Making the 747 Incredible, Again?

The mid sixties were heady times – the era of supersonic travel – when all discussions revolved around SSTs replacing most long-haul routes in the 1970s.

Thus the Boeing 747 design team was focused not only on speed but also on converting all 747s to a life of cargo when the SSTs entered service in the mid 1970s. That design criteria led to many unique features – nose loading for cargo and a private First Class cabin, intimate Business Class upper deck and the crown for the fastest block times – making the 747 a seemingly timeless aircraft and the only jet ever designed from the outset for cargo conversion.

But being a timeless aircraft was not on the minds of many when the 747 was launched in 1966. At the time, there were conditional orders for 115 Boeing 2707s from 25 airlines and 74 Concordes from 16 airlines.

In April 1966 Aviation Week magazine commented that “despite its excellent prospects as a passenger conveyor, we thing the 747 will really come into its own as a freight carrier.” The magazine interviewed John Steiner then VP for the development of Boeing’s Airplane Division and he said that “if we could not have justified the 747 as a passenger-cargo aircraft we could not have gotten shareholder support.”

He explained that the realization of the cargo market forecasts would require a vehicle better than the present freighters, you must have improvements in cargo handling, facilities and marketing and you must have volume. “If you get all three…you can reduce rates and we can compete with trucks.”

Interestingly in 1966 at the launch of the 747, Boeing was pleading for standardization from airlines even down to the number of seats but to no avail.

On the occasion of the 747s’ 40th year in service the father of the 747 Joe Sutter was as proud as a father can be when he told Australian Aviation that “the 747 would be around for another 30 years.”

Compelling numbers

And coming around to the 747-8I –the aircraft’s first actual body stretch aside from the upper deck – are airlines says Boeing’s VP Market Randy Tinseth who suggests that some new – and important – orders are close to being announced. “There is more activity in the market, both for the 747 freighter and passenger version. It’s a handful of airlines but they are serious – and prestigious – discussions.”

“The numbers are compelling,” says Tinseth. Trip costs are the same as the 747-400 but seat costs are 16% better and there is significant increase in range, claims Tinseth. Although Tinseth concedes the figures aren’t “quite where they should be” although he says “they are tweaks not showstoppers.”

However on the intercontinental Tinseth says the figures should be on track for guarantees. Against the A380 Tinseth claims close to double digit fuel advantage per seat based on 525 seats for the A380 and 467 seats for the 747-8I.

Airbus Director Product Marketing A380 Richard Carcaillet has a differing set of numbers and tells Australian Aviation that Singapore Airlines is achieving a 20% reduction in fuel burn over its 747-400, while Qantas is getting approximately 17% improvement over the 747-400. These figures Carcaillet says reinforces Airbus assertions that have the A380 with 525 seats with an 8% fuel burn advantage over a 747-8 with 405 seats under Airbus rules.

But the best judges are perhaps the customers and Lufthansa, the launch customer for the 747-8I believes that the aircraft, which will enter service late this year, will have almost the same fuel burn per passenger as the A380 on LH’s typical missions.

“These are numbers on our load factors, on our network and in our configurations,” Executive VP, Lufthansa Group Fleet Management Nico Buchholz told attendees at ATW’s Eco-Aviation Conference in Washington last year. Buchholz said the 747-8 will have a fuel burn of 3.51 liters per passenger per 100 km. while the A380 with Rolls-Royce engines, which LH also has ordered, will achieve a burn of 3.4 liters.

However whatever the operating and fuel costs are there is another number which is critical – capital costs. And this is where Airbus has been “more sporty” claims Aboulafia, although Airbus denies heavy discounting. There Aboulafia agrees with the market view that Boeing has not needed to discount the 747-8F and thus has not been able to cut prices on the passenger version.

But while capital cost is important, installed fleet in the form of the 747 is also critical, particularly for an airline that only wants a handful of 400 plus seaters says Aboulafia. However for airlines such as Cathay Pacific, which has a large fleet of 747-400s, the 747-8I has appeal because it has ordered 10 of the -8F and taken 10 options.

In fact, at the launch of the 787, Cathay Pacific’s then COO Tony Tyler told Australian Aviation that the airline was “delighted with the 787’s launch because of what it meant for
What was the dubbed the 747 Advanced.”

And Aboulafia is upbeat on the GEnx engine for the 747-8 series after Boeing and GR close on “a third performance improvement package (PIP) to get the engine family to return the 747-8’s fuel burn to its original target by 2013.”

GE says that its currently flight and ground-testing a package of improvements to the GEnx-1B engine for the 787, some of which will carry over to the 747-8’s 65,000lb GEnx-2B engine.

While both engines share a common core and 80% LRUs the GEnx-2B has a smaller fan and pneumatically driven start system, while the GEnx-1B has an electric bleed-less architecture.

Despite the sfc problems Buchholz told media at the roll out of the 747-8I that it will meet the airline’s requirements. “And I’m still pleased,” Buchholz told Bloomberg.

