Paris ’09

The 2009 event was the 48th Paris Air Show, and the 100th anniversary of the first show which was held at the Grand Palais in central Paris in 1909. Held every two years opposite the UK’s Farnborough Air Show, the Paris show moved to Orly Airport in Paris’ southwest in 1949, and then to its present site in the city’s north from 1951.

Paris Sales

A quick glance at this year’s Paris orders saw Airbus again come out on top at its home show with orders for 93 A320 Family airliners including 50 A320s for European LCC Wizz Air, 20 A320s and four A321s for Qatar Airways, 16 A321s for Vietnam Airlines, five A320s for The Philippines’ Cebu Pacific, one A320 for Zest Airways, and one A319 for France’s Aigle Azur. Airbus also booked orders for 10 A350-900s from Malaysia’s AirAsia X, and signed MoUs for two A350-900s with Vietnam Airlines, with Turkish Airlines for five A330-300s and two A330-200s, and with India’s Paramount Airways for 10 A321s.

Not to be left out were the regional aircraft manufacturers, with ATR booking 22 orders comprising ATR 72-600s and 10 options from Spanish carrier Air Nostrum; four ATR 72-600s, four 42-600s and two 72-600 options from Royal Air Maroc; four ATR 72-500s from Nigeria’s Afrijet; and two ATR 72-500s from Vietnam Airlines. Bombardier logged an order for 15 CRJ1000s and five CRJ900s from Air Nostrum, Japan’s IBEX ordered four CRJ700 NextGen regional jets, and Olympic Airlines ordered eight Q400s and took eight options.

Embraer booked eight orders comprising seven E-190s for KLM Cityhopper, and converted an option for one E-175 from Fuji Dream Airlines. Even Russia’s Sukhoi got into the regional jet orders race by booking an order for 24 of its SuperJet 100 (which performed its first international flight display at Paris) from Avialeasing, and getting an MoU from Hungary’s Malev for 30 aircraft.

But poor Boeing, which can’t seem to take a trick lately, logged only a single order for two 737-800s from Japanese lessor MC Aviation Partners. Whilst the US Manufacturer has been quick to point out in past years that it does not save up orders for air shows, the company was holding just 10 net orders for the year to date at the end of the show, and with the cancellation of 15 787s by Qantas in late June, has probably slipped back in to the red since.

But Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Scott Carson sees better times ahead. “It feels like we’re bouncing off the bottom,” he told media at the show, adding that, “It feels to us like the middle of next year is when we will see growth return to the industry.”

Airbus head Tom Enders’ view mirrored that of Carson’s, saying he expected orders “will pick up again next year,” but added that Airbus has a healthy backlog of more than 3500 airliners representing more than seven years of production at current rates. “This is why we are fairly relaxed about the order intake this year,” he said.

Boeing also has a strong backlog, valued at US$265bn (A$331bn) at list prices, allowing Carson to put a positive spin on his company’s woes. “The value of the backlog built over the last three to four years is going to be realised (this year) in delivery of that backlog, not the generation of it.” Whilst Airbus has announced it will hold production at current rates and has put on hold plans to accelerate A320 and A330 production, Boeing was non-committal about its current production rates. “If the economic conditions have bottomed and there is a recovery and the available capital to support it, then I think we have a shot at getting through and holding the rates where they are,” said Carson.

Moving on to the regional and business aircraft manufacturers; while Bombardier had a Q400 NextGen on display for the first three days along with several business jets, Dassault showed off its new 7X and 2000, and Sukhoi the aforementioned SuperJet 100, noticeably absent from the static park were any other small to midsize commercial or business jet offerings, including those from Embraer, Cessna and Gulfstream. Indeed, both Cessna and Gulfstream reportedly pulled out of Paris completely at relatively short notice due to massive downturns in their sales, with Cessna reportedly starting a month-long, company-wide furlough of all staff shortly after the show.

Bell had a mockup of its new 429 helicopter on display in its chalet and a development aircraft for demonstration rides for prospective customers, whilst Eurocopter had examples from its entire commercial and military stable available for viewing as well as demonstration rides.

But, apart from two Airbus A380s and a smattering of GA and warbirds, it was left mainly to the military manufacturers to fill out the remaining static park and flying display program. Inside the exhibition halls, the displays were understandably dominated by those from the home team, these being French and European aircraft, engine and component manufacturers, with EADS/Airbus, Dassault, Snecma, Safran, MDBA and Finmeccanica ruling in the main crowd traffic areas.

