Starving Airline Geeks (I had a better headline but forgot it)

Aviation geeks form a whole new industry. New airplanes or at least the prospect of a new airplane churns out quantum of script about the subject which in turn churns out another trainload of paper embellishment about what a new airplane would be and another round of talking about what was just talked about and so forth. It is as if someone has lined mirrors reflecting into infinity someone’s statements about a New Medium Aircraft. I am too, am guilty of mirror gazing airline geeks into infinity at the mirror (mere) suggestion of a new aircraft.

Boeing has for a better part of a generation given fodder to the “geek” in which geeks in return assign advertising for its sage commentary. No one really makes money, but that isn’t the point, it’s all about having the real scoop on a new airplane idea. This all occurs during stage one of a geeks feeding frenzy. 

Currently, phase I in a series of feeding frenzies is being experienced which is the fun phase. Everything is valid as much as it can be a stupid statement. No one gets it "wrong" until phase II, aka “The Announcement”. Stage I only has renderings, sketches, and just plain old fashion “I-told-you-so”, speculations. That is where the 797 is today. Stage II has a photo op of an airplane model on a table (at an airshow) which will generate 1,000 articles out of that frenzy.

Tomorrow is coming soon with an announcement near the next airshow and the Boeing’s clock is ticking on a market not waiting much longer for an NMA announcement. Once it chooses the right engine, the right facilities, and suppliers, its game on for the 797. Boeing already knows how to make an airplane from the sum of its pile of parts. It also needs money and customers. Boeing has found the money and is rounding up the last of Airbus former customers when making an announcement point at the next airshow. Parts are already in the parts bin at the Boeing facilities around the world.

The blogger then gets a crack at stage III, “The critique”. They attempt to answer Why?, What?, and Where? in some kind of blogging sense. It then becomes fun for the reader of said blogs. None of it makes real sense until stage ???. What is important at this stage is the should of-would of-could of

intelligent remarks about a concept yet to be flown. Once it does fly in tests, the rancor increases with a crescendo until Qantas flies from Perth to London on a 787-9 or Singapore takes delivery on a 787-10. 

The world of blogging turns kinder and gentler with its “I told you so” commentary of how wonderful the flight was in business class with copious amounts of free food. The bloggers are so wise at the first specter of free food. Phase X is complete and onto London.

What about phase IV? This is a good blogging question for anyone retired on a pension with nothing to do but fly to Hawaii on a 787-9 in business class. Too many words so little time. Phase IV is about the first build, first flight, and first press conference. Bloggers get the first round of “I told you so’s in before something intelligent is said. Just read on and agree at this point as all geeks do in unison when an airplane is spotted.

Phase VIII is about what passengers think. They talk about food, jet lag and the lack of pillows in the economy. The airline customer talks about recalls, fixes and being in a fix during the first three years of service of a new NMA. The blogger repeats what everyone else has said whether “they” know anything or not. I’m a blogger, I know.

Phase infinity, “The Airshow”.

The airshow comes about all the time as if some kind herpes outbreak at a wedding reception. No one kisses but everyone smiles a lot. The airshow is about free advertising for whom you represent. Microphones dot tables more frequently than the latest tie and shirt posed in a photo. The airline geek is there too. A picture is taken means a blog is written about the picture. The hallway picture headlined an article about where to find the best free food at the airshow. 

Some blogger took a picture of a 737 Max tail cone and talked about the overhead bins on an A-380 parked at the other end of the show. Makes sense, they know there was an airshow and not necessarily being present at the airshow.

What about Phase IX, Orders? Now that’s some real writing meat! If Boeing gets 400 orders for its NMA at Farnborough Airshow, multiply that times ten, and that’s how many orders they will book in ten years. 

This is a scientific math formula derived from a blogger who went to a University one semester. First Airshow order announcement times ten equals’ program strength of 4,000 units. I too have a BS degree in business and it sounds right to me. BS stands for Blogger Smarts and it can be a business if computer savvy enough. Actually, accounting was my major and is now needed for counting orders before writing.

