Boeing's April Leads Airbus In World's Largest For 2017

The World's Largest Airplane Maker is based on number delivered aircraft and value of those delivered frames. The month of April shows Boeing stretching its lead over Airbus. 

Most observers believe Airbus will rebounds its slow start as many assembled frames are awaiting parts and provisions. However, a third of the year has transpired leaving a smaller window of time for catching up. Boeing has its boot on Airbus performance neck and it won't let up as it transitions from model generation to another. Going from NG to Max will be an exercise planned for with many of its risks already retired. Going forward with the 787-10 follows in the footsteps of the 787-9 development pathway. The real risk Boeing faces is forming the first set of 777X's for which the aviation world eagerly awaits.

The Airbus strong suit is its productivity and Boeing has a substantial lead over that important measure. It leads Airbus by 151 single aisle delivered to Airbus' 143 as shown in Figure 3 and 4.

Additionally, Boeing is padding its backlog with a robust first four months in a "down year with 169 net Single Aisle orders (Fig. 1). Airbus tallies 37 net orders in (Fig. 2). Air Shows and held back orders could even that score up but Boeing is on its way in a plus year over Airbus for the category. 

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

The Boeing duo aisle orders have a life with net 33 but needs more for a good year (Fig.5). Airbus is on life support with 8 net wide body orders in (Fig. 6).

Fig. 5

Fig. 6

Fig. 7

Fig 8.

The conclusion for April is Boeing is hard at work with both its orders and deliveries as it out paces Airbus with 202 orders to Airbus 29 net orders. Shown in figure 9. Boeing out produces Airbus by a score of 220 Boeing to 182 Airbus frames delivered. Airbus won't catch Boeing for the title of World's largest framer during 2017.

The remaining points are self contained in the below chart. If an error occurs pleas let me know as many spinning plates are in the air in fluid and dynamic aviation universe.

Fig.  9.

Phychological Dissonance With Stealth

When the radar bleep tells the operator its an F-15 incoming, a little planted device on the vertical tail wing of the F-35 root sends a F-15 like profile back to that radar indicating its not an F-35 to the operator.



Advantage, F-35 since it became as visible as an F-15. Stealth aside this little nuance confuses what defenders  need when the F-35 is coming in.

Source SOFREP:

"The notched bumps, which are called Luneberg reflectors, serve a purpose."

To confuse and obfuscate is the new weapon. The Navy version will not have this version. I would expect this to be a plug and play feature used in combat as conditions warrant its need since it exposes it as an object entering the battle space. Not all F-35 will have this capability as invisibility is also a needed advantage. More importantly, this signals a maturity of the F-35 program. The military has begun its ad hoc experimentation on how this frame can be modified for all combat condition. The plug and play phase of weaponizing under all conditions has begun. The period the F-35 has entered will continue throughout its life cycle going forward.

C919 Is Flying But Where?

The Chinese COMAC, C919, has flown the coop on its first flight. The Seattle Times offers a quick overview of this accomplishment and what it does for the market.  Dominic Gates writes with his assembly of observations in very clear picture.

Key Quote:

"Yet Richard Aboulafia, industry analyst with the Teal Group, believes that the central planning element and lack of any competition in the Chinese aerospace manufacturing economy inevitably will doom the C919 to mediocrity and unprofitably."

This opinion comes from Winging It's, take it or leave it common sense. There are 3 parts mentioned in this this opinion.

• Can COMAC compete?
• Will the C919 change the current duopoly
• Are customers wanting the C919

The compete question is tied up will Chinese ability of constructing an aircraft of this stature meeting and exceeding Boeing's 100 years of learning, error, and success and Airbus 46 years with Billions of government Euros making it so. COMAC has "borrowed" on Boeing's and Airbus' experience but there is no replacement for ones own experience. Common sense says China has another twenty years before it will get significant notice on its aviation accomplishments.