Issues

On October 6, 2009 Boeing announced the second delay in the 747-8 program pushing back the first flight of the 747-8F to “early next year” and first delivery to the 2010 fourth quarter while reporting a US$1 billion charge on the program. In the previous year it had announced a slip in the first delivery to the 2010 third quarter.

Those delays and along with the 787 problems forced Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Scott Carson to step down and he was succeeded by former Integrated Defense Systems President and CEO Jim Albaugh in late August 2009.

At the time Bernstein Research was scathing commenting that the latest 747-8F delay is “another example of program-management issues on new development programs at Boeing,” adding that “the 747-8 should have been a straightforward development process on a derivative program.”
However, what is not fully understood is that rather than a simple stretch the 747-8 is a major redesign including what amounts to an all new wing built around an unchanged wing box.

Boeing said in a statement that the US$1 billion charge is related to “increased production costs and the difficult market conditions” affecting the 747-8 program. Approximately US$640 million of the charge “reflects higher estimated costs to produce 747-8 airplanes at both Boeing and supplier facilities,” it said. “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. This is resulting in additional resources being applied on the program.”

The remaining $360 million “relates to challenging market conditions and the company’s decision to maintain the 747-8 production rate at 1.5 airplanes per month nearly two years longer than previously planned, deferring an increase to 2 per month. Higher allocation of fixed expenses and volume-based penalties to suppliers are the main drivers of the additional costs.” It conceded that the 747-8 program is “in a loss position.”

Loss or not airlines were annoyed and clamored particularly for the freighter which provides 16% more revenue cargo volume, translating to four additional main-deck and three more lower-hold pallets.

The 747-8F finally became airborne on February 8, 2010 taking off from Paine Field in Everett, Wash., at around 12:40 p.m. local time following a nearly 3-hr. weather delay and landing at the same airport at 4:18 p.m.

Among the dignitaries on hand at Paine Field to observe the flight was Joe Sutter, the legendary lead engineer for the original 747. “It’s amazing to me that this program has lasted 41 years,” he said on a Boeing webcast following the landing. The longevity “says the basic design was right then and it’s still right now.”

Sutter noted that he always believed the 747 was an ideal cargo aircraft and was confident the freighter version of the -100 would be successful even if the passenger version was not. He remembered that he resisted entreaties by airlines to design the ground breaking aircraft, in 1969 by far the largest ever built, as a narrow double-decker rather than a widebody. “If we had gone with the double-decker, neither the freighter nor the passenger versions would have lasted 41 years,” he said.

However more problems –in the air and on the ground – were soon to surface.

During the flight tests, the 747-8F suffered buffet issues with turbulence off the landing gear doors interfering with the inboard flaps and this was quickly resolved by a design change to the outboard main landing gear doors.

Then in April 2010, Boeing found a defect in longerons at the top of the fuselage which under certain loads was susceptible to cracking but this has also been rectified.

Two other issues – oscillation in the inboard aileron, and a structural flutter – have fixes in the works says Tinseth but they slowed flight testing and used up the margin in Boeing’s development schedule.

As a result in August 2010, Boeing removed VP and GM-747 Program Mo Yahyavi from his post – after only seven months at the helm – as speculation mounted that the 747-8 freighter’s first delivery would be delayed again.

VP and GM-Airplane Programs Pat Shanahan told employees in an internal communication cited by the Seattle Times that he would take over direct supervision of shepherding the 747-8F and 747-8 Intercontinental to EIS while Yahyavi takes on “a special assignment.”

Boeing also appointed Elizabeth Lund to the role of deputy program manager for the 747-8. She will report directly to Shanahan.

At the time Abaugh hinted that delivery of the 747-8F may slip into next year (2011) owing to the nagging problems affecting the flight test program and late the next month the third delay in the program was announced with Boeing stating that that first 747-8F would not be delivered to launch customer Cargolux until “mid-year 2011.”

Boeing said that the latest delay “follows a thorough assessment of the expected cumulative impact of [flight test] discoveries, which include a low-frequency vibration in certain flight conditions and an underperforming aileron actuator. While neither issue requires structural changes to the airplane, they have led to disruptions to certification testing, which the program was unable to offset within the prior schedule.” In order to achieve the new delivery date, Boeing committed to add fifth aircraft to the test program.

“We understand the issues encountered in flight test and are working through the solutions,” said Shanahan. “We recognize our customers are eager to add the 747-8 Freighter to their fleets, and we understand and regret any impact this schedule change may have on their plans to begin service with the airplane. With that said, the 747-8 Freighter is demonstrating the capabilities our customers need to be successful and we are confident in the value it will bring them upon certification and delivery next year.”

In mid October Boeing completed the “final body join” of the first 747-8I – destined for a VIP customer – and for the first time the sheer size and stunning look of the 747-8I was revealed. By the numbers the 747-8I is 250 ft.-2 in. (76.3 m.) long, or 18 ft.-4 in. (5.6 m.) longer than the 747-400 which gives the aircraft 51 more seats and 26 per cent more cargo volume than the 747-400.

