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Aviation History
1994
1994 - 1017.PDF
INTERNATIONAL Editorial Enquiries +44 (81) 652 3842 Editorial Fax +44 (81) 652 3846 Display Advertising +44 (81) 652 3315 Display Advertising Fax +44 (81) 652 8981 Classified Advertising +44 (81) 661 6373 Classified Advertising Fax +44 (81) 652 3279 Telex 892084 REEDBP G Subscriptions +44 (81) 402 8491 fax: +44 (81) 402 8383 Back issues (recent copies only) +44 (371) 810433 Picture Library +44 (81) 652 3427 Flight Directories +44 (707) 665151 USA Newstrade Sales Enquiries +1 (718) 392 7477 LONDON Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS, UK EDITORIAL ENQUIRES +44 (81) 652 3842 Editor Allan Winn +44 (81) 652 3882 Editor's PA Barbara Raine +44 (81) 652 3882 Deputy Editor Forbes Mutch +44 (81) 652 3852 News Editor Andrew Chuter +44 (81) 652 3843 Operations/Safety Editor +44 (81) 652 3845 David Learmount Business Editor Kevin OToole +44 (81) 652 3835 Commercial Aviation Editor Kieran Daly +44 (81) 652 3837 Defence Aviation Editor Douglas Barrie +44 (81) 652 3834 Technology/Industry Editor Simon Elliott +44 (81) 652 3838 Data Systems Editor Jenny Long +44 (81) 652 3847 Editorial Assistant Kate Sarsfield +44 (81) 652 3842 Production Editor Chris Thornton +44 (81) 652 3850 Design Editor Mike Wells +44 (81) 652 3828 Layout Sub-editor Annabel Goddard +44 (81) 652 3848 Technical Artist Tim Hall +44 (81) 652 8047 Technical Artist David Hatchard +44 (81) 652 8047 Technical Artist Giuseppe Picarella +44 (81) 652 8054 Spaceflight Correspondent Tim Furniss +44 (237) 451756 Photographer (Europe) Mark Wagner +44 (81) 944 5225 Display Advertisement Sales Group Advertisement Manager Trevor Parker +44 (81) 652 3319 Advertisement Secretary Lisa Goold +44 (81) 652 3315 Deputy Advertisement Manager Nick Wilcox +44 (81) 652 3892 Senior Area Manager Robin Gordon +44 (81) 652 4998 Area Manager Janice Lowe +44 (81) 652 3316 Advertisement Production Howard Mason +44 (81) 652 3267 EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST European Editor Julian Moxon +33 (1) 46 29 47 61 Fax +33 (1) 46 29 47 49 Munich Correspondent Andrzej Jeziorski +49 (89) 689 1041 Fax +49 (89) 689 1045 Paris Correspondent Gilbert Sedbon +33 (1) 4825 5261 Israel Correspondent Arie Egozi +972 (3) 967 1155 Moscow Correspondent Alexander Velovich +7 (095) 393 4717 Fax +7 (095) 393 4717 Sales Director (France) Pierre Mussard Representative (Italy) Romano Ferrario +33 (1) 46 29 46 29 +39 (2) 58084 302 AMERICAS American Editor Graham Warwick Washington Correspondent Ramon Lopez USA West Coast Correspondent (Los An Guy Nortis Photographer (USA) Craig Schmitman +1 (404) 587 2927 Fax +1 (404) 594 1534 +1 (703) 836 7443 Fax +1 (703) 836 8344 leles) +1 (714) 252 8971 Fax +1 (714) 252 8972 +1 (805) 649 9192 President RBP (USA) Ray Barnes Traffic Manager Josie Cordero Vice President US Sales John Tidy +1 (212) 867 2080 +1 (212) 867 2080 Fax +1 (212) 687 6604 +1 (714) 756 1057 Fax +1 (714) 756 2514 Sales Director (Mid West and Canada) Gene Glendinning +1 (708) 635 9920 Fax +1 (708) 635 0602 Sales Director (East Coast) Robert Hancock +1 (703) 836 7444 Fax +1 (703) 836 7446 Business Development Director Sheena Bobbins +1 (703) 836 7444 Fax +1 (703) 836 7446 ASIA/PACIFIC Asian Editor (Singapore) John Bailey +65 226 3188 Fax +65 227 1769 Australian Correspondent Paul Phelan +61 (70) 532 791 Fax +61 (70) 533 003 Sales Director Mike Hancock (Singapore) Account Manager Susan Yeo Regional Representative (Japan) Shoichi Maruyama +65 226 3188 +65 226 3188 Fax +65 223 6960 +81 (3) 3234 2161 Fax +81 (3) 3234 1143 Publisher Gavin Howe +44 (81) 652 3675 For lull advertisement information see page 51. COMMENT WHAT NOW, ENGINEER? Hoeing says that the 777 could he in production for 50 years." The unveiling of the Boeing 777 was the signal of a huge engineering triumph — but it might also have marked the apogee of development of conventional large commercial airliners. While the aircraft themselves seem to get ever bigger, the numbers of them under development get ever smaller and the dis tance by which each new design can move the boundaries of technical feasibility be