The current Boeing/Airbus duopoly is the holy aviation cow where many have approached but never have made it as a third wheel in the market place. Embraer, Bombardier, and everybody else who flies crop dusters have a niche place for which Boeing and Airbus will not allow into its mega club. COMAC is a government "allowed" consortium which has a parasitical business model of if we can't do it we will just take from others. I wonder who was the engineer in COMAC who stumbled upon using a side joy stick just like the Airbus version. Then the Chinese engine makers came up with a remarkable CFM engine from Safran and GE for its C919. The Chinese could use the CFM initials so they chose the GE-Safran consortium CFM engine.  By the way CFM was much debated into the Chinese Fast-Moving moniker once the oversight committee agreed. It was a smart move to buy technology you don't have than wait 40 years to develop it.

The COMAC by the Seattle Times chart above, speciously demonstrates a spot between the Boeing and Airbus single aisle dimensions and capacity. The Chinese engineers came up with a best fit by finding a midpoint between the two and made the COMAC a few inches here and there different and a few passenger here and there different. A room full of 1,500 engineers worked out the details of what the C919 would look like. Another forty years gained by borrowing from the mega builders parts bin.

The final point of market acceptance comes to the forefront. Do customers want the C919 on its own merits? 

Second tier regional Chinese Airline customers will do it in quantity per party bulletin issued. The more affluent Chinese airlines will buy-in with token orders out of nationalistic "pride". The affluent airlines are world players and bend towards market competition and are buying first rate air frames from Boeing and Airbus in numbers. 

COMAC does not have a world support foot print for its parts, maintainers and manufacturer's technical support. Customers can't buy and stay competitive without those key field components in play everywhere.

Thus, the C919 is relegated to the Chinese zip code and other peripheral customers. It will take another 40 years to spread a world footprint for its business case for its current and future customers.

As the Seattle Times article points out when quoting  

Richard Aboulafia.

"Yet Richard Aboulafia, industry analyst with the Teal Group, believes that the central planning element and lack of any competition in the Chinese aerospace manufacturing economy inevitably will doom the C919 to mediocrity and unprofitably.

Writing in his monthly newsletter last year, Aboulafia pointed out that:

 “government-managed, funded, and supported jetliners, historically, are not stellar performers.”

“Every single civil aircraft produced by an authoritarian country (or by a socialist economic system) has been a miserable failure on the market,” he wrote.

Predicting The Weather Is Easier Than Predicting 787 Sales

Its been a long held opinion using the Farmers Almanac is better than a long term weather report. There is no Farmers Almanac feature for predicting Boeing 787 sales for 2017. The wrong person to ask is an overly optimistic Boeing Neophyte like Winging It tries to become. The purpose of the blog is an aviation blog having a Boeing emphasis. Only Airbus referencing is used as a backdrop for the task at hand for enthusiastically analyzing how Boeing will stay on top of the aviation market place.

Winging It pretends to be the Farmers Almanac for Boeing aspirations. Using the ground hog as a tool is not an option, but guessing is more accurate method  for coming to a positive conclusion about the 787 sales potential in 2017.

The score card to date includes 13 booked 787, 19 LOI's for 787-10 from Singapore and the recently announced 10 +10 787's from West Jet of Canada. The plus portion are options of course. The final tally comes to 42 of the 787's thus purchased during 2017 to date. Having completed four months of 2017 sales campaign bodes well for the Boeing wide body division when considering two big air shows are upcoming before the close of 2017. In June there is the Paris Airshow at Le Bourget airfield and then the November Dubai Air Show with several interesting potential purchases forming. 

The first one  that comes to mind is the Emirates Order hanging like a chad in a fall election cycle. It may not even happen until much later as the Wide Body market is "soft" in 2017. The primary reason from this prognostication of a potential Dubai no show for an Emirates order, is from low demand for wide body because of low fuel prices. Once people go to the fuel pump  and buy a gallon of gas north of $3.50 a gallon there will be a wide body rush with Emirates leading all the airline suitors. A problem for Boeing is that Airbus is in play with Emirates  and so far it is falling Boeing's way during the early part of 2017 and Emirates is using Airbus offer as leverage for making a Boeing order.

Singapore wants the 777X model to the tune of 20 units, which will/should be announced later this year. Now there are 62 wide body chips stacked so far with Boeing 2017 order book in a "Down Year". The upcoming 8 months should round Boeing out with over 100 wide bodies ordered by year's end.

