When WiLL The 797 Announce

There are several or multiple schools of thought on when the 797 will be announced by Boeing. The mega airplane builder just met with Delta over some 797 plans. Delta won't budge until Boeing commits officially for making the New Medium Airplane (NMA) decision. For those who claim Boeing will only announce during 2020, it seems unlikely or not possible an announcement will be coming from Farnborough in 2018. There are those who suspect a Paris 2019 Airshow announcement is forthcoming.

A "Winging It" view takes an early announcement period approach landing at Farnborough during July 2018 and here is why. 

• What has been taking so long with a new program has been accomplished without publication of the progress. 
• Engine makers were long ago given the Boeing gauntlet for a 45,000 lb thrust engine. 
• Boeing has everything ready including its launch customers which Delta has just signaled its still onboard with the final prototype configuration. 

What would be a show stopper for Delta's want is the offering price the Boeing 797 may require something too pricey. Boeing would sell the 797 to its launch customers at a sizable discount. Boeing would hope it could reduce production costs by the time its launch customers would reorder another tranche of 797's 5-10 years later. 

Does Boeing have its start-up costs controlled?  Boeing is shooting for a $60-70 million dollar 797 for its customers which may be reasoned out to a $120 million dollar list price per unit. Delta may have told Boeing that if it can cut a price for $60 million each they will launch with a hundred units, but Boeing must announce it first before it will buy.

Delta and Boeing will be doing that backroom dance at Farnborough. Look for Boeing establishing a $15 Billion dollar 797 program deferred cost pit in order to make orders appear at the launch. Boeing would hope to build and deliver by 2025, a $50 million production cost copy which it will sell for a $70 million @ a "deal price" while listing it at $120 million for those who care about such things. 

The idea here is that numbers float around the room full of principal players until someone rings a bell on a sweet price. The "787 deferred cost pit" will only have a few billion remaining before the 797 gets into full swing. Its currently approaching the $20 billion level coming down from about $30 billion and that deferred costs reduction slope is steepening each month. By 2025, the deferred cost moniker rolls over to the 797 program.

The 2018 797 launch announcement doesn't have to wait on engine programs to catch-up, it just has to know an engine will be ready by 2024. Boeing at least has one engine maker ready for its engine plan and timetable. Boeing would like another engine proposal as it has also recently called out those who were given a deadline for its engines proposals due last week. Coincidently, it is in time for Farnborough 2018.

Boeing would like to avoid giving Paris 2019 the venue for the announcement since it is home ground for the Airbus effort. This would eliminate a 2019 797 debut. The 2020 crowd expecting a later Farnborough launch are too late in its thinking. Boeing is in a hurry at this time and going early won't affect its, "in already-in-development 797 programs" at all. 

Why say Boeing needs another two years of lead-time when it already has consumed program time on new technology from its other programs? It has already lined up launch customers and it already has the production space. It's ready! 2020 is too late, 2019 is too Airbus, and 2018 is Goldilocks in the Boeing house.

From Sonic To Hype comes The 797

First, Boeing dithered with the Sonic Cruiser in some sort of slight of hand going to the 7E7. Today the Boeing playbook has opened back up using "hype" as in hypersonic cruiser so it seems a 797 is around the proverbial corner. In pictures here comes the trick Boeing will play on its competitors.

Sonic Cruiser Before the 7E7

Hypersonic Before The 797

Max Efficient To The Bottom Line

When weighing-in on efficiency an airplane maker may tout its aircraft engine being 15% more efficient than any previous engine as its lead-in. However, aerodynamics and maintenance costs haven't even been calculated nor purchase price even considered with a statement of "15% more efficient".

Boeing has taken a different road and may have started with its 787 programs. Airplane makers should talk in bottom line numbers. Plane "A" vs plane "B"  is a measurement comparison of an airplane program such as the single-aisle class. Or better compared with one another in the efficiency totality for its investment and operational costs per passenger seat. Boeing said "the 787 would be 20% more fuel efficient and 30% more maintenance effective than previous 767's. Does that mean the engines would be 20% more fuel efficient? No, it doesn't and it takes a reader more care to cipher the advertising scheme by asking the right questions before buying.

A 787 is 20% more efficiently traveling because of the sum of its efficiency, meaning aerodynamics weight, and other technologies contribute as much as an engine will contribute. When Boeing carefully states the new 797  engine will be 25% more efficient than the 757's old engine, questions arise as to what it really means with that type of statement.

Does it mean that airplane maintenance plus technology is not part of its calculation or does that include a 25% improvement from over-all attributes applied to the model? So does the engine becomes 25% more efficient? Many a press naysayer pleads it's not possible to make a jet engine 25% more efficient as Boeing claims in the next five years. The naysayer could be correct in this assumption. However, Boeing may be pleading a 25% efficiency improvement using an advanced engine strapped to an advanced and lighter frame.