Following is a summary of some of the major news items to emerge from Paris.

Commercial

Boeing Looking At Widebody Options

A double stretch of the 787, a re-winged 777, or a new replacement for the 777 are among the options Boeing is studying as the rival Airbus A350 XWB is further defined, with a decision likely in the next one to two years. “Eventually, we will have an all-composite replacement for the 777,” Boeing chairman and CEO Scott Carson said on the sidelines of the Paris Airshow. “The question is, how long will it take us to get there?”

Airbus’s 314-seat A350-900 is scheduled to enter service in 2013, and will be followed by the 270-seat -800 and the larger 350-seat -1000, which could pose a threat to the 777-200ER and -300ER, with the latter enjoying major sales success in recent years. But recent sales of the A350 to major customers including Emirates have led Boeing to start examining a number of options for the 777 and 787, and earlier this year the company floated the idea of a ‘refresh’ of the 777-300ER, involving weight reduction measures and engine tweaks to enhance fuel efficiency.

At Paris, Carson also noted that the Boeing could redesign the 777’s wing to bring about more efficiency gains with any such improvement likely to become available from 2016, could go further and possibly replace elements of the 777’s structure with lighter composite components, or could work on a whole new design.

But some key industry figures questioned the company’s ability to dramatically improve on the 777, with Emirates CEO and President Tim Clark telling media in Paris, “Re-winging, I’m not sure about. I’d be thinking seriously about an all-new aircraft.”

And speaking from experience after his company’s various stillborn iterations of the A350, Airbus COO Customers, John Leahy added, “I’d be careful with the temptation to try the intermediate fix. As someone who has tried the derivative approach, I … think they’ll soon discover that the only thing that can work competitively against an airplane that has been drawn on a clean sheet of paper is another airplane on a clean sheet.”

Also in the picture is the still undefined 787-10, which would involve a further stretch of the basic 787 design and could seat more than 305 passengers, but little appears to have been done on this variant since it was mooted at Paris two years ago. Boeing has delayed committing to the biggest member of the 787 member while it concentrates on the development of the baseline 787-8 and stretched 787-9, and probably to avoid cannibalising future 777 sales.

Airbus Sees New Narrowbody In 2020-2022

Airbus COO Customers, John Leahy told media at Paris that a new narrowbody aircraft to replace the Airbus A320 Family is likely to enter the market sometime between 2020 and 2022.

Informally dubbed the A30X, Airbus has been studying configurations and technologies for a new generation narrowbody, and had previously been expected to come to the market in 2018-2020. Leahy says that the pushback of the expected timeline has not been due to commercial factors but rather technical factors, with Airbus expected to seek a double-digit reduction in fuel burn from the new design.

Most of this is expected to come from new generation engines, such as CFM International’s LEAP-X engine.

Airbus executives have also been keen of late to separate any perceived links between last year’s trials of a Geared Turbofan engine on its A340-600 demonstrator, and any possible adoption of that engine on the A320 Family or its replacement.

Biofuel Performs As Well As Jet A1

Boeing Commercial Airplane’s head of environmental strategy Bill Glover told media at Paris that recent testing of biofuels in commercial airliners has confirmed that they perform as well as standard Jet A1 fuel, raising the prospect that they will play a large part in cutting down the industry’s carbon emissions.

Based on data gathered from biofuel test flights and lab testing between 2006-2009, bio-derived synthetic paraffinic kerosene (Bio-SPK) was found to perform as well or better than regular jet fuel, with no adverse affects on engines or their components. Bio-SPK was also shown to meet all standards for regular jet fuel, including those for freezing point, flash point, fuel density and viscosity, among others.

They also found that Bio-SPK has a higher energy content by mass than typical jet fuel.

“These are very gratifying results,” said Bill Glover, managing director of Environmental Strategy for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “Everyone on the team – and across the industry – is working hard to make sustainable biofuels a real solution for reducing the carbon footprint of aviation, and these results move us closer to that goal.”

Boeing says that it is working with biofuels refiner UOP and the US Air Force to produce a comprehensive research report for submission to the ASTM International Aviation Fuel Committee later this year. The report will support efforts to gain approval to use Bio-SPK fuel at up to a 50 per cent blend in support of industry goals to accelerate availability and use.

Big Airshow For Engine Makers

Rolls-Royce and General Electric both recorded strong orders at Paris.

