Vietnam's Chief General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong Shakes Hands on Trade

Vietnam political arm has met the US on US home ground today in DC. The back drop happens to be Vietnam's Airline 787-9 sitting at JFK waiting for customer delivery after the big ceremony photo ops. More telling is the backroom discussion which needs Vietnam's government approval for its next big order in the offing. It is mentioned in talks, with inclusion of eight 787-8 and eight 787-10's for ordering by Vietnam Airline. The deal may have been already been struck during this event, as high government officials are present. Vietnam Airlines needs government approval before validating a deal with Boeing. All the participants are currently in DC this week. This is only unconfirmed speculation that another deal was struct with Boeing.

Spectacular Washington DC Fly-by for Vietnam Airline 787-9

 australianaviation.com.au  Photo Boeing

Already Vietnam Airlines have bagged confirmed deals for 19 787-9's of which one sits in DC during this auspicious occasion. It will be delivered later in July. The DC parked bird went to Paris and back thrilling the crown with its versatility in its air demonstration. This 787-9 also flew over DC showing everyone, its capability, with the same amount of awe for this dynamic aircraft.

A summary of everything Vietnam Airlines has accomplished so far:

19  787-9 ordered and one awaiting customer pick-up
8    787-10  sale not yet closing, awaiting Vietnam's approval for confirming
8    787-8    sale not yet closing, awaiting Vietnam's approval for confirming

Total Fleet alignment when all transactions are complete: 35 787's for Vietnam Airlines.

Seasonality, The Heart Of A Boeing Forecast

When making statistical projections seasonality skews the projection according to what may occur if the statistical influences are added to the math model for projecting outcomes. The reason both Airbus and Boeing come up with different results is based on different seasonal variables. These can include many affects on the not so straight line assumption of how many aircraft will be ordered. Below are a few seasonal indices affecting a twenty year forecast.

• Fuel Market
• Economic Stability 
• Labor Market
• Financial Market 
• Demand Constraint
• Supply Constraint

These are just to name a few where a statistical model factors in each of these seasonal influences, smoothing the outcome, and  apportioning its influences in the forecast. With all these variables the manufacturer who makes its proclamations about the airplane market futures; comes up with a plausible outcome, which reasonably affixes a demand for just a general prediction for customers who will need an airplane through til 2034.  Each years projection updates the date range. During 2016 the date range will go through 2035. Each succeeding year's forecast will include the "n"th year twenty years out. If going longer than twenty the forecast suppositions starts to lose accuracy and relevance. In fact a ten year forecast is a better predictability reliance than twenty years. The narrower the time range, the better the forecast will match what actually occurs. 

It's just like the weather forecast. Having a 72 hour weather window is an excellent method for predictability, and usually a most accurate forecast. Adding seasonality factors into the weather forecast can extend a reasonable reliance 30 days out with high confidence. The Confidence component is another statistical tweak which continues to enhance a more accurate outcome by defining a range of accuracy expected. A ninety day weather forecast becomes closer to a guess with some  seasonality influences and is less reliable. The further a statistical forecast goes out the more unstable the outcome accuracy becomes compared to what will really happen.

A statistical Airplane model would have to include some seasonal factors, including the affects of  War or Depression.  It would include additions with more extensive seasonality factoring with any 20 year model. The 20 year prediction  reels its long range seasonality influences when adding those factors to an forecast outcome. A complexity of factors become so unstable and whimsical that it becomes a useless model if too many seasonal consideration are applied. The only sanity in the process is doing a year to year with a twenty year range. War and depression forecasts are similar to predicting the next earthquake. Therefore, why predict the airplane market dynamics during the next twenty years using "earthquake data" in its forecast model? It is more solid to use straight forward industry growth projections and social and economic indicators in the model, which are a manageable, and a reasonable resource for projecting the next twenty years from year to year reports.

A reasonable answer from forecasting should be simple and should be part of every participant from the industry. Remember in the weather forecast example above, the first 72 hours are usually a golden prediction,  with only having a few degrees of temperature variance from what actually is recorded when it happens. A week long weather report becomes plausible and fairly reliable. A month long weather outlook is a best information outcome with all the seasonal bells and whistles included. It even has its own forecast within the forecast. How reliable and how accurate will the outcome actual match the forecast is another forecast in itself. That is known as the confidence factor. A twenty year forecast has a broader spectrum for its confidence when calculating what the market will become. Hence an annual forecast keeps updating the Airplane industry's "weather report", adding on a year. It is similar to what the news contemplates when conducting your own local weather reporting. The importance of the Airplane forecast is those first five years and how Boeing sees it. Those years are the most accurate and are within a customers own five year financial plans. 

