Boeing 747-8F

“It was a real privilege to be at the controls of this great airplane on its first flight, representing the thousands of folks who made today possible,” said Feuerstein. “The airplane performed as expected and handled just like a 747-400.”

“This truly is a great day for The Boeing Company and the 747 program,” said Mo Yahyavi, 747 program general manager and vice president on February 8. “It’s the culmination of the hard work and dedication of our employees, suppliers and customers. While there is still much to do, I am excited to begin the flight test program, which will demonstrate the capabilities of this airplane.”

Since its first flight, RC501 has undertaken a range of test flights, working up to achieving experimental certification, after which the second 747-8F will make its first flight and join the program. This was expected to occur before the end of March, while a third 747-8F will also join the testing program.

The flight testing program will take place from two locations – Moses Lake in Washington and Palmdale, California – in an effort to ease capacity at Boeing Field while 787 testing and certification is ongoing. The company says that flutter and initial airworthiness testing will be carried out at Moses Lake, after which the three aircraft will move to Palmdale to complete certification testing. All up, it is expected that three aircraft will complete 1600 hours of flight testing.

Originally launched in November 2005 on the back of launch orders for 18 Freighters from Cargolux and Nippon Cargo Airlines, the 747-8 has garnered 108 orders.

While based on the 747-400 airframe (itself a legacy of earlier 747s), the 747-8 represents something of a new beginning, with a number of significant changes. The biggest of these is the 98.5m span redesigned wing, which features a higher aspect ratio, as well as raked wingtips similar to those on the 777-300ER/200LR for greater efficiency.

The fuselage also receives a stretch, with both versions the 747-8 Freighter and Intercontinental taking on an additional 5.6m in length, making them the longest aircraft in the world. Despite this, Boeing says that the 747-8 will be compatible with any airport which currently handles the 747-400.

The other most significant change is to the engines. Gone is the choice of Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce or General Electric engines, with the sole engine offered on the 747-8 being the GEnx-2B, which produces a maximum of 295.8kN (66,500lbs) of thrust. The engine is a slight evolution of the GEnx-1B which was developed for the 787, sharing the same engine core and 80 per cent of the line replaceable units.

Compared to the GE CF6s fitted to some previous 747-400s, GE says that the GEnx will offer a 15 per cent improvement in fuel efficiency. In addition, it uses 30 per cent fewer parts, and is expected to have a 30 per cent greater time on wing, cutting down maintenance costs significantly.

Another important addition is a change in the flight control system, which uses a hybrid between fly by wire and hydraulics for different control surfaces. The aircraft has also received a new Rockwell Collins flight deck, although changes are minimal, meaning that crews already flying the 747-400 will be able to easily transition across.

While the airliner has some major new features, they are being assembled in the same building as other 747s. While other lines such as the 777 and 767 have been transformed to a nose-to-tail production line, the 747-8 will continue to be produced in the same building as other 747s have been produced with the aircraft assembled in a centre line position before being moved to two slant positions, as the length of the aircraft prevents it from being moved to a nose to tail line.

Integrating the fuselage, which is still based on the original 1960s design of the 747-100, with a modern wing, engines and systems has not been without its challenges, and has led to two delays to the first flights and deliveries of the aircraft. “As the program assembled major components of initial 747-8 Freighters during the third quarter, it became clear that late maturity of engineering designs has caused greater than expected re-work and disruption in manufacturing,” the company said in an October 6 statement.

Compounding the issue has been a lack of spare engineering resources at the company, which has also been dealing with the chronically delayed 787 program, while the machinists’ strike of 2008 also had an impact.

That impact has also been felt financially, with Boeing announcing in its 2009 results that it was taking a US$1bn (A$1.1bn) charge against the program due to “increased production costs and difficult market conditions.”

Nevertheless, the first flight of the first freighter should see the company make its first delivery to Cargolux during the fourth quarter of this year, with the Intercontinental to be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Freighter First

Somewhat humiliatingly, the 747-8 now has the distinction of being the first aircraft program for Boeing where the freighter version has sold more than the passenger version by the time of its first flight.

The 747-8 Freighter was launched on November 14 2005 with launch orders for 18 aircraft from Cargolux (10) and Nippon Cargo Airlines (eight). Since then, it has attracted orders from Cathay Pacific, Emirates SkyCargo, Korean Air, DAE Capital, AirBridgeCargo, Guggenheim Aviation Partners and Atlas Air. As of late March, 76 Freighters have been ordered.

The 747-8F represents a significant step up for prospective operators. With a total payload capacity of 140 tonnes, the 747-8F provides 16 percent more cargo revenue volume than the -400F. The longer fuselage also opens up an additional 117m3, creating space for four additional main-deck pallets, two additional lower-hold pallets and two additional lower-hold containers. Crucially, the -8 retains nose loading capabilities of earlier 747Fs, which allows for simultaneous use of both the nose and side doors, allowing for efficient ground handling.

Operating economics will also be improved, with the aircraft expected to have 16 per cent lower ton-mile costs than the 747-400F with similar trip costs, while its range will be 4390nm.