The ground hog will go into hibernation before year's end and will not be used for any further aviation sales prognostications.  However, much to Winging It's immense knowledge, it can better the ground hog, Farmers Almanac, and Boeing's close to the vest stance with a robust trend announcement. It will snow in December in Canada. Other than that Boeing already has a good year going for it when considering its a down year. Even if it picks up another "Baker's Dozen" 787 orders it will be considered a great year rather than just a good year.

Boeing Cools Its Single Aisle Jets In Production As The Max slots In

 The Boeing Corporation only built 38 737 NG's for its customers during April 2017. Below is the Winging Tracking for Single Aisle delivery.




Fig. 1

In all,Boeing produced 52 of its aircraft for the customers during April, 2017 and has netted delivering  221 for all types YTD.

Wide body types produced during April 2017 stands at 14.

Fig.2

More Airbus to Boeing data will be provided as soon as Airbus updates its website. Boeing, both in sales and delivery were down over its prior months but will maintain a lead over Airbus for the "2017 World's Largest Airplane Maker" distinction.

In the meantime this is a Boeing snapshot of its deliveries for April.

787 April Recap 2017

Below are the April numbers for YTD 787 production and sales.

It's Time To Complain Again About The F-35

Displacement is an old term with a new application. The theory of a floating object weighing the same as a rock, suggests it should not float. However, creating a space inside a rock will displace a volume of water which weighs the same as the hollowed out rock thus making it float. The critics look at the F-35 as a rock that can’t float nor does the rock have enough power to make it fly using those conclusions as a core criticism.

But in reality the F-35 program has both the necessary displacement and power to make it swim in a sea of air and fly very fast. Many critics have not factored in how the F-35 program's little displacement can float a program. Looking at a block of cement, conventional wisdom, would demand it won’t float and could only fly a few feet from a brick layers hands. Yet there are concrete boats that float.

The primary criticism speaks of plausible opinions where the F-35 will lose in combat. The assumption infers that it’s a Bumble Bee and it shouldn’t fly at all, yet a Bumble bee can navigate between rain drops or the sprinkler hose drops. An F-35 will just plain lose because its wings are too small like the Bumble bee where fifth generation computers won’t make up the difference.

Additionally, the worry here is that the F-35 is too far down the road and there is no turning back. It can’t survive a fight. Just like the concrete boat sinks or the Bumble bee dodges rain, it can’t do what its developers say it can do. Traditional wisdom tells us concrete sinks, Bumble Bees shouldn’t fly and the F-35 can’t fight. Who is right and who is wrong?

The answer comes from tests after tests and then war games after war games. War after-all is real and how real is the F-35 fighting a war? The critics weigh in at this point. Those are same ones that never have flown an F-35. The pilots who fly them are either earning their pay by agreeing with its bosses or out of pride. After all the DoD pays the salary. The pilots will not reveal secrets when asked, but they will reveal how well the decision it was to build this aircraft.

The industry wide consensus patronizes support of the government position and the critics sell opinion as gamblers gamble for a living. In fact, the opinionated tends to critique the government for its gambling with the nation’s defense as a curious twist of reasoning.

Everything bad about the F-35 supports the nay-sayers and everything remarkable about the F-35 is embellished by the defense of this nation.

So what has Lockheed wrought? The best answer at this point is looking at Red Flag exercises for which the F-35 finally participated. Even if it were a fixed fight, the F-35 flew remarkably over the best 4^th generation American fighters with fantastic 15:1 kill ratio over adversary aircraft in the event.

However, this was a test of capability without a final version of its software installed. It will become more lethal with version 3F installed even since that Red Flag war game version. It dodges rain drops at Mach 1.6 and the Bumble can’t fly that fast. It drops bombs faster than a concrete boat launching, but on a dime.

The critics have not included how technology displacement is floating this concept. The new school of thought is not in dog fighting. It is supersonic techno fighting where it doesn’t have to go Mach 2.0. However, the F-35 pulls 9+ G’s. It takes the inside corner away from escaping dog fighters and shoots.