It then becomes important to a customer, supplier, or financial markets, to take into consideration the first five year window of a Boeing 20 year market prediction.

It also important for development teams, innovators and industry planners to take into account the 5-10 year segment of what Boeing predicts. It takes that much time for completing innovation steps, allowing for maturing, and plant facility growth to occur. The last ten years of the prediction, is an over-arching case-maker when organizations are proposing a quantified change affected by predicted demand quotient.

Boeing doesn't claim absolute accuracy, but does claim all things considered you can expect 22,000 units from here to 2034. Next year it will be from then to 2035. Airbus smooths it out a little less perhaps accommodating a seasonal decline on its own narrow body demand during the next twenty years.

Boeing Data Full Market Outlook PDF

   

“Concurrency” are You Nuts Military

Most American citizens aren't aware of this term, but the best-laid plans of mice and men say concurrency in its military planning language. I say, "are you nuts!" Not everyone knows we are a weaker nation with concurrency running our military industrial complex. Now it's up to me to explain this fools notion to make industrialist rich and the US Vulnerable. I will be writing about concurrency with the following epic demonstrations listed below:

• DDG1000  Zumwalt $2.6 Billion
• F-35 A,B,C   $150 million each
• Gerald R Ford CVN-78 $12 Billion

Latin definition for the word Concurrency (with your currency). :)

The military explanation did not have your vote nor your common sense. It simply made the case to Congress and stated, Build a program on the fly and we will learn and make changes as we go! This is a paraphrased concept of the military and a process killing its own military industry while losing its ability to defend and then losing this nation who gave its trust for the complex. Concurrency is not a component of American exceptionalism. It defeats the competitive process and gives our country far less back than what is spent on its defense, leaving the country vulnerable to any aggression. Strong words, I hope so!

The DDG1000 is the first boat point up. It is the Navy's newest iteration of a warship at sea. It cost 2.6 billion for the first one now plying the oceans in our defense. It is stealth, it is speed, and lethal. Designed with out-of-the-box thinking and beyond. It could fire a projectile 75 (less)miles on target within inches of accuracy. So what is the problem, my friend? They are only going to build only three copies and are reverting back to a decades-old DDG51 series with new destroyers to fill the gap from its cutting off the DDG1000 program. Concurrency killed it! The billions up front on ship number 1 made it a big "no" when acquiring twenty more of its type. A continuing progression going from model to model found in the concurrency group think would take the DDG1000's series cost to infinity and beyond. So they think? Rather than let BIW find continuous march towards efficiency, through additional builds or supplier innovations lowering the cost of each succeeding model, Washington lost its stomach for the Navy's venture into a concurrency leakage of your money building just one boat. 

However, China is now exceeding where we have pulled back strategically on the sea theater. They are building new destroyers and building new sea Islands near our old friends in the Philippines.

Concurrency programs are grinding innovation backward as military money dries up. Doing upgrades on the fly with concurrent programs is a flawed mindset, and does not make the military as able. I going to jump to the F-35 program. At the beginning where the bidders of the JSF program. A one size fits all workshop theme not yet applied to the military. The bidders had to supply three models to three services with one frame concept. It had to be stealthy. It didn't have to be fast. It had to beat every aircraft out there. It would cost 60-70 million per aircraft. I am getting to the point. ... and so forth.

The F-35 Lockheed award beat Boeing's flying potato. Then stage II of concurrency started. The F-35 underperformed, it has many shortfalls. The claim came forward from test pilots. The F-16 flies better, faster, and can beat the F-35 nine times out of ten in dogfights. But the F-35 looks good like a fighter and now costs $150 million each. It's a long stand-off weapon, not a dogfighter.

I will quote an unnamed source not to protect identity, but I can't remember his name. But you can find it if you read as much as I do online. Anyways, he said, "only if the Marines would have been awarded the Boeing VTOL offering". It did a great job, it looked ugly like a Marine, and it flew better than anything they had seen, including Lockheed's offering. But wiser heads prevailed and opted for looks in the beauty pageant, and choose the sleek looking F-35. Concurrency was now on board for the long taxpayer run on the bank.

