subject: Flight News On Airbus Single-Aisle Upgrade Tussle & Experts Zero In On Jet-Ice Risk [print this page] Flight News On Airbus Single-Aisle Upgrade Tussle & Experts Zero In On Jet-Ice Risk
Airbus takes lead in the single-aisle upgrade tussle as it announces,
New Engines for the A320
Airbus has decide to offer for its best-selling A320 Family new fuel saving engines as an option with airlines now having the choice between CFM Internationals LEAP-X engine and Pratt& Whitney's Pure Power PW1100G engine.
Known as the A320neo, this new engine option also incorporates fuel-saving large wing tip devices called Sharklets.Airbus will start deliveries of the A320neo Family in spring 2016.
Airbus move to offer new engines for its A320 aircraft series is set to intensify competition with Boeing in the biggest part of the civil aviation market and may force its rival to follow suit.
Airbus unveiled its decision after the two companies had circled each other for months over who would make the first move. Boeing panned the announcement as a "attempt to reach the superior performance "of its own 737 aircraft.
The A320neo will not only deliver significant fuel savings of up to 15% ,which represents up to 3600 tones of CO2 savings annually per aircraft,but,in addition,A320neo customers will benefit from a double-digit reduction in NOX emissions, reduced engine noise, lower operating costs and up to 500 nautical miles more range or two tones more payload.
Airbus sees a market potential of 4000 A320neo Family aircraft over the next 15 years. "We are confident that the A320neo will be a great success across all markets and with all types of operators, offering them maximum benefit with minimum change. We are leveraging a reliable, mature aircraft and are making it even more efficient and environmentally friendly," said Tom Enders, Airbus president and CEO.
Over the past months, Airbus has taken the time to carefully assess and weigh up the benefits of the A320neo business case with the allocation of the highly skilled engineering resources needed while securing the engineering skills required on other Airbus aircraft programmes.
"Finding the necessary resources for the A320neo wasn't exactly a walk in the park," Enders added. "The enabler was a devise a stringent phasing of critical engineering assets throughout our various development programmes and to optimize the management and organization of all our programmes and R$D projects. Our international engineering centres, suppliers and partners play a big role in this."
The new engine option is offered on the A321, A320 and A319 models which will require limited modifications, primarily to the wing and pylon areas. The A320neo will have over 95% airframe commonality with the standard A320 Family.
Although the A320neo has the same fuselage as previous iterations, a new wing-engine pylon design is necessary to accommodate the new engines which are larger than the CFM556 and the IAE V2500 turbofans which currently power the A320 Family aircraft. Although existing A320s cannot be retrofitted with the engines and pylons Airbus customers with existing orders for future deliveries can alter these orders to acquire A320neo aircraft instead.
Airbus' new "Sharklet" large wingtip devices have been specially designed to enhance the eco-efficiency and payload-range performance of the A320 Family. Offered as a forward fit option, Sharklets are expected to result in at least 3,5% lower fuel burn over longer sectors. The A320 will be the first model fitted with Sharklets, which will be delivered around the end of 2012, to be followed by the other A320 Family models from 2013.
Airbus claims the A320 Family is recognized as the benchmark single-aisle aircraft family. With over 6700 aircraft sold, and more than4400 aircraft delivered to some 310 customers and operators worldwide, it boasts 99, 7% reliability and extended servicing periods. The A320 Family is also said to have the lowest operating costs of any single-aisle aircraft.
Added Competition from Boeing
Aviation experts say that Boeing may now have no option but to follow in Airbus' footsteps if it wants to remain competitive."There's a 95% chance that Boeing, too, will decide to re-engine," said Yan Derocles, an analyst at Paris-based Oddo Securities. They don't have any other choice. They can allow themselves six months or so to see what response Airbus gets before making a definitive decision."
Success in the single-aisle market determines the pecking order in the industry because both Airbus and Boeing derive the bulk of their earnings from these aircraft. Airbus made its name with the A320, introduced in 1988 with novelties such as fly-by-wire electronic handling, and has racked up 6745 orders for the series, to leapfrog Boeing as industry leader in 2003.
Airbus has said that engineering the changes on the A320neo would probably cost no more than $2-billion, a fraction of the money a new aircraft would devour.
Both the A320 and B737 are twin-engine models that seat about 125 to 185 people. List prices for each plane range from about $65-million to $95-million, depending on the version. A successor to the A320 will not come before the middle of the next decade because engines will not be advanced enough before then to justify the development expense, Airbus has argued.
Boeing retains the ability to add new engines to its 737 airliner or develop new model, the company has said. The existing 737 will achieve a two percent fuel saving from the middle of this year. By 2012 consumption will have improved by seven percent since the models introduction, it said.
Unlike the A320, the Boeing 737 now only comes with a single engine, made by the CFM International, a joint venture of General Electric Co. and Safran SA.Fitting different engines under the wing would be more challenging for the Chicago-based manufacturer because the aircraft already sits so close to the ground that the landing gear would need to be redesigned to allow clearance for the newer, bigger engines.
Jim Albaugh,CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in an interview last month that the business case for new engines "is not as compelling as we'd like to see," even after Boeing customers including Southwest Airlines Inc. and Ryanair Holding Plc urged manufacturers to offer powering options that would increase fuel efficiency.