The efficiency number becomes a plugged-in number for the program and not just the engine. Comparing a 25-year-old 757 engine to 2018 engine efficiency, it becomes easy to see how an engine maker may close the efficiency gap using new technology and new jet engine designs. After all, the 737 NG CM-56 is 15% less efficient than the 737 Max-Leap 1B from the same company and that's tying one arm behind its back. The Boeing 737 Max constrained the engine diameter when it did not allow a taller ground stance and it left Leap 1B to well, just leap to a 68" smaller than its Leap 1A 79" Airbus sibling. 

The 797 engine will have the ground clearance to make a 25% engine efficiency gain over the older 757 engines. The RB211-535E4-powered Rolls is older Boeing 757 engine.

You can bet Rolls has just a jet engine answer today in its workshop. You can also bet that the makers of Leap 1B are offering a 25% answer with a larger diameter engine than the RB211-535E4 Rolls.

You could also say adding a lighter frame and better wings with computer-driven avionics will make the 797 25% more efficient than the 757 built during 1982. It's just how words carve up your thinking that becomes the 25% improvement.

Delta's 757

Delta's 767

NMA 797 Delta Concept

The B-52 Gets New Pylons, The South China Sea Quakes and Shakes At The Thought

China builds militarized sand dunes out of ocean bottom and corals in a land building grab. The shallows of the South China Seas is China's new empire building. However, a rarely also talked about Geo storm is a possibility and is only witnessed during massive earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. The US has a secret weapon and its called Liquefaction. 



This GEO term arose to prominence during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and reappeared again in 1989 except this time it turned the now called "AT&T Giant stadium" into quicksand during the quaking. The stadium sits next to the water and is a built-up landform much like what China is doing in the South China Sea. Except China is using sand and coral for a military base for aircraft or ships patrolling the South China Sea. An Island won't sink! Or can it?

The US Airforce is now refitting its B-52 with new 20,000 lbs pylon capability on the B-52 wings. It reminds me of the MOAB used in Afghanistan against terrorist tunnels.  The MOAB destroys square miles of an underground land structure by turning it into a mucky GEO structure. 

The MOAB could be repurposed as an explosive which could take out or sink a two-mile-long sandbar in the South China Sea. The seven-decade-old B-52 is a very special aircraft which has the capability of making a San Francisco Bay area liquefaction event while sinking man-made islands with just one pass of a quake making MOAB.



I guess a new sandblasting bomb weighing 19,500 lbs is now in the US arsenal turning sand into wonton soup.

A Little Of The Old Bamboo Airlines

Boeing Marketing scored a big order today even though it isn't firm, delivery will start in 2020. That alone suggests a Farnborough confirmation announcement next month as Bamboo Airlines of Vietnam has deposited money for an order for 20 787-9's. The Boeing Marketing will display it pleasure in this youtube video leading with Dick Van Dyke as the key promoter. 

The Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang affair kicks off an ordering binge for the second half of 2020 where Boeing keeps leading in widebody sales of late. It promises to be a big show as Emirates may confirm another 40 of its 787-10 it's already committed.

Or is it I just like Dick Van Dyke and that "Ole Bamboo".  

Darren Hulst, senior managing director of marketing at Boeing Said,

Boeing is asking for buyers in the Middle Eastern Part of the world after 60 customers have been contacted.

and... “I think airlines in the Middle East, in the Gulf, have shown very similar interest to what we’ve seen globally in terms of how this aircraft would enable them to grow in different ways and enable them to expand capabilities,”

Full 797 story Link: Gulf News Aviation:

The Farnborough Airshow Headline "The 797"

I don't see Boeing waiting for Paris because the market window for the NMA is 2018. The 797 has its customers base and waiting for a few more customers to come onboard by the 2019 Airshow is a fool's errand.

The Farnborough Airshow is a slight to the Paris airshow home of Airbus pride. Boeing has been working on the 797 since 2010 or earlier depending industry intel you want to believe. Eight years of development in the paper world has an opus result. 

The result will show at Farnborough next month and not wait another 13 months until Paris. All those waiting for Paris should bring umbrellas because they will be standing in the rain watching the second traunch of 797 orders come into the Boeing fold.

A conservative estimate for a 797 launch announcement is 400 launch units and the follow-on year at Paris will bring another 200 orders. During the months between, 100 orders will be booked totaling 700 NMA's during the twelve months of the Boeing launch announcement. The potential is too much for Boeing just to sit on it until Paris of 2019. 

It has what it needs for next month's airshow and it will launch. Some think it's Paris from what Boeing exec's have hinted with being in the next year before it decides. That sentiment is for an Airbus fan and its leaders to muse about until the official memo is sent leading in with a "Holy Sh** Bateman". 

If I'm wrong with this comment then I think Boeing has a poor sense of timing keeping its customer strung out as 767's and 757's are parked in the desert and A320's and A-321's are the upcoming airshows' main talking points.