It has been stated the F-35 has delivered its first block point, and the military has sent back its review and shortcomings on jet performance. They produced another batch and then got re-reviewed. In fact, they have gone through three rounds of aircraft generations for 100 within just one service for configuration changes.  The F-16 is still better at flying. Conclusion, people could get killed up there flying the F-35 against an F-16. Concurrency doesn't work and military operations do not make a good testing process just to discover something is truly inadequate prior to a pilot's ejection.

Solution: Best Practices Best Fit. The F-35 Air Force and Navy frame gave up speed when accommodating design features for the Marine VTOL version. Drop those speed robbing features in the non-Marine frame. Award the Marines a Boeing frame, for a run with the expeditionary forces, they fight ugly. Award a move towards an F-35 frame revamped for the Air Force and Navy. The purpose is for gaining additional speed air superiority it lacks.  Complete additional war characteristics that are missing. The concurrent change will enhance the warbird so it can out-fly the F-16 and outperform any adversarial combatant up close or with a long distance advantage. That is true concurrency philosophy after the one-frame-fits-all, miserably fails to cost this nation more than just money.

The Gerald R Ford the newest Nuclear Aircraft Carrier is just going to completion. Let's go to sea for 12.5 billion and see what we have to change as Ford stumbles during sea trails? No problem, it will come in for a $2 billion in up-charge and fix. Do this three times, and the carrier will tap the people of these United States for a total cost of $18 Billion making the CVN-78 program scandalous, before its combat ready. It will be a great ship concurrently speaking. Actually, the word concurrency should replace the word "currency". After all "a con is a con" only with currency on the table.

Somewhere Boeing Has a 787 Backlog Target

Boeing has about 800 number of 787's on the backlog line. What that causes for the sales team is a night mare. The A-330's backlog number in in the three hundreds counting its NEO's. Price and production availability are the calling cards for Airbus which causes Boeing angst, if you ask Randy Tinseth. As Boeing's Marketing VP, his main grip is customers need a slot filler sooner rather than later for fleet expansions or renewals. The A-330 a diminish aircraft in advancement then the 787, and a cheaper buy. Suites emerging and legacy carriers currently just fine until a much later time. The full conversion to the 787 product won't be complete until the A-330 dies a natural death by the 787.

So what is the answer to Boeing's dilemma? The answer is:

• smaller backlog through production. 
• Having a higher efficiency in production,
• where efficiency brings lower cost gaining sales flexibility for its customers

Those points alone would kill the A-330 noise. The mere fact that Airbus can offer an A-330 within a customer's five year fleet plans makes it an attractive option fitting a customers plans. The new customer's 787 is stuck on the factory floor waiting for its work order as soon as its turn is called. All the platitudes of the 787 are lost on customers hearing, because they can plan "B" it with the A-330 NEO. 

But  :  

• The 787 flies farther,
• it flies more efficiently,
• it is more passenger centered from its advanced evolutionary features,
• and its just plain better than the A-330.

The customers turn to Boeing and says when can you deliver it, and for how much? Randy needs a earlier delivery dates to sell more 787. He needs the ability for price packaging incentives for the customer. The sales market is frozen for the 787, because of inflexibility, not because of product inferiority. Customers can buy a A-330 NEO  within a customer's five year plan and maybe get one by year three for less money.

The key comes back to Boeing's inflexibility metric, which is quite high on the 787. Metrics are cards drawn from the big game board which pleases managers. When all the metrics align within an optimal range the managers get promoted. So an arbitrary scale is made from non statistical sources since you can play with statistics and make them what you them to say (??). The scaling method most people understand. On a scale of 1-10 is the start of it all. An outcome called "1", represents optimal customer conditions and 10 represents total inflexibility and market risk. This scale is set by the customer and not the manufacturer. The customer knows its finance, its growth plans and its competitive counterparts, therefore it knows what is optimal for its own success. The manufacturer can only supply the customer what it wants when it wants and for the customers ability to pay for it. All other talking points become ancillary to the purchase issue. The A-330 NEO has only focused upon Boeing's ability to deliver the 787 and its competitive price.

Boeing knows it needs to remove those purchasing impediment of delivery timing and better pricing when it can afford to do so. The answer is given at the beginning of the blog. Boeing's backlog for the 787 must match the customer's own typical planning cycle. Statistic can be brought in at this point. It needs to sync Boeing's backlog with a typical airlines time plan.

