speaker), and chief project pilot Eduardo Camelier:

For as long as there has been fly-by-wire on aircraft, there's been a debate about how to best utilize the electronic flight control system and where to draw the line between pilot freedom and hard and fast boundaries protecting the aircraft and its occupants. This debate is far from settled with the most famous dispute between Boeing and Airbus charting different courses through computer driven flight control actuation.