Rolls-Royce picked up expected orders for the Trent XWB from AirAsia for its order for 15 A350-900s which was announced at Paris along with a TotalCare services package, as well as an order for Trent 700EPs for AirAsia X’s 10 A330s already on order. Gulf Air also ordered Trent 700EP engines for 20 A330s with TotalCare, and renewed TotalCare on Trent 700s powering 10 A330s already in service.

International Aero Engines (IAE) in which Rolls-Royce is a senior partner, received orders for V2500 engines for A320s from Air China, Etihad and Qatar Airways with a value to Rolls-Royce of around US$650m (A$816m).

GE also had a busy airshow, gaining a US$2.2bn (A$2.76bn) order from Etihad Airways for the GEnx-1B engine to power its 35 forthcoming Boeing 787-9s, and 10 GE90-115Bs for its Boeing 777-300ERs. Etihad also chose Engine Alliance, in which GE is a partner with Pratt & Whitney, to power the 10 Airbus A380s it has on order, as did Reunion based Air Austral.

CFM Industries, in which GE is partnered with Snecma, also picked up orders from Atlantic Airways, Cebu Pacific and Aigle Azur.

Commercial briefs

* Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker went on the front foot at Paris, threatening to “walk away” from his airline’s order for up to 60 Boeing 787s over dissatisfaction with Boeing in the way it has handled communications with its customers with the ongoing delays to the program. He claimed Boeing was “not dealing with (its customers over the delays) in a professional manner.”

* Bombardier has announced a number of suppliers of key components of its forthcoming CSeries single-aisle airliner. CAE has been selected to provide engineering services and simulation tools for the aircraft’s design, testing and certification; Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems will supply the aircraft’s wheels ad brakes; Hamilton Sundstrand the electrical system; Honeywell the IRS and APU; L-3 the voice and flight data recorders; Magnaghi & Salver for the composite flaps, spoilers and main gear doors; and Goodrich for a number of cockpit lighting, air data and ice detections systems.

* Boeing’s Scott Carson aid the company expects to be able to improvements to its forthcoming 747-8 through weight savings and engine improvements. Carson said the company was continuing “to look at product development studies that will allow us to further increase the payload and range of this airplane and to improve its noise footprint.”

Military

Boeing Throw 777 Tanker Option Into The Mix

Boeing surprised many at Paris when it told media that it has started work on a 777-based tanker should the requirements of a revised USAF KC-X program give extra credit to aircraft size and capacity, the reason given for the A330-200-based KC-30’s win over the smaller 767 last year.

Boeing’s vice president of tanker programs David Bowman made a presentation showing two ‘KC-7A7’ options including the company’s familiar 767-200LRF based tanker, as well as an option of developing a 777-200ER based solution. Bowman said that a 777 tanker would feature a state-of-the-art flightdeck, and offer superior capabilities over the Airbus A330-200-based Northrop Grumman/EADS KC-30.

Bowman said a 777 would carry 23 per cent more fuel, a 44 per cent greater payload, and 42 per cent more passengers. Boeing officials also confirmed that the company is open to considering a variant of the GEnx engine currently under development for the 787 and 747-8 to power any 767 of 777-based tanker, and said the USAF has indicated it will give the company the time it needs to define and develop any such sub-variant.

Both Boeing and Northrop Grumman are awaiting the release of a new RFP from the Pentagon for the drawn out KC-X program, which each company has won once before only to lose it on appeal, for 179 aircraft to replace the USAF’s fleet of KC-135E tankers.

Interestingly, some analysts at Paris speculated as to whether Boeing is seriously considering a 777 tanker, or has just thrown the aircraft into the mix in an effort to cast doubts into the minds of rival Northrop Grumman/EADS North America. Indications from US Defense Secretary Robert Gates are that the RFP will propose a sole-source agreement, despite some members of Congress backing a split buy in order to expedite a deal and to get the aircraft into service sooner.

Potential Market For 6000 F-35s – Heinz

New JSF Program Office (JPO) head, MAJGEN David Heinz has claimed there could be a global market for the F-35 of up to 6000 aircraft, easily surpassing the more than 4400 F-16s sold to more than 20 nations since the late 1970s and 5200 F-4 Phantoms sold worldwide between 1960 and 1979.