Therefore my scientific analysis based on statistics and rounded by regression analysis comes to about 375 NMA’s announced with 250 options at Farnborough when Boeing announces its 797. Times all this by ten years it will equal 3,750 orders and 2,500 options for its program ceiling.

Boeing Keeps Swinging For The Fences With The Max

First up was the 737 -7 Max with only 58 orders then the consummate Max 8 everyone thinks would game change the A320 NEO series except there looms the arch-rival A-321 NEO  always just out of reach, hence the penultimate 737-9 Max for those 737 loyalists who had too just because! Boeing peoples' collective scratching heads barely made headway with its single-aisle order book as opposed to the Airbus single-aisle order book that it trailed. 

One more time Boeing huddled its team asking for a "Hail Marry" from off the bench and someone offered a 737-10 and up pops 416 orders and commitments just for Boeing. The team met again and surmised, "we (737) are under appreciated!" 

An analyst offered, "it isn't the product, it's the customers who want an option but not necessarily an NEO. The 737-10 guy was asked again what he thought since he had obtained 416 737-10's ordered with "firm" deals. 

He then blurted out, "a New Medium Airplane of course and you will get ten times more than that compared with the 737-10's orders and commitments, and that's before I can even wear out my 1987 CAD screen"! 

The other guys including the 737-9 guy spilled coffee at the "suggestion". The 737-9 guy had only 109 orders with the dash 9. 

The admin piped up offering an acronym, "Is that an NMA or a MoM?" 

The president, aka Dennis Muilenburg, interrupted, 
"it's not a 757 for God's sake, let's break for some golf and discuss the NMA acronym a bit."

Then the "Idea Guy" from the back of the room shouted out, "I looked at the numbers and "797" has not been claimed yet"!!

Dennis quipped "that's 19th hole stuff, go get us some bagels and the rest of you clean up your coffee".

Thus the 797 was born and Airbus didn't have an answer it only had crepes with Muenster cheese spread and it was also full of Boeing grace.

The 787-10 Brings Synergy To Its Customers

Or why have the 787-10 when it does not fly as far as the 787-9? The old movie line comes to mind, "you complete me". A carpenter has more than one screwdriver type in its toolbox. A carpenter has more than one hammer too. The 787-10 is that special hammer or also called a "finishing" hammer. Most noted for pounding skinny little nails into wood molding when finishing a home. The 787-10 completes the family and is not a framing hammer for 16 penny nails. The 787-10 carries about 330 passengers as designed and it also flies 80% of the world's population connections with its dampened range of about 7,000 miles vs the 787-9's 9,000 miles, depending on passenger configurations and wind.

The 787-10 finishes the 787 families of aircraft for an airline's toolbox enticing passengers with competitive pricing. It's the finishing hammer making symmetry out of a home before the carpet is laid down and after the wallpaper goes on. Boeing has completed itself with the 787-10. Who would buy the 787-10?

The question was posed to its current customers and Emirates responded with an order for 40 787-10's, that's who! There was some magic in the numbers that have appealed to Singapore Airlines. A seven thousand mile circle was drawn around Singapore and "Viola" it was Singapore's core market. There were billions of people within Singapore's reach. The 787-10 could pack in people and move them where it wanted within its world. They could load a margin of the people on long range excursion to America or Europe on another Boeing 787-9 type going long. That "other" 787 was 95% like the 787-10 while making it a natural companion in the fleet. Singapore had already bought a slew of A-350-900 before the 787-10's concept arrived, but buying 49 787-10's was a remarkable tip of the hat towards Boeing's family plan. Its own airline offshoot, Scoot, bought the 787-8 and 787-9 for its fleet expansion and replacement in its budding aspirations. Emirates committing to 40 787-10 was a remarkable order as well, and a trend was established that the 787-10 completed the 787 concepts.

The synergy of it all, the 787-10 made the 787 family a stronger team than what its competition could offer, and it is beginning to take over the widebody market without a doubt. One pilot to another can fly all three with minimal training when transferring from one to another of the 787 types. That is Boeing's overarching plan of establishing a high bar of excellence defining the industry with its 787.