comes smaller still. Part of that arises from the increasing capability of the designers to extract more from simpler aircraft. The Boeing 737 is now being developed into an aircraft almost as large and as capable as the 757. The 777 has started life as a re placement for the first- generation widebodies such as the Lockheed L-1011 and the McDonnell Douglas DC-IO, but already its manufacturer is talking about stretched ver sions which could/will replace the first-generation 747S. At the same time, aircraft manufacturers are looking to far longer production runs of their aircraft: Boeing says that the 777 could be in production for 50 years. Already, the 737 has been in production for 26 years, the 747 for 25. The McDonnell Douglas DC-9, of which today's MD-80 and -90 series are still officially derivatives, first went into service in 1965. The design of the 777 has involved an unprecedented amount of resource: past designs may have called for greater numbers of man-hours, but none has called for a greater number of calculations. Many of those calculations were made in establishing parameters which have never been the subject of absolute calculation before. In the past, problems or limitations in the design might not have been discov ered until the aircraft was being assembled or (more ominously) was in service. This time round, the 777's flight-control system has already "flown" many hundreds of hours, during which limits which would never be explored in actual service have already been addressed. Parts were "assem bled" on screen and interferences resolved long before metal was cut. All of these advances have required a huge input of resource. The question is: what does that resource do now? If the applica tion of that resource has been as successful as Boeing suggests, there will be fewer redesigns and post-first-flight development of its new aircraft than there have ever been before. Theoretically, there should be none, and therefore there should be little work for design and development engineers to do. Boeing says that the 777 is the last completely new airframe it will build this century. It has already decided that the successor to its enormously successful 737 will be another 737: stretched and re- winged, maybe, but still a 737. All the indications are that the immediate 747 successor will be another, larger, 747, and that the much-dis cussed 800-1,000- seater is a much more distant, much more tentative project. Much the same cir cumstance holds at Airbus Industrie, which, in a relatively short time, has estab lished itself as a com petitor in all major airliner-market sec tors, except that for 400-seaters. Its oldest designs (the A300/310 family) are younger than those of the Boeing 737 and 747, and of the McDonnell Douglas MD-80/90 and MD-11. In short, the industry as exemplified by Boeing, refined and developed its design and development capabilities to awesome, proba bly unparallelled, levels and is running out of things to develop with them. Yes, there is the promise of a future supersonic trans port, which is the subject of both joint US/European and independent preliminary studies. That, however, is a long way off and, while a new supersonic transport is likely to be the most complex civil-airliner project ever tackled, its development will not require the full combined resources of Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Airbus and its constituent partners. Obviously, there are many derivatives still to come of these major existing designs — Boeing speaks of the initial range of 777 variants not being complete for up to eight years, for instance. With the basic design existing in digital form, the development of even a major derivative will probably be easier in the future than it has ever been. Boeing president Phil Condit spoke at the 777 unveiling of the company's need to stabilise its workforce. Its very success in mastering the art of aircraft development as far as it has could make that task far more tricky than market swings ever have. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 20 - 26 April, 1994
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