Heinz made the claim during a Paris JSF program ‘motivational brief’ to media, industry observers, and partner nation representatives on June 17. He said on top of the 2400 aircraft on order for the three US services and up to 700 aircraft for partner nations, he said, based on the equipment in use worldwide today that would require replacement in the next 30 years, he foresaw opportunities to sell an additional 2900 F-35s to nations such as Israel, Singapore, Spain, Japan, Finland, South Korea and others as F-16s, F/A-18s, Gripens and other types are retired. “As these airplanes age out, I believe my airplane will be competitive,” he said. General Heinz also stated that he was “delivering first day of the war capability” in answer to questions about the F-22’s superior performance against air and ground based threats.

Lockheed Martin program head Dan Crowley also detailed the JSF’s flight test program, saying he was comfortable that the aircraft would achieve its planned 5000 flight test hours on schedule by 2013, peaking at 144 sorties per month from a 12-aircraft test fleet in 2011.

Heinz added that the planned schedule has enough resources to allow for two or three of those aircraft to fail to generate the required sortie rates and for up to 25 per cent of mission system test points to be re-tested, and still meet the schedule.

Separately, Heinz reportedly took aim at Boeing officials who have been marketing the F-15SE as an alterative to the F-35, saying they were misleading customers in their marketing that foreign buyers of the JSF would get an inferior variant. “For Boeing to make statements about a ‘dumbed down’ variant … is absolutely incorrect and it is speculative and I believe, a very disappointing marketing ploy to drum up business,” he told Reuters.

Boeing IDS CEO Jim Albaugh had previously claimed that, despite not yet being defined, the F-15SE’s frontal aspect “has all the stealth that has been approved for export by the US government,” suggesting there was little else that could be done to export F-35s in terms of shaping and/or treatments and coatings to surpass this standard, while Boeing Military Aircraft president Chris Chadwick later re-stated during the show that the F-15SE was only being marketed to existing F-15 operators.

Lockmart Targets C-130j At A400m Customers

Lockheed Martin was busy demonstrating its C-130J to potential European customers at Paris, in particular those affected by ongoing delays to the Airbus A400M program.

Despite France saying it remains committed to the A400M, the French defence ministry reportedly confirmed the week before Paris that they are talking to Lockheed about a possible near-term acquisition of between 10 and 15 C-130Js to replace aging C-160 Transalls and C-130Fs in service.

“We are excited about the opportunity to meet the airlift needs of A400M nations,” Lockheed’s vice-president C-130J business development, Jim Grant told Flightglobal.com at the show. “We are having detailed discussions with several of those countries.”

Speculation continues to surround the future of the A400M, with partner countries Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey reportedly divided on whether to or how to proceed with the stalled program. Lockheed Martin officials have said they are willing to study leasing options to these and other countries with airlift shortfalls.

Lockheed Martin is currently ramping up to deliver 24 C-130Js in 2010, but says its tooling can support 36 deliveries a year. The company also reported to have said there were “excellent” sales opportunities for the aircraft in Africa and in the Asia-Pacific regions as well, with Australia confirming in the Defence White Paper that at least two additional C-130Js would be acquired to replace C-130Hs.

Boeing Ids Creates Uas Division

Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) has created a new division bringing together its unmanned aerial system (UAS) businesses, which it says will “lead the company’s sustained pursuit and execution of UAS business and the transition of new products from research to production.”

The UAS division will assume program responsibility for the A160T Hummingbird, Unmanned Little Bird and SolarEagle (Vulture) programs. Insitu Inc, which was taken over by Boeing last year, will report to the new division which will be headed by Vic Sweberg, who in turn will report to Boeing Military Aircraft president Chris Chadwick.

“This new division establishes a single leadership team focused on implementing a common strategy for unmanned airborne systems and services, and ensures access to resources and capabilities from across IDS,” Boeing IDS CEO Jim Albaugh said.

Military briefs

* Boeing says that it will privately fund the development of the F-15SE Silent Eagle, ahead of any potential launch order for the stealthy multirole fighter. “We know from talking with current international F-15 operators that they are very interested in the capabilities of the Silent Eagle,” said Boeing Integrated Defense Systems CEO Jim Albaugh. “Making this commitment to get the program through to a flight demonstration will ultimately help international customers understand how this aircraft meets their need for a flexible, long range, large payload, high speed, multirole strike fighter with reduced observability.”