Much has been written about its already “old” stealth capability. You can’t fight what you can’t see approach that the F-35 offers is years away from being caught up with from its onlookers. Its super computer capability fuses data into one giant computer rendering where any two-seater neck jockeys has to retire from eye strain when trying to keep up. This isn’t a dog fight, its annihilation time for any adversary.

If the US wanted to use X-15’s for dog fighters, it could have done that 60 years ago. Having a drag racer for a fighter jet is not wise nor is it practical. The F-35 is more of an extremely smart sports car. Put six of them in the air and it becomes a swarm of Bumble bees attacking a hapless sun bather. The only weakness is its weapons load capability. It may run out of munitions before clearing the battle space. Even its paltry 25mm cannon has too few rounds to sustain a spanking. It was put there in case some day it might need to use it as a last resort. Remembering the early generation fighter pilots carried a side-arm with six shots on the hip as some kind of courage maker when shot down. The 25mm cannon will make a mark when needed.

The critics will sound smart and adversarial players will copy the F-35 or its concept but what lies beneath its skin is where the fight begins.

Boeing’s Corporate Soul Is an Endangered Species

For so long has corporate after corporation strives for a fat bottom line with a straight line drawn by consolidations, quality reductions and a search for the cheapest part. The program engineer sometimes become an endangered species as lay-offs become part of the corporate thirst for just-in-time investor satisfaction. Somehow the main product becomes the investor when abating risk is the Pablum for every investor.

Boeing has taken a wait and see position thus offering the door to hundreds of high paid employees until more sales are generated. The rationale is directed towards future market cycles slumping. As good stewards of investor money it will cut forces. The corporate soul is owned by money and everything else exist because of that money.

Back in the day the corporate mind set was building hugely successful products and the investors will come. The inverse follows with building hugely lean processes where the investor will profit.

Clear back to 2003, Boeing faced a crash by not having hugely successful products. They weren’t family and people love families while its investors love margins, shares, and such things. The mind set coming from investor thinking, “Go fire the fuel truck driver”, if it fattens the profit margin. Boeing aircraft happen to run on fuel.

Boeing has laid off hundreds of its higher skilled engineers because it will fatten the bottom line to do so. However, another perspective is why Boeing hasn’t used these people in its vast organization for the making of superior products which makes them indispensable. It suggests a Boeing waste of personnel has occurred and they must “go” because investors demand a reduction in force before stock prices can increase.

The simplistic rationale becomes traditional for its corporate-investor relationship. The micro-managing of expense items is the tweak for inspiring investments during a down sales year. In fact by years end when Boeing sales supersedes its competitor, Boeing stock will rise, while those “dispensable” engineers are long gone.

If it can be done cheaper with fewer people is the corporate engine of success. This happens too often in corporate world. The older concept of building the best is a risky gamble when profits are wrung out of cheap things becomes better motto to live by. No longer are things made for the pleasure of the customer but for the pleasure of investor.

This is more of an Allan Mulally story than a blog idea. Allan Mulally ran the Boeing commercial division until the Ford Motor Company had swept him away. Why? Because his vision is what a failing car company needed. Allan led the Boeing wide-body charge in the early 21^st century the he engineered ford to its success. He defied the corporate conventional wisdom of cutting cost until becoming rich then leaving. An engineer had a vision to build it best and everything else falls into place. He was no cost cutting bean counter saving the corporate millions for the profitable investor. He was a sound old school performer who wanted to make it great or don’t do it at all.

In spite of its moon-shot problems encountered during the 787’s early program. The Mulally die had been cut. Boeing would take it to the next product level that even its competitor would fear to tread. His engineering sense made it so.

Since the arrival at Ford, Alan Mulally and even later his retirement, Ford has achieved a remarkable automotive turn around. They make a product people love. In fact being a big Chrysler fan, I have since lost interest in its product, because Ford brings a new game to the table which works well for me. The Chrysler-Fiat merger made me think more about Ford than anything.

Now corporate stiffs run Boeing. Engineers are being laid-off as may show less respect to the customer than for its investors is revealed. Boeing is not using its human resource well then having to lay off engineers. It tells me Boeing is run by a different breed of leadership which adheres to its main job of packing golden parachutes.