American Cancels Airbus A-330 Order , Dominoing WB Market Into Boeing Hands

Airbus has lost two battles recently (Hawaiian, American) making anything Airbus sales says, a dubious comment thrown out to the press. Boeing stands to profit as American Airlines who already dismissed its Airbus A350-900 proposition has now dismissed its A330-900 considerations. Airbus is in panic mode at this time as the Dominoes begin to tumble around its own market effort for Widebody sales.

First, there was the Hawaiian airline conversion from its A330 NEO order switching for ten 787-9's instead. Now American Airlines is canceling its A330NEO order talks. There are only a few Airbus A330 Big ticket customers as listed below and no longer ay A330-800's booked.

Ordering by American Airlines was dismissed "According to Flight Global" American Airlines A330-900NEO. Some 22 A330 NEO's were in talks along with Boeing's 787-9's competing. The whole point was to replace 22 of the A350-900's it once committed but seems as if later dropped the WB as it would not benefit American Airlines fleet efficiency plans. The tentative A350-900's will be a no go. The A330 NEO was also just "dropped-off" during sales talks, suggesting American Airlines may order 25-30 787-9's when details are worked out satisfactorily with Boeing. 

The airline already has a fleet of 787's (-8's and -9's) in service with seven more 787-9 yet to be delivered from its original orders from the past. It is evident American Airlines is satisfied with 787 performance and it could not improve its fleet with an Airbus' offering of A330 NEO's or A350's.

Airbus Orders A330 NEO orders in question as of today:

• Air AsiaX  66 on Order while talking to Boeing
• Iran Air    28 on Order and watched by US political sanctions.

Total in Jepordy: 94

Remaining Orders booked A330 NEO:

ALC                              27

Arikia Israeli Airlines      2

Avalon                          15

BOC                             2

CIT Group                    15

Delta                           25

Garuda Indonesia         14

TAP Air Portugal           10

Undisclosed                 2

Total:                         112

Grand Total:               208

(American's cancellation does not show in this listing.) 

The questions for A330 NEO's is for Air AsiaX because they are now talking with Boeing about its 787's and Iran is good at being just Iran having no certain airplane future. If and only if Boeing snags away orders from Air AsiaX then Airbus is clinging to its A330 NEO program. “If” Iran then goes off in another direction and Boeing then would not be an option while Airbus struggles to justify the A330 NEO program with its stockholders.

Airbus claims at this time, hundred's of A330 NEO orders are potentially a part of Airbus talks. Sounds like a "never surrender cry" when everything blows ups in its face.

Another thought, perhaps American Airline is supporting Boeing's NMA concept which would eliminate the need of an A330 NEO and the deal-making is down to how many 787-9's and 797's does American want or whether it wants to be a 797 launch customer?

The F-35 Chatter Is Reaching Fever Pitch

So many complaints and so few facts permeate the atmosphere as if the F-35 is unable to even take-off. China has better cropdusters in its J-10, J-20, J-31 family of box kites. The main complaint is its engines don't always work as expected. The Russian Su-57 can outmaneuver the F-35 in a dogfight. It is also quipped "what dogfight?"  The F-35 will have long disposed of the Su-57 before it can even do airshow like maneuver, oohing and awe-ing the fairground audiences who do love watching vectoring antics going awry.

The F-35 is close to fruition, so much so, the USS Wasp took 6 F-35B's on deck during actual Pacific patrols near China. That doesn't sound like a testing mission and upgrade load to me. The test, in this case, is beyond visual range coming from North Korea or China.

The adversarial scramble is for harvesting F-35 performance data using its defensive systems. Albeit satellites monitor the region by the US and it downloads that information onto the Wasp for its F-35's. If a conflict brews it will be in the US Congress who knows as much about the F-35 as the Chinese do. All the F-35 needs is an actual conflict to prove its worth. All this posing round about this fighter. War is a horrible condition for all people, but it's nice to know if the F-35 will do the job.