Back to the scale. A customers Optimal timing is counted as a 1 rating. The customer's most riskiest timing is too far out for taking delivery of a 787. It looses its ability for measuring financial impact within its own five year plan projections.  This makes it a 10 for potential customers. The 787 averages about an 8 on the scale for taking on new orders (highly inflexible). The NEO averages about a "3" on the buy scale (good flexibility). A great rating of "1" was when the 787 was first offered during its first years on the order block. It has matured to an 8 rating from its  own success (of mostly inflexible), Mr. Tinseth supports the notion let's clear the production decks, and we will sell more 787. It it does, it will leave the A-330 NEO orphaned from its customers. Airbus has struck only at opportunity given by Boeing's successfully large and inflexible backlog, using the A-330 NEO as the flexible purchase option for customers.

Money always trumps uncertainty on the scale. Certain mega airline customers are wealthy, mitigating timing and risk from financial vulnerability. Those are the out lying marketing customers that Boeing will do back flips at any time. They will always have a default rating of a 5 no matter the maker or type. However, the customer who is more fragile in its nature, Boeing must reduce its backlog in an attempt to woe that customer having its own flexibility scaling for its optimal purchase and delivery cycle. The scale of a "1" for a particular customer is a fruit dropped from the tree. A scale of a 10 for a customer is fruit just forming. It is waiting for the price and backlog to drop so it can order having the lowest airline company risk, and a more favorable price.

The Backlog target Boeing may consider is between 350 and 400 unfilled 787 orders in a static range for its sales team to maximize its efforts year in and year out. Boeing then must sell its production units of about 120 each year. If Boeing did not sell another 787 for three years it would reach this optimal backlog number, Boeing is going to sell more 787 this year out of demand from airline growth. It may take Boeing ten more years to reach optimal backlog for its customers needs. The scale is a guide for how ripe the fruit maybe for Boeing. Economic climate can change the scale number quickly or it cam give the fruit a frost, as it falls off the tree as a brick.

Modernizing The Potential With A Military Perspective.

Not often does something come along which revolutionizes the culture. Human kind is on the cusp of something new all the time. Is it the next bicycle, airplane or military concept? It’s all three and can be had for the convenient price of $80,000 dollars (SRP). Today I am in vacation mode, where blogging can only consider fun and ingenious concepts. The month of July could be lousy for sarcasm, snarkiness and intellectual contribution concerning Boeing stuff. I can't hate on Airbus during July. I will be fishing, BBQing and with relatives. The rest will come naturally. Check!

However, it will include a summer reading link for all electronic reading. My son pointed this link out to me, and it’s already consumed a week of one of my precious last summers that I may have, as I age on dude!

Summer Must Read -link:  ALPHA FOXTROT

Summer Toy For Me: 

Summer Vacation Starts Here: At Flathead Lake Montana. Looking from my Sister's Abode View from the upper back deck. Bucket List Check!

­­­­­­Next in the Montana on the Winging It Vacation, is camping at Glacier Park and reuniting with family, for the pure joy of listening to how others live in camp grounds the right way.  ;) Another lousy vacation picture of the Glacier that I remember from Last year's trip is now yours to cherish. It’s really outstanding at the Park. Shhhh don't tell anybody. It's our secret. Bucket List Check!

I won't tell you about where this picture is even taken, but its in a small gorge coming from a Lake about two miles away having a surrounding of water falls from every cliff dumping into the Lake. 

­­­

Check!!

Below are Headwaters to Above Picture: Avalanche Lake Shhh!

If I come back ("If": means I got stuck in MT) or when I come back (I'm coming back to Boise already) there will be more Boeing static to go over. I will be rested, tanned and mosquito bitten. My personal guarantee! Just make sure you treat my hover bike well and don't fall off. 

The Boeing Market is Psychology 101

A long held assumption from Airbus is bigger will always trump anything better. Even when its own product is actually smaller, it still talks bigger. Boeing is faced with reality just as much as Airbus faces its reality. Boeing is presenting the better is the best model. However, every customer's frontal lobes don't often align with the best intended sentiments. They like to hear a huckster, and go in the tent and watch the fat lady do her thing at the carnival. They just can't help themselves. Its human psychology 101. Impulsive pride overlooks the blemishes, as it goes for the spiel, with some sense for eternal satisfaction.