However, some analysts believe that the aircraft may face a market threat from its earlier siblings – particularly converted 747-400s. With values of these aircraft falling now due to them being replaced by the A380 and, to a lesser extent, 777s, many are now prime candidates for conversion into freighters, such as with the Boeing Converted Freighter program.

The fall in cargo volumes over the last year has also seen a number of freight operators, including 747-8 customer Cathay Pacific, park their 747s, with capacity coming back slowly. Similarly, some of the final 747-400ERFs produced were reportedly put immediately into storage during 2009.

The high availability of these aircraft has already had an impact anecdotally. In January, Boeing confirmed that lessor Guggenheim Aviation Partners had halved its orders for 747-8Fs to two, which many industry analysts believe that the poor market for freighters had forced the lessor to lower its exposure to the market.

Despite this, Boeing predicts that there will be strong demand for new freighters over the next 20 years, with a gradual shift towards larger, more efficient aircraft. With Airbus having cancelled the A380 Freighter for now, it appears that the 747-8F could be the sole new-build heavy freighter aircraft in a sweet spot for future years.

Going Intercontinental

While the 747-8F undergoes its testing and certification program, a number of resources are now being turned towards the preparation of the first passenger version, the Intercontinental, with assembly of the first aircraft to begin during the middle of the year.

The aircraft has also been designed to accommodate 467 seats in a three-class configuration, with a range of approximately 8,000nm (14,815km). In addition, the aircraft will have a 26 per cent greater cargo capacity, while it will create a 30 per cent smaller than its predecessor.

As with the Freighter, the Intercontinental promises major improvements in operating economics, with seat-mile costs 13 percent lower than the 747-400, with an estimated two per cent lower trip cost. Boeing also claims that as it is more than 10 percent lighter per seat than the A380 and consumes 11 percent less fuel per passenger that it will have a 21 percent trip cost and six per cent seat-mile cost reduction over the A380. Naturally, Airbus disputes this.

Boeing says that it aims for the interior of the 747-8 to give passengers a “memorable flying experience”, and has borrowed a number of interior concepts from the 787. This includes the new upswept cabin architecture, LED lighting and larger overhead pivot bins for storing carry-on luggage.

Lufthansa was launch customer for the Intercontinental, placing an order for 20 and 20 options in December 2006. That order stood alone for some time, with key potential customers such as British Airways choosing the competing Airbus A380 in 2008 instead, while other customers such as All Nippon Airways deferred decisions on new aircraft acquisitions due to the onset of the global financial crisis.

Emirates, which has 10 Freighters on order, had also publicly courted the 747-8I, and pushed Boeing to focus on offering additional range rather than additional capacity with the aircraft. Its reasoning was that it wanted it to be able to operate nonstop routes such as Dubai-San Francisco with the aircraft. Boeing subsequently decided to go for the additional capacity rather than range, effectively ruling out an Emirates order in the short term.

The only other carrier to express interest in the Intercontinental until recently was Nigerian carrier Arik Air, which announced at the 2008 Farnborough Airshow that it intended to place an order for 747-8s. However neither the carrier nor Boeing has announced a firm order and Arik recently acquired three Airbus A340-500s for its longhaul services.

Crucially, the slow sales situation changed in December last year when Korean Air placed an order for five Intercontinentals. To be operated on routes to North America and Europe, they are in addition to five freighters the airline has committed to.

For both Lufthansa and Korean Air, the 747-8s will fill the gap in capacity between their A380s and their smaller widebodies – A340-600s and 777-300ERs respectively. Boeing now sees this as a critical market gap and expects to see further orders over the year ahead, particularly as airlines come out of the recession and credit starts to flow again.

“We’ve kept a lot of passenger discussions warm on this side, but no one is buying $250 million machines, said Boeing CEO Jim McNerney at a conference in February. “We’re hopeful that some things could pop, we had a nice order at the end of last year from Korean Air to join Lufthansa as launch customer on the passenger side. So we’ve always had faith in this airplane, the recession has not helped its marketing.”

Also challenging for the aircraft is the fact that a number of existing 747 operators are choosing to replace their aircraft with smaller narrowbodies, such as Air New Zealand which will receive its first 777-300ERs this year to replace its 747-400s. Elsewhere, Japan Air Lines has indicated that it will cease operating 747s by the end of the year as a cost saving measure, and is thought to be unlikely to order the 747-8 or A380.

“We’ve kept a lot of passenger discussions warm on this side, but no one is buying $250 million machines.”

In the other significant longhaul market of the United States, carriers such as Delta and United appear to be content to drift down into smaller aircraft rather than replacing their 747-400s in the short term. United has committed to ordering Airbus A350-1000s as the largest aircraft in its fleet, while Delta’s 747-400s, inherited from its merger with Northwest, have recently received cabin upgrades and appear to be set to soldier on.

Aside from the airlines, the additional size of the Intercontinental has seen it make some relatively strong inroads into the VIP market. At the time of writing, Boeing Business Jets had ordered eight of the type for use as VIP jets, many of which are believed to be for various governments to transport their heads of state.

More than 40 years after Boeing “bet the farm” on the 747, the aircraft in its various iterations has earned its title as the Queen of the Skies by providing a number of revolutionary capabilities to the world’s airlines. Boeing intends to continue this legacy with the 747-8