I smell a show stopper is coming to England as a direct tribute to our neighbors across the pond. Paris is a no go for a launch announcement because of Airbus and being late in the cycle giving Airbus a response with its own counter. Singapore in January 2019 is no go because a monumental announcement would underwhelm the aviation world unless China comes through with a massive 797 order book. I think China will wait until Paris before it gets on the 797 train. It will have time to play Boeing for a year to get its order price in place for its Chinese strategy.

The orders will come just the same as Boeing has the ingredients for a market "disrupter", which its competition has not an answer at this time. Since Airbus will only have A-320 window dressing and A-321 curb appeal. Cargo will be addressed and is not an Asian factor for sales numbers.

Another 767 Approach Has Landed

The venerable 767 is finding a way to keep alive. Boeing's backlog website shows about 98 767 to be built as of May 31, 2018. Adding the recent 12 ordered by FedEx, the number rises to even 110 frames to be built. No more 767-300ER passenger aircraft have been ordered at this time nor is it expected.  Why do customers keep ordering the 767F such as the US military tanker program, the freight haulers UPS and FedEx?

UPS.com photo

AJOT Quote:

"The 767 Freighter, based on the 767-300ER (extended range) passenger jet, can carry approximately 58 tons (52.7 tonnes) of revenue cargo with intercontinental range, making it a flexible platform for serving long-haul, regional or feeder markets."

Airbus admits it builds airframes for passenger traffic only and a freight version from the same passenger aircraft would have a gross shortfall for freight hauling due to its passenger optimized design. Boeing has designed all its family of aircraft for passenger or freight hauling even though freight is a Boeing secondary goal. The 787 family has yet to reveal a freight market or its freight capacity. 

However, now that the A-330 has replaced the 767 in the marketplace for hauling passengers. The 767 has reared its heavy capacity legs above the marketplace. The 767 frame can haul 58 tons in a conveniently configured frame for which the A-330 won't match. 

The military saw this airframe in a bidding war with Airbus over the KC-46 tanker project. It took two bidding processes to settle the airplane makers differences and Boeing won the bidding war, where it hasn't looked back since then. It just sells 767 freighter models based on the 767-300ER, even though it doesn't have the latest engines nor aerodynamic attributes, the A-330 passenger model is based on. The 767 can haul a semi-truck load of weight including the truck weight itself.

The news has now reported 12 more 767 freight airframes are ordered by FedEx, thus Boeing announces plans of increasing producing from 2.5 units to 3 units a month. The future freight order book may continue to rise as other competitors to FedEx may join the freight battle with more orders. This is the third production increase for the 767 in recent times.

The DDG 1000 Is Just Prototype "A"

The Zumalt DDG1000 doesn't have half its weapons capabilities envisioned. As an example no railgun (too expensive), no advanced cruise missile (under development), and finally, its concurrent adversaries ( the competition changes how it does its business every day).

The plug and play ship is not a destroyer since its bigger than a cruiser. Its invisibility on a radar screen is its chief design attribute as known by anyone paying attention. A new ship class designation should be assigned. A battleship is too big and old, a cruiser is so 1980, and the DDG1000 is just a weapons carrying ghost. Not to mention frigates and LCS, the DDG1000 has its own number sequence. What will really get the ball rolling is a new enumeration and class designation for what the navy has wrought.

The Zumwalt class ship is every ship thrown into a seabag stirred not shaken. Concurrency is plugging whatever works well into its hull. The ship lacks its own class. A class name comes to mind best representing what it is on the ocean. A destroyer destroys everything in harm's way including itself if necessary. A battleship is the main gun in a gun battle. A frigate is just a frigate with some hops to its propulsion system. The Arleigh Burke class is a very effective upscaled WWII Tin Can with everything that has been long since scrapped from what destroyers dream about.

Therefore the prototypical number should be as follows: 100-A,100-B, and 100-C. A new class name should be a Formula-1 class of ship. It goes faster than a cruiser and destroys the competition in a battle and can do it all in the littorals once upgraded for its time and place. A Formula-1 is constantly being tuned and tested not unlike the race car on race day or during track testing. The weather plays into what tire a Formula -1 racer uses not unlike the DDG1000 Zumwalt needs an over-expensive cruise missile for moving targets. The class designation and ship sequence number should be F-1-100A until its dialed in as a warfighter. The Navy has until the letter Z to get it right. The DDG1003 is the third version which should be designated as F-1-100C.

I Will Defend

The DDG1001 is named for Michael Monsoor. He died for his country, his team and most of all for his family. He will not be forgotten, his ship's namesake carries his spirit into battle.  Like most Medal of Honor recipients, he was a vivacious soldier, sailor or an Airman for this country's preservation. Now a ship bears his name. I take time and blog space to re-link this story from "The Drive" and offer the below video in memory of Michael Monsoor, and his dedication to this nation and its defense.

God Bless this ship and its mission