This is where the airplane market finds itself. One faction establishes a premium, while the other gloats its way into a packed house. The street vendor mentality rules the quick sale, as it bloviates  over talking points as if it were real. People love to hear why buying the knock-off is a shrewd choice. The buyer is more interested in being oh-so-clever, than becoming rooted in the value of becoming oh-so-smart.

The buyer could be  psychologically impaired, as it takes its thinking momentum forward based on unrelenting pride of purchase. The two mega builders have taken different roads for making sales. One depends on the frontal lobe customer pride rationale for its final decision making. Even after all the statistics are absorbed, the mental filters are firmly in place for choosing one over the other. Only when the accountants come back do they realize the psychological momentum has taken a buyer down the wrong road where pride covers the error. The buyer is never wrong is its mantra. "That's the way we always do it", chorus sings out. The deed becomes the company's best practice.

The other builder believes better is best and will win out. That is Boeing's stand.

However, those pesky accountants keep asking questions about  the bottom line. One question keeps popping up from the accountant, how is Ethiopian Airlines doing it?

"What do you know about the airline business, Bean counter?", comes a corporate response. Its the Bloviated Clan speaking from Airbus.

Fortuitously for Boeing, there are decision makers who look at the airline business with a keen eye for the bigger picture, rather than a bigger aircraft girth. The 787 is gaining footing as customers go long with a medium wide body. Boeing hopes the 777X family will become the true wide body supreme machine. Airbus who is partially schizophrenic, wants its A-350 in one market as the fat lady and the other market as the efficient lady. Claiming the A-350-900 is a 787 beater and the A-350-1000 is a 777X beater. This suggests being surrounded by Boeing's five types of  787 and 777's, makes a schizophrenic framer of aircraft very dizzy. Therefore, you may count on Airbus saying anything.

A severe psychological disorder is present when it cannot purposefully build a family model for the Wide Body market segment. Some customers like it that way too. The pride factor of having the biggest airplane appendage dominates its rationale, and giving it momentum. No matter how a competitive manufacturer couches the subject, it becomes, a just because we can logic. Money is out of the conversation at that point, because money is not the issue, pride is the issue.

This psychology pervades travelers as well as the airline maker. The only thing stopping pride is the fall. Therein lies the danger. The fall comes from making assumptions based filtered observations, that are heavily influenced by a predisposition for shiny big objects. The slippery slope has such a structure.

Boeing proposes no slippery slope in which to embellish. It proposes a dedication to proven innovation, which is forward looking through its environmental approach, and operational efficiency (whew). Better air inside and out is the big picture. Boeing products are looking at earths ecology and passenger experience in spite every attempt of inserting more seats, I mentioned the MORE SEAT BANE in a prior blog.

The addiction to pride is like a drug where both manufacturer and customer can't help themselves and must adhere with its steady progression downward in its scheme called "a slow motion fall". Its is advantageous a fork in the road exists for both manufacturers. One goes the high road, which seems a bit harder, and the other goes the long windy low road. As it obviously becomes a bit ambiguous in nature, but pleasant to the senses for any lost sensibility.

Boeing has chosen the difficult high road, which is an outstanding view for manufacturer, airline customer, and passenger. The psychology is found in the product itself and not the sales pitch. As it promotes clean breathable air inside and clean comfortable flight lines outside even during rough air. The sensual awareness results from its innovative spirit built into the aircraft. Space and how you use it, is the final frontier.

   

A Contortionist Guide To Wide Bodies

Going wide has started an insatiable appetite for stuffing an airplane with one more seat, because they can. The one more  "syndrome" is a anatomical  gyration governed by the techno terms of "Pitch", width and recline. What if an airplane maker goes wide for an eight seat row from a recommended stack of seats. The advertised builder specs says a 35" pitch makes room for the traveler allowing for a descent amount of recline backwards. Sounds great. Then the per seat data nerd enters the board room unbeknownst to the airplane manufacturer.

"I willing to bet", he states, "we can go nine across in seats with a 31 inch pitch, and spaciously cram 335 passengers on a 240 passenger Dreamliner. My per seat costs of travel will drop out of sight for the airline and we can brag the 787-8 is 40% more efficient than what we did with the 767."