* Agricultural aircraft specialist Air Tractor had the interesting AT-802U on display at Paris. The company says it has developed a military version of its At-802 as an affordable and rugged light attack and ISR platform for emerging air forces. “We see this as an important part of the nation building concept,” Air Tractor’s Lee Jackson told Flightglobal.com. “It can both train pilots and get some ISR and some attack capability for a very low cost. The aircraft are very configurable – we took out the chemical hoppers and spray equipment, we did some wing mods to handle the loads of the 50 cal guns, and incorporated countermeasures defence system…it was a very straight forward configuration.” The aircraft can lift up to 4000kg of external stores and has a loiter capability of up to eight hours.

* Pratt & Whitney says its F135 engine for the F-35 JSF will receive a five per cent power boost from 2010 to 43,000lbs (190kN), up from the current 41,000lb thrust requirement and the reported 41,250lbs recently achieved during F-35B hover pit testing. The rival Rolls-Royce GE F136 engine team says it has a newer design which was developed after the F-35’s 2004 redesign and will enter service with 43,000lbs, and has plans to take that to 45,000lbs.

* Alenia Aermacchi announced at Paris that Italy ha signed a contract to buy six M346 Master advanced jet trainers. Alenia says Italy has a requirement for 15 such aircraft, that the aircraft is shortlisted in Singapore, and that further opportunities exist in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Ecuador, Qatar, Greece and Chile.

* Dassault and the French Government have had the final technical requirements submitted to them from the UAE for a potential sale of up to 60 Rafale fighters to the gulf state. The submission signifies a basic agreement on the aircraft’s specifications and the start of contract negotiations. The UAE has reportedly specified a higher thrust M88 engine for the Rafale as well as an AESA radar and the MBDA Meteor BVR radar guided missile.

* India has reportedly selected the Airbus A330-based KC-30 tanker to meet a requirement for up to eight aircraft. EADS was keeping quiet on the deal at Paris, but it has been reported that contract negotiations are underway with the Indian government. India already operates eight IL-78 Midas tanker transports, but the IL-76/78 airframe is no longer manufactured.

* India has also reportedly requested an RFI to the US Government for up to 10 Boeing C-17 transports. Boeing officials confirmed the USAF was handling discussions with India, and that the required delivery timeframe was unclear.

General Aviation

Eurocopter Ec175 To Fly This Year

Eurocopter says its seven tonne EC175 helicopter it is jointly developing with China’s Harbin Aviation should fly by the end of 2009.

The helicopter will be produced in both Marignane in France and at Harbin in China where it will be known as the Z15.

“This helicopter has been designed with the customers in mind and we have taken a lot of feedback from them, especially those from the oil and gas industry which is expected to make the most orders,” said Eurcopter’s executive vice-president for commercial program, and former Australian Aerospace CEO, Joseph Saporito in Paris. “For this class of helicopter, it is the best compromise between performance, safety and cost.”

Eurocopter displayed a full-scale mockup of the EC175 at Paris with a complete representative cabin and cockpit. The company has so far received 111 letters of intent for the helicopter, manly from offshore resource companies but also some orders from search and rescue operators.

* A dispute between Eurocopter and Bell re-erupted at Paris when a French bailiff reportedly visited Bell’s chalet to photograph Bell’s 429 mockup for possible patent infringements. Eurocopter claims the 429’s skid design is a patent infringement of one of its own designs, and filed a lawsuit with the Federal Court of Canada in May of this year. Bell says it has redesigned the 429’s skid for production versions from the former ‘sled’ type design to a newer ‘toe’ shaped one. Bell says the P&WC PWC207D-powered 429 is due to be certified “imminently” and will be marketed against Eurocopter’s successful EC135 and 145 models.

* Eurocopter displayed an armed variant of its AS550 C3 Fennec helicopter it intends to market to India for that country’s 197 helicopter light utility helicopter requirement. The company was previously awarded the competition, only to lose it on a technicality because it had offered the civilian-certified AS350. Eurocopter says the AS550 is identical to the AS350 in its airframe, engine and dynamic components, but will be certified for military operations.

* Eurocopter officials confirmed at Paris that Vietnam is in discussions to buy several EC225 and EC155 helicopters for its Navy. Eurocopter had a navalised EC155 on display at Paris, initially in Pakistani Navy markings which were curiously removed during the show.

* Indonesia’s Susi Air announced at Paris it has ordered 30 Cessna Grand Caravans as well as a Piaggio P180 Avanti II, an AgustaWestland AW119 Ke helicopter, and an AgustaWestland A109 Grand helicopter.