The Future Airbuses

Sales progressed so quickly that it is worth recalling a line from Roger Bacon as published in Flight International following the 1978 Farnborough Air Show. Overheard in the Airbus Industrie sales office, “I say, only three Airbuses have been sold this week. Ah yes, but it’s only Wednesday!” If that quip held a smile for Europeans, then it spelled the beginning of the end for two of the airliner giants on the other side of the Atlantic. The Tristar is buried while the DC-10 survives only through the requirements of the United States Air Force. While it took a lot more than the A300 to spell the end of these two fine airliners the sales achieved through the latter seventies certainly did make inroads into the short-range market of the two Americans eventually contributing to their demise.

To date there have been over 500 Airbus aircraft ordered or optioned by nearly four dozen operators. Australia benefits in this success story with sole source production of the A310 and later A300 wing ribs by Hawker de Havilland in addition to offset contracts negotiated with Lucas Aerospace and Dunlop Australia. Australia has been offered a risk-sharing stake, as a partner, on the new A320 150-seater but at the time of writing little had eventuated on this offer which could ultimately be worth many tens of millions of dollars to local industry if it is accepted. Remember the Fokker offer on co-production of Friendship during the fifties? Please Australia let us not continually repeat our mistakes.

The Airbus is here to stay, the A300 is in worldwide operation and the A310 is deep into its flight certification programme, ready to become operational with Swissair and Lufthansa in March of 1983. But what of the future? In this regard, Airbus are preparing to enter the nineteen nineties with a product range almost as impressive as Boeing’s. In brief, Airbus Industrie have the following types under firm investigation:

A310 – The A310, as mentioned earlier is currently undergoing certification and is due to enter airline service in March.

1983. At the time of writing more than 180 A31Os had been ordered or optioned. The A310 features the same fuselage cross-section of the larger A300 and is thus able to carry the LD3 container, a feature of the entire proposed Airbus fleet. The A310 also features a new wing which offers a sizeable drag and weight reduction over the larger A300 mainplane. Development of the A310 commenced in July, 1978 with total programme cost amounting to $US1,000 m in 1978 dollars or about twice the cost of the A300 programme. A new A31o cost in the region of $US45 m in December 1981 dollars, about five million dollars less than a current production A300B4 which indicates the large degree of developmental work carried out on the A300 that was utilised to good advantage on the smaller A310. An interesting addition to the A310 family will be the -300 model which is optimised for a maximum payload range plus IFR reserves of 3,500 nautical miles, making it an ideal aircraft for the medium range of routes not requiring more than 200 seats.

A320 – Of all the mooted 150-seaters, the A320 will probably end up with the major market share by the year 2000. This is by virtue of the fact that it will be first, particularly with the demise of the MDF100, and the growing component and operations commonality between the various Airbus marques. The A320 will be produced in one airframe package embracing a -100 and -200 featuring 1,900 nm and 2,500 nm range capabilities respectively. Both variants will seat between 140 and 160 passengers depending upon cabin layout. Power will be supplied by engines in the 22,000 lb to 27,000 lb thrust class with the Anglo/Japanese RJ500 and the Snecma CFM56 being favourites for this lucrative order. Significant design features of the A320 will be an all-digital cockpit of significant commonality to the larger digital A31O and A300-600 types in addition to a fuselage cross-section 7. 5 inches wider than the rival three-abreast Boeings. As this includes the 757 and 737-300 then Airbus are making a point of the fact that their economy seats will be up to an inch wider than the competition. It is also believed that A320 carriers may wish to introduce a Business Class of five abreast utilising current first-class seats from the DC-9 and 767. Airbus claims the A320 family will provide a 40% reduction in fuel consumption per seat and a Direct Operating Costs saving of 25% in comparison with the Boeing 727-200, the primary type all the 150-seaters will be replacing through the next decade and a half. Progress with this project has been stalled due to the current economic situation though Air France did place a ‘paper’ order for up to fifty A320s at 1981. Paris Air Show. This order may progress into a firm launch commitment, perhaps at Farnborough, which would give the entire industry a long-overdue morale boost. If the go-ahead is given later this year then we will see the first commercial A320 flight occurring sometime in 1986, well ahead of any rival new-generation 150-seater and occupying a market position reminiscent of the 727 back in the early sixties sixties.