Airbus took its time to decide on the new plane, as it was already working on the A350 wide-body airliner that would enter service in 2013 and was trying to increase production on its A380, which has suffered delays, CEO Tom Enders said. Engineers needed for the revised A320 would come from the A380 and A400M programmes, and would not be diverted from the A350, he said.
The new A320,dubbed"neo" for new-engine-option ,promises cash operating costs that are eight percent lower than those of the current model, sales chief John Leahy said in an interview.
He expected that customers would likely wait until later this year before ordering the new variant, which will cost $6-million more. The new engines would likely come from either GE or P&W, he added.
"It was a no brainer," Leahy commented.
"We know the business case is excellent."
Experts Zero In On Jet-Ice Risk
International Aviation Safety experts are targeting an emerging flight hazard: tiny, high-altitude ice crystals than can clog airspeed sensors on jetliners and, in extreme cases, even cause aircraft to lose lift and stop flying.
Boeing and Air France-KLM SA have been leading a broad study delving into this previously little-understood icing phenomenon, according to industry officials briefed on the preliminary findings. The conclusions are likely to prompt a major push for changes in the way regulators, aircraft manufacturers and parts suppliers confront such dangers.
The companies were advocating adoption of tougher industry-wide testing requirements for the sensors, the officials said, along with new procedures and more-precise checklists to help pilots maintain control of commercial jets if their airspeed indicators suddenly malfunction or fail.
The crystals-typically suspended above intense storms and found circulating on top of towering clouds where they are invisible to both pilots and weather radar-are small enough to penetrate heated pitot tubes mounted outside the fuselage. The crystals quickly melt but, under extremely cold conditions, may refreeze, according to the study and independent safety experts, sending incorrect or wildly fluctuating speed indications to the cockpit. Pitot tubes use external air temperature and pressure to calculate changes in speed.
The result can be that autopilots shut off; pilots lose altitude readings and receive false warnings about exceeding allowable speeds. The combination of factors can prompt crews to reduce thrust, momentarily lose control or even inadvertently stall the aircraft.
The study was prompted partly by the June 2009 crash of an Air France Airbus A330 as it flew through a particularly violet storm system on the way to Paris from Rio de Janeiro.All 228 people aboard Flight 447 perished after at least two of its three speed sensors apparently malfunctioned, resulting in a cascade of failures affecting flight-management computers, automated flight controls and other vital systems.
An international team of investigators has not been able to determine exactly why the wide body jet went down, partly because its flight-data and cockpit voice recorders have not been recovered from the ocean. Airbus officials are gearing up for a fourth attempt, probably early this year, to have rescue crews try to locate the "black boxes."
The high-profile crash-followed by revelations that both Airbus and Air France for years had been aware of chronic pitot tube problems on certain families of jets-sparked a broader review of the relevant science and technology .US and European regulators ordered swift replacement of suspect tubes on hundreds of Airbus aircraft, and began work to draft more-stringent testing standards for next-generation devices.
The Boeing Air France effort goes further by striving to thoroughly understand the reasons behind the formation and behaviour of the tiny crystals.
The companies also have teamed up to look at what happens to pitot tubes at substantially higher altitudes and colder temperatures than previously considered .Many of today's sensors are certified to operate at up to 40000 feet and minus 40 degrees Celsius, while many experts want details about reliability in conditions around minus 65 degrees Celsius.
Senior Air France officials declined to comment on the conclusions so far, referring questions to aircraft and hardware manufacturers. A Boeing spokesman said it was premature to comment. Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautical Defense and Space Co, has been informed about the study, but officials declined to comment.
Not a New Concept
Concern about ice building up on wings, coating speed sensors and disrupting airflow through engines is hardly a new concept. Going back to the 1940s, when commercial air travel was in its infancy, pilots recognized the dangers of flying through freezing rain.
As technology advanced, pitot tubes became better heated and ice formations could be readily detected by onboard weather radar. Until recently, though, air-safety experts did not fully recognize the heightened dangers posed by the smallest crystals. They also are grappling with the intricacies of how crystals refreeze and distort speed readings.
Safety experts are also increasingly turning their attention to training and emergency techniques aimed at helping pilots maintain steady speed and level flight-particularly at night or in turbulence despite unreliable speed indications. The FAA is working with manufacturers, industry groups and foreign regulators "to expand the icing environment," or the range of icing conditions, used to certify new sensor designs.
The anti-icing drive could go public early next year as Boeing and other companies solicit additional support and strive for consensus on how pilots should respond to airspeed emergencies .Air France already has made some adjustments in its pilot training.
Many industry experts, however, believe a common approach should be adopted by all airlines, regardless of whether they fly Boeing or Airbus models.
In the wake of the 2009 A330 crash, French investigators identified what they described as more than a dozen "significant "events in which airspeed sensors malfunctioned.
Barely three weeks after that accident, the US National Transportation Safety Board was looking at a pair of international flights, including a Northwest Airlines A330 airliner, which suffered a series of equipment and computer malfunctions similar to those encountered by Air France Flight 447 .The Northwest A330 was cruising at 39000 feet on autopilot near Kagoshima, Japan, when it encountered intense rain and both the captains and co-pilots airspeed indicators immediately showed a huge rollback in the planes forward velocity.
With autopilot and automatic-throttle controls disengaged, the cockpit was filled with beeps and bright warning signals indicating various system problems.
The Northwest crew said the event lasted more than three minutes, but they maintained airspeed, manually flew the most direct route out of the storm and nobody was hurt.