The seat manufacturers were seated at the board room meeting and asked a pertinent question. How do you seat a 100 kilos and 185 cm, or the Passenger Maximum Take-Off Measurement (PMTOM, aka and stated as "Payment Of Money") for any passenger. They quickly came-up with Installing a scale at boarding where each passenger weighs in and is also measured by laser for cubic inch displacement. A limit is established from averages from everyone's displacement of passengers total space and mass. A  composite total is needed for crediting or surcharging the seat they have rented for the trip. I am not nuts, but I have a sense of humor. Please laugh when it's appropriate to do so.

The seat gurus at the table whisper back and forth for a few minutes, then say profoundly, "We can do that, here's how".

"I've got this 185 cm blob of weight which weighs 100 kilos. Stay with me its a story problem from the 5th grade. I've got it, I tell you! Two airplanes traveling towards any destination are going in opposite directions one has a pitch of 31 inches. The other has a pitch of 35 inches. The 35 inch seat pitch plane arrives in Amsterdam on time. The 31 inch seat pitch airplane arrives in Newark, NJ  and late, but full of bowling teams from Australia. Don't loose me here the key component of the story problem is coming now. The 35 inch pitch plane charges at least $1,000 one way, and the bowling teams from Australia pays  $500  for its 31 inch seat pitch, and all the beverages they can consume on a 16 hour flight. The Amsterdam plane traveled from St Louis, Mo. it went with wine for its customers.

The seat manufacturer intern gets excited, "We can make them stand while in semi seated posture. Legs from the waist down angle slightly to the floor. The seat only rest just a small portion of the human bum. Then we recline the upper torso with a 75 degree angle for resting the upper torso. The airplane seat pitch can be reduced to 24" and then you can add another 60 seats on the floor plan and go 400 passengers on a 787-8.

Passengers Seated In The Overhead Luggage Bin

La Tee Da Photography

The question before you with this story problem, is how much revenue is collected from each flight and how much beer is spilled on the Australian flight?

Answers:
$1,000 X 240 =  $240,000 US.
$500 X 335 = $165,500*

*About 1,000 gallons of beer spilled or actually sipped as dead weight with Jet Star.

Who wins: The NJ bowling alley wins, It took in about a million $US from a plane load of Australians flying Jet Star/Qantas. Its 787 has 31" pitch, and then it poured its passengers into its seats calling it a destination revenue maker not an airline winner. The Amsterdam flight just makes better friends and some more money.

787 Quarter By The Early Numbers

June 30th  is the quarter completed. June is the halfway point for 2015. June has busted out all over as Rogers and Hammerstein would sing it out. Boeing loves it when a plane comes together. The plan was set along time ago but the plane had to be built, so hear it is stock junkies. Its a grand plane, erh plan. The 90 day measuring stick calls out 34 in a 11.3 x 11.3 x 11.3 cadence for the quarter. A few trendy rises with a soft crescendo by quarters end. Its a Vivaldi a concert of the four seasons as we move to  Summer! 

Summer is now, the second quarter is spent.

The Delivery strength in the second quarter showed the 787-9 gaining momentum as it gains orders. More of both are on the way when considering orders and delivery slots. Vivaldi jumps over this Idea with its second quarter spring excellence;

The autumn is the strength of the 787 program as shown in the the chart below at end of second quarter.

Winter will wrap up another good or excellent year as it crystallizes the program for a solid for its customers. The numbers won't lie as to who has the real edge.

Final numbers are rushed towards the end  of December, in a surprised cadence over its competitors. Boeing stays playing-on, much the delight of its customers, who gain flight from its flowing wings. The year will end as "well played" by a virtuoso, and its team of collaborators making, the 787 the "Four Seasons", A Timeless Aircraft.

Time marches on, as we have a grand start to this year's end, while showing the 2nd quarter 787 numbers. You may read these charts during a work break. No one will fault you for listening to Vivaldi. They will think you are working like a surgeon, and you are working with Boeing's precision like concertos called the 787.

* Works In Process Year

Credits: Vivaldi Boston Symphony, All Things 787, Boeing.com and various tracking data sources.

Now Crescendo Winging It

The Carbon War Is Here To Stay

Carbon is a natural element on our planet. It is a very important element which controls the habitability of this planet. We are all prisoners on the planet much like the passengers on a cruise ship. The atmosphere is only so thick. The land can only absorb so much carbon. Permafrost regions of the earth store immense amounts of carbon until it releases during warming trends. A warming trend begins when additional carbon is present without any abatement of its impact in the atmosphere. A vicious planetary heating cycle starts when added carbon into the planet's eco system cannot be absorbed by its natural processes. In fact the earth loses its ability to store carbon as it warms from more atmospheric carbon content. The thin blue line protecting us from above, is no thicker than a sheet of  tissue paper wrapped around a basketball when comparing the earths size to its protective atmospheric layer.