TA9 – The TA9 is a natural development of the A300. It will have a fuselage stretched by some 8. 7 m to provide 25% greater seating capacity, accommodating between 320 and 350 passengers in a mixed-class arrangement. This is more than can be accommodated on the L1011 or the DC-10 yet at operating efficiencies up to 25% greater than the trijets over short to medium-range routes. In a maximum high-density configuration the TA9 can seat up to 400 passengers while the two versions will have maximum range profiles of 1500 nm and 3200 nm respectively. The TA9 will have a new wing and will be powered by engines in the 60,000 lb plus category.

The TA9 will take advantage of the experience gained in the development of the A300-600 and A310, and the product improvement applied to the aircraft, incorporating advanced aerodynamics and positive stability control. It Will have an advanced flight deck incorporating the latest display and management technology, fully digital aircraft systems, a flight management computer and a new, lighter APU offering fuel consumption and weight savings over existing units.

The TA9 will eventually replace the Tristar and DC-10-10 on many of their routes through the nineties when age and adverse economics overtake the large trijets. The fact that the TA9 can carry 50% more LD3 containers also makes it a future candidate as a combi/freighter. The TA9s launch is obviously dependent upon a massive upturn in the airline economy through any decision for a go-ahead prior to late 1984 will have the type in airline livery by January 1990.

TA11 – The TA11 is a four-engined derivative of the A300/310. It retains the same optimised fuselage cross-section featuring eight-abreast seating, twin aisles and no passenger more than one seat from the aisle. The TA11 will feature an A310 fuselage with a new centre section and an advanced wing practically identical to that of the much larger TA9.

The TA11 will be fitted with powerplants in the 28,000 lb to 34,000 lb range and will be capable of providing non-stop sectors out to 6500 nm. This of course, particularly by the nineties, will be the ultimate expression of the ‘long thin route’. Indeed this aircraft could fill a vacuum left by the DC-8 and 707 where the large trijet is too big and lacks the range. It is ironic that Lockheed, who have been forced to bury their capable L1011-500, have made a point in recent years of highlighting the rapid passenger growth in this sector of the market.

TA11 will match up such city pairs as Tokyo/Mexico, Paris/Los Angeles and Sydney/San Francisco offering 747 SP range capabilities with seat mile savings as great as 30% over the SP.

TA12 – This aircraft is possibly the last that will ultimately be developed. The TA12 incorporates the engine and wing combination of the large TA9 with the fuselage of the smaller A310/TA11. What we then have is an extremely powerful twin capable of long-haul work (4500 nm) from hot/high airfields for primary use over non-oceanic sectors.

The fact that is obvious in all these types is the large degree of commonality between them. Cockpit, systems and even engine type are nearly common to most while crew training and engineering services would have little trouble handling a mixed fleet of A300, A310, A320 and one or two of the later variants. In order of market priority, it is felt that most certainly the A320 will see metal first, followed then by the TA9 which offers itself as an ideal trijet replacement through the nineties.

Locally, TAA will probably lead in the next round of Airbus orders. TAA has 5 A300B4-200 on order (and in-service) with two more options. These aircraft feature the analogue cockpit and will most probably be replaced en masse with new digital cockpit A300-600 aircraft later this decade. By this time there might be more coherence in the flight deck crew situation (seeing that the world domestic widebodied cockpit is going towards two crew regardless of what the unions think), new engines and a longer range capability will present TAA with an even better Airbus. TAA of course are also in the box seat as Potential A320 buyers and this looks set for a definite sale as soon as the economy picks up and the type is officially launched. The introduction of a 150-seater to the TAA fleet is not a current priority with airline management though and TAA could Opt to wait till around 1988 at which time the aircraft would have seen at least two years of service overseas in an effort to buy into a better ‘debugged’ type. During the early nineties, TAA will also have a requirement for the TA9 as will every other current and proposed A300 operator.