Some call the F-35 junk and others a money pit. The beauty of it all no one really knows until its way too late in a battle. So far the Red Flag score is 20 to 1 in favor of the F-35. That was way last year. Having the F-35B on the USS Wasp makes the Orient a nervous boiling pot suggesting there may be truth coming out of the tests conducted by the F-35. This latest deployment is a "Damn the torpedos and full jets ahead" for the F-35B.  Go ahead someone and send up a Guinea pig and see what will happen. The billions spent on it can be flushed in one golden bullet shot.

The Boeing 797 Is No Big Technology Push, But ...?

After "Flightglobal" announces "no big technology push" for the Boeing 797, the point becomes it's not about "Moonshot" technology installed in an unknown quality/quantity; but how Boeing will shape this aircraft, and how much it will weigh, or what engines it will use?

The customers will drive the body dynamics and Boeing's design team will mold the carbon fiber aircraft for optimal customer appeal. The carbon fiber, wings, and interior appointments will also drive Boeing's design team. This makes the obvious 797 changes adhere to filling its body to a dual aisle seven-eight across seating alignment for customer appeal ranging from 230 to 270 seats. A slight oval shaped body will follow as Boeing hinted. The already established carbon fiber frame is established by the 787 families of aircraft. The "Carbon Wings" may come from Everett's wing plant. However, the engines are from the techno mystery "booth", where both CFN and GE have a dog in Boeing's 797 engine fight. 

Technology will borrow from all the lesson's learned on the 787 program. Big windows, lower elevation cabin pressured (6,000 ft), and lighting cues will dominate the passenger area. The goal for Boeing is not building a wide body like the 787 nor narrow body like the 737 Max, but a Goldilocks body somewhere in between holding the desired passenger count Boeing and its customers require and will follow from the Boeing design team. 

• The 767 model offers the biggest clue of a 15'6" (feet)wide body
• The 737 Max Body at six across is 11'7" (feet)
• The 787 Body at nine across is 18' (feet).

Simple math suggests the 737 equals 180 inches and the 787 equals 216 inches, 

and the Middle of the Market dimension is 180"+216"= 396" 's by further factoring 396/2 = 198 inches or a 16'.5" for a Goldilock's NMA body width. 

Note:
This is Winging It's AP/Math worksheet.

So the 797 could be about 16' wide with Seven across or eight across seating depending on the passenger load wanted by a Boeing customer.

A passenger law should govern airline seating for a passenger's comfort and health safety based on distance/time duration traveled and seat space provided. Thus not allowing configurations of cabins in a high-density fashion for distances traveled. 

Perhaps going 5,000 miles with 270 passengers would constrain airlines to only 240 passengers and seven across seating period! It would cause a level playing field among framers for selling aircraft and stop the passenger cramming insanity.

The body width on the NMA is an oval design tweak, which has to allow a comfortable cabin while sufficiently allowing cargo options having a nominal capacity. The goal of this aircraft is about the passenger getting there in comfort and not so much as a double duty passenger and freight hauler.

GE 9X Flying For the 777 9X program

This is the real deal of over 100,000 lbs thrust on a 747 GE testbed. 11' 2" opening sucks more air than a big buildings air conditioning system.

Digital Trends Photo

Digital Trends Link

A man standing inside the front engine cowling may only stand as tall as the engine's halfway point in the opening. He would most certainly touch the top rim of the 747 standard engine pictured on the outboard wing.

Imagine the wing weight on the port side causing the 747 to tilt towards its port during its lift-off. So GE engineers had to compensate the aircraft for a level take-off. Much like, in the old days, fuel tanks had to stay in the balance of the aircraft's centerline by often switching fuel tanks stored its wings while keeping the aircraft in the balance as the fuel volume depletes. Today's fuel volume weight is balanced by computers. I imagine this GE 9X equipped 747 has starboard ballast tanks to compensate for the extra 9X engine weight on the port side. It's that big!

This test program has just completed its first flight in four hours. All went smoothly checking off the first flight test points with complete satisfaction. The 777X program has achieved a critical milestone with this success. More GE tests will continue until all checkpoints conclude the initial engine operations tests later this year. When Boeing completes its 777-9X body these GE-9X's will be mounted for ground tests late 2018 and first flight later in 2019.