Virgin Airlines takes carbon seriously. It has made it an objective of reducing its carbon footprint by 30%. Several factors counter this intent. One is the airplane traffic growth, which will quickly overwhelm Virgin's noble stand. Number 2 is the condition where other airlines continue with a flood of older equipment, while nullifying other airlines effort to reduce its carbon emissions. The problem of carbon emission is here to stay. Taxing the carbon emissions footprint is foolish idea, when there isn't a solution yet.  However, making steps of reducing carbon through upgraded equipment is a phase airlines must take. The expansion of air travel has a finite boundary on the planet, and commerce cannot assume infinite growth for its flying customers as a constant.

Virgin Atlantic Reports Carbon and Noise Reductions

Recent advances in engine technology and carbon emissions is only the first step, out of many more to come, in order to balance the planet's ability to absorb carbon within its natural cycles. Otherwise we just will get hotter, then burn more electricity on air conditioning, and make more carbon. The top down solution of protecting the atmosphere first is the best start for a solution.

Having more atmospheric carbon suspended absorbs more sunlight and heats us up, They call it green house gasses. Having too little carbon freezes the planet. The planet has a fine balance for humans, and I am not even an environmentalist when saying so. We now have a problem of making our own suffocating hot box from the top down.

The future of flight may become imperiled by these actual carbon progressions. Richard Branson gets It! Virgin Airlines is trying to show the way we can survive, and travel in the air. We, as a population of flyers, can stay airborne longer into the future if all of us recognize every contrail overhead is atmospheric loading of carbon  (green house) gasses. There maybe limits someday, of how many airplanes can exist along with the other carbon loading functions from industry.

Fracking The Aviation Market

Fracking is a term used for extracting deep oil deposits in well establish rock formation holding an oil reserve. A drill path goes down through to the rock layer, makes a hard turn into the horizontal layer, and then exploits the layered strata with explosions releasing the oil.

The world is divided into two major aviation framers, Boeing and Airbus. The aviation strata Boeing needs to exploit, is Airbus' cadre of customers. Entrenched in hard layers are duration of time familiarity, training cost, and operational convenience. Boeing has breached operational efficiency in the market place, but lacks a fracking technique which would dislodge Airbus customers pumped up by Boeing and vice-versa for Airbus.

The Aviation market grows more fixed than flexible out of billions required for making a change to another frame maker. Qatar has chosen the cream of both framers' crop for its offering. It went with the more is better for installing fixtures in a Qatar aircraft, going Airbus in numbers and Boeing for class type.  The Boeing 737 is the exclusive market model for Southwest Airlines, a mid-sized footprint in the world of travel.

Can an all Airbus Fleet be fracked? The answer is hoped for in this introduction on a fixed market vs a flexible market. A fixed market customer is someone like SouthWest Airlines. A flexible market is the Qatar example even though it’s leaning towards Airbus at this time as it loves the 787 in its fleet.

Fracking the market has its best results during a fleet renewal period.

Every time an aircraft becomes obsolete through time and use an airline needs an explosion changing its preference. An Airbus A320 NEO quickly filled the opportunity gap for its existing customers. Yes, Boeing hesitated, because of the 787 capital outlay in 2010. Boeing didn't frack the Airbus Market five years ago, and it is now paying for it with Airbus Sedimentary customers. The question is pushed forward to the year 2030. The next great fracking will occur in the single aisle market place. Who comes first will lead the way. Boeing must revolutionize the single Aisle Market by 2030. It will frack Airbus sideways unless they counter offer ahead of Boeing.

The developmental pushing and shoving has just started. The A-320 NEO is a placeholder as the name implies. The 737 MAX is a stop gap name as it also implies. Both are adequate, and both fell victim to money spent on other projects first.

In 2030 the airplane words should be a dedication to the single aisle renaissance!

Plastic and engines added to less drag will frack the competitor immensely, releasing its valued customers to the winning framer. Boeing has to plan now for the next paradigm shift.

Opportunity replaces the fear of not doing anything. The new Boeing CEO has his objectives in view long before this is written. In short today's offering is a follow-up to yesterday's ramblings. Boeing is in good hands as it has the best team.