Certainly, the range of Airbus aircraft, assuming they all become metal, will offer an aircraft for all seasons. From the short/medium range, 150-seat A320 through to the ultra-long-range TA11 Airbus will no doubt rule the airliner market along with Boeing in the decades to come.

Qantas have always expressed more than a passing interest in the products of Toulouse and the coming of the A300-600 could fit admirably into their fleet structure around 1986. In the long term, the TA9 and TA11 could offer interest in their respective capacities. Ansett looks well and truly married to Seattle and will no doubt build their future capacity around 767s, stretched 767s, 737-300s and possibly the eventual 7-7 150-seater due around 1989 or so.

The Cockpit of the Future

Without wishing to become involved in the two-crew versus three-crew debate it is worth reporting the great advances offered to aircrew flying the new Airbus Industrie Forward Facing Crew Compartment or FFCC.

The FFCC is flying already with Garuda, albeit minus some CRTS which will be retrofitted later this year and will be standard on all A310s and A300-600s. This does not mean that the new cockpit forces a carrier to adopt a two-crew complement. While A310 launch customers Swissair and Lufthansa have both opted for the two-man configuration Air France have remained with a third member, the flight engineer who will be situated between the first and second officers and aft of the central lower panel. In this configuration, the FE will monitor the overhead panel which now performs functions formerly performed on the traditional sideways-mounted engineering panel aft of the pilots. On the two-man crew, both pilots can fully monitor the upper panel with ease, something that has been demonstrated thousands of times in the A310 simulator using aircrew (the majority of which were fairly pessimistic initially about the two-man crew issue) from the major European carriers in an effort to develop the best possible system.

The heart and soul of the new FFCC is the Electronic Centralised Aircraft Monitor or ECAM. The benefits of ECAM are simply that it can tell the crew exactly what is happening at the touch of a button a ‘need to know’ philosophy that does not overload the crew’s capabilities but rather gives the information automatically (or manually on request) as required. This is where the Boeing (757 and 767) system differs from Airbus Industrie. Boeing has presented a system of CRTs that provide the crew with constant monitoring of systems, etc. while the Airbus ECAM is designed for sophisticated systems management. The Boeing system is primarily a replacement for analogue instruments while Airbus have retained most of their electro-mechanical instruments in accompaniment with selected electronics such as ECAM.

How does it work and what does it do? We are aboard an A310 flying a routine sector. Suddenly one of the many fuel pumps becomes inoperative. The ECAM will automatically alert the crew to the immediate malfunction by way of an aural alarm, the CRT will then display the offending unit for specific identification, which pump and what its specific function was at time of failure. If remedial action is required then that is taken immediately. A schematic is then presented on the CRT of the pump system outlining the pump’s position and what must be done to alleviate the current problem, in other words, it tells the crew what Plan B effectively is, all in a fraction of the time taken with a current analogue configured cockpit. The ECAM also monitors navigation and can inform the crew if the aircraft is not on track or is at an incorrect altitude, etc.

The real strength in such a system is the ability it has to alleviate many of the human error situations that often result in disaster. Case one is the Eastern L1011 Tristar crashing into the Everglades. With ECAM the crew would have been on top of the situation rather than being totally preoccupied with panels far removed from the field of vision. The fact that the Tristar eventually belly-landed into a swamp would never have occurred as the ECAM would have informed the crew that the aircraft had exceeded a programmed safety parameter (gear up, altitude below a certain level, etc. ) and that remedial action was required. Another case would be the United Portland DC-8 crash of 1978 in which the aircraft simply exhausted its fuel supply.

The new digital Airbus cockpit is fitted with six CRTs and will be a common fit for all future Airbus aircraft as an aid to pilot conversion. In short, an A300-600 crew can literally take that aircraft from Melbourne to Brisbane, then if required fly an A320 from Brisbane to Sydney. This, in the long term offers The first A310s will be operational with Swissair and Lufthansa around March 1983 with their two crew forward-facing cockpits. Just as the navigator was eventually displaced by progress the flight engineer will eventually suffer a similar fate. When is more a question of politics rather than time?