Perth To London Or Singapore To Osaka Japan

... Is a study with two different strategic projects for commercial airlines both predicated on the costs of airline fuel. The first goes 9,000 miles with 234 passengers on a 787-9 and the second carrier will go 3,00 miles with 330 passengers on a 787-10. The strategies use a combination of ticket prices and fuel efficiency for its respective bottom lines.

Boeing proposes a name your proposition with the 787-10 and Singapore Airlines proposes 49 787-10's for traversing Asia or Africa with one take-off from Singapore. If going far on a 787-9 with 234 passengers the ticket will go North of $2,000 per seat. If  going near-by with 330 seats on a 787-10 the ticket price may go South of $500. Multiply those seat prices at estimated ticket value times the seats and a revenue flight will look like these results. 234 Seats x's $2,200 = $234,000 and 330 seats x's $500 seats = $165,000.

The seat mile 787-9 revenue factor would look like this: 234/9,000= .106 and the seat/mile 787-10 revenue factor would be 330/3000 = .111. As you see both have a similar revenue factors but the 787-10 to Osaka burns significantly less fuel and will gain a larger profit potential with this strategy. 

Singapore Airlines has ordered 49 787-10's for its fleet. Draw a 5,000 mile circle around Singapore and see the high density city pairings found with its higher performing seat/mile machine.

Over half of Earth's population is within range of Singapore's' 787-10 fleet and that's a big number. This includes India, China and even into Africa. The 5,000 mile circle is immense and that is why Singapore bought the 787-10 in a large quantity. The 787-10 can fly another 1,500 miles than the 5,000 miles in this example. The world is watching to see what happens when Singapore launches its 787-10's, especially the middle eastern air force of Emirates, Qatar and Etihad. Why buy a 787-9 Singapore? when they could buy Boeing in ten years flying its 787-10's flying over half the world's people.

Boeing Post 1,300 Since September 2012 Jon Ostrower

I never thought I'd reach 1,300 posts back in 2012. Never thought I would live so long either. It’s good to see Jon Ostrower blogging again since he is my inspiration from the beginning. He held a supremely well insightful Blog on the 787, back in the heady days of announced miracles in manufacturing as Boeing stumbled its way towards its 787 Moonshot. He showed how it would come together as it happened. This blog is a feeble attempt of mimicking his own pursuit of the elusive 787 program. The inside information obtained during those days reflected Jon's own talent for piecing together this airplane. Now that the 787 program sees the financial light at the end of the tunnel, Jon has returned to his roots of blogging for I am guessing, "a little while". He has graced the Wall Street Journal with his insight and most recently CNN at it has turned its big business eye towards its own purpose and left Jon aside but as he indicated his love for aviation and big ideas is close by. The Blog Site link is Jon Ostrower.com. 

Jon Ostrower

Whether he reads this tribute is not important as we are ships passing in the night sky with asymmetrical blinking from wing tips flying by each other. The important point is to follow his blog because his valued lessons learned in the aviation business transcends all continents at the head of the aviation pack. He refers to Mary Kirby at "Runway Girl" as one who supported his trajectory as he aspired in the aviation news industry. When someone has that "it" factor you know it. For this 1,300th blog, I will dedicate this simple contribution to his budding family and his care for them. I can't wait to hear from him as the 777X program unfolds and the 797 takes off. Of course, the 737 will be remade after the 797 sells another 2,000 units to happy customers. I may not be around for those events, but I am counting on Jon Ostrower to lead the way for all other dreamers who dare to dream skyward.

Boeing Orders 2018 Including February

The additions include 14-787-8F's and 4-767 for UPS. There where another 10 737's of which two where Identified as TUI Travel. It appears unidentified customer(s) converted from NG to Max for 7 frames, In total, a net of 34 airplanes are booked YTD for Boeing Co. 

Note: not included where the 25 firmed 787-9's ordered by Turkish Airlines this March.