The HP example of an emerging leader in the computer world until they embarked onto the slippery slope of corporate self-service. It has shrunk, reduced, and imploded itself for the sake of corporate self-enrichment over customer satisfaction. Caught in the middle are its people who are slowly disappearing due to lay-offs and retirement packages. Soon it will be another American memory of how stockholders will reinvest into something else.

When a person refers to a corporate soul, it refers to what purpose the corporation has for being. Is it for its customers or is it for its leadership?

Where Does The 777-8X Fit

The 350 seat 777-8X has exciting potential for many airlines needing fills for seasonal campaigns such as trans-traveling the globe on any seasonal schedule. An Air New Zealand snippet in today's news cycle has hit on a place for the 777-8X. The "Travel Talk" is quoted as:

Air New Zealand...

"The airline currently operates a 302 seat Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft on the year round route with flights between 3-4 times weekly. From late September 2017 until early March 2018 the route will be upgraded to a 312 seat Boeing 777-200ER for the majority of flights, with the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner continuing to supplement it."

There it is, a place for the 777-8X. It seats about 350 and really goes the distance. Air New Zealand could expand operations with 787-9's and then move a seasonal route in by using the 777-8X. The interesting observation for any two tier aircraft venture become an attractive concept using a variety of wide body frames. The 787-9 is great for intercontinental travel and the 777-8X becomes the pinch hitter chasing seasonal surges. The 777-8X is in the up to 8,000 mile range. It can chase the seasons anywhere on the globe and fill the cabin with 350 holiday passengers. Air New Zealand must be looking at the 777-8X if it uses the 777-200 currently for junkets.

However, the Air New Zealand offering is not a one off situation while many other airlines could expand using a combo of the 787-9, and then reposition with a 777-8X in an ever changing seasonal clientele. Once an airline can position the ultra-long range behemoth for Canadian summers and then broad the expanse of the Pacific winters, the route switching and utility of the 777-8X becomes a preferred tool in the market place travel kits.

Air New Zealand unconsciously placed the 777-200 into its rotation so it also means other Airlines have similar strategies in play. The 777-200 is a useful tool and the 777-8X is a dashing experience cross broad expanses chasing the seasons.

The F-35 Will Soon Move To Full Rate Production

The official acronym is not yet revealed for pushing out 100 F-35's a year from Lockheed's Big Texas doors. Winging It, after exhaustive research has come up with FRP replacing the LRIP status over the next year. Low Rate Initial Production or LRIP has been the constant reference since 2007 as the chart below reveals.

F-35 History Chart:

As of March 31, 2017 Lockheed Martin has delivered 231 of the F-35's V generation. Looking at the chart above are the Salmon colored lines worth noting. The first line marks about 210 F-35's delivered by mid-January 2017, completing the contracts for LRIP 1-8. Lot 12 denotes FRP moniker.

However, 2017 will start burning through the LRIP-9 contract “back lot” during 2017, resulting in a breaching of its LRIP-10 lot in the first half of 2018. There are two terms in play in the above chart. One is the noted LRIP contract unit number and the other is the actual production number delivered. The far right column is just a pacing number not based on actual deliveries but a straight slope for LRIP contract delivery pacing. When the LRIP-10 contract units enter the factory floor, Lockheed will rapidly approach FRP as the chart indicates a predictive FRP status for contract lot 12. An arbitrary pace increase is exampled by a 100 unit jump when LRIP-9 units are being built. Currently as mentioned the Lockheed/F-35 has finally exhausted the LRIP-8 contract backlog and now has about 25 % of the LRIP-9 contract units completed when it reached 231 units delivered at the end of March 2017.  

A convoluted view of having two quantitative attributes in play with contract numbers and its actual production numbers examined, but understanding both numbers helps for future reading when a report says 231 F-35's have been delivered an observer can see what contract is the 231st unit has come from and how many F-35's are expected in a current year. As of the end of March, 2017, it could be expected about seventy more F-35's will be delivered in 2017.