On February 3 the fifth 747-8F participating in the flight test program made its first flight with a 3 hour and 30 minute in the air and is to be used for functionality and reliability testing.

Ten days later on Sunday 13th Boeing rolled out the 747-8I in a eye catching if not controversial livery in front of 10,000, employees, government officials, customers, partners and suppliers to the theme “Incredible, Again.” That theme was in reference to banners that hung during the construction of the first 747-100 that touted the team building the jumbo were the “Incredibles.”

At the rollout Lufthansa’s Buchholz, a former Airbus executive, said that “the 747-8 Intercontinental will be a great complement to our fleet, fitting nicely into the 400-seat category, improving our fleet’s eco-efficiency even further. As launch customer, we are looking forward to welcoming this new aircraft to our fleet next year as it adds to our ongoing fleet modernization and environmental efforts.”

On the livery Boeing explained it this way: “The airplane unveiled today is painted in a new Sunrise livery of red-orange that only will appear on the first 747-8 Intercontinental and is a significant departure from Boeing’s standard blue. The new color palette honors many key Boeing customers whose cultures recognize these colors as symbols of prosperity and good luck.”

Media was left scratching their heads as to what this all meant as red and orange are not good luck colors in Korea or Germany but in China red is a sign of good luck, money, respect, recognition and orange is a sign of Yang, organization and purpose.

Most commentators believed correctly that the purpose of the colour scheme was to honour, yet to be announced at the roll out, orders from Chinese airlines for the passenger version, which came on February 8th with a commitment for five from Air China.

Cockpit

When Boeing first touted its glass cockpit 747-400 in the mid 1980s, Stewart John, revered Chief Engineer of Cathay Pacific Airways urged the retention of the three crew analog cockpit for commonality.

Thankfully John didn’t get his way but the pressure not to mess with things that work has been a constant problem for Boeing as it has upgraded its 747 over the decades to keep pace with both technology and competition.

And now the urgency to update avionics is even greater with the need to take advantage of new fuel saving and airspace technologies such as RNP and GLS becoming imperative says Boeing VP engineering 747 Todd Zarfos.

The challenge for Boeing has been to retain the “traditional 747-400 cockpit” for pilot commonality while incorporating as much of the 777/787 technology and the stagging advances in commercial avionics in the last 20 years. Zarfos says that while the 777s and 787s architecture is different to the 747-8, the features are very similar.

The result is a near identical shop front with a brand new warehouse of storage space behind chocked full of features that will keep the 747-8 current well into this century.

“We needed to keep the common type rating and to keep the cross training hours done to an absolute minimum,” notes Zarfos. “But what we are looking for to justify change is an increase in safety and operational efficiency.”

And contrasting early models of the 747 with 39 clip board options commonality and standardisation now rules with little input from airline’s chief pilots.

“The days of a chief pilot coming in and picking and choosing what he or the airline wanted are gone,” says Zarfos. “The airlines want us to limit the amount of change in the fleets and we have tried not to introduce any variability.”

That said Zarfos notes that much of the extensive functionality of the 747-8 cockpit is a result of pilot feedback from the 787, 777 and 737NG cockpits. “Lots of those issues had been sorted on our more recent designs.”

However, as Zarfos explains that much of the capability cannot be used until the aviation industry (ATC) catches up with technology on the ground.

As with the 787, Boeing has adopted a standard package fits all approach to the 747-8 cockpit as the company moves away from the former business model of buyer-furnished equipment (BFE) in avionics to supplier-furnished equipment (SFE). There are only a few options on the 747-8, such as Class 3 electronic flight bags.

Zarfos explains that the 747-8’s cockpit is built around a Rockwell Collins supplied advanced display system, flight-deck communications, navigation and surveillance suite and central maintenance computer and a new flight control management computer from Honeywell.

Rockwell Collins EVP and COO Commercial Systems Kelly Ortberg says that the “teamwork that has occurred on this [747-8] program has been outstanding. Rockwell Collins has collaborated with Boeing to create a very powerful airplane equipped for the next generation airspace – while keeping required pilot training to a minimum by maintaining an interface that is similar to the 747-400.”

Rockwell Collins DU-7001 Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Displays (AMLCD) emulates the 747-400 cockpit and was first introduced on the 747-400ER but enables the display of advance features found on the 777 and now the 787. These include vertical situation display, RNP scales and electronic checklists.
The Rockwell Collins GLU-925 Multi-Mode Receiver is fitted with a 24 channel GNSS receiver with GLS/ILS capability which enables the 747-8 to perform RNP operations as well as GPS guided approaches using GBAS.

The GNSS receiver meets or exceeds all applicable industry requirements and provides position, velocity and time (PVT) outputs for use by other aircraft systems such as TAWS and FMS.

The GLU-925 also has ADSB capability and its advanced chipset allows for expansion to support such things as Wide Area Augmentation System.

As with the 787 the 747-8 features Rockwell Collins WXR-2100 MultiScan Hazard Detection System, which analyzes and determines weather hazards, not simply atmospheric moisture content.

The WRX-2100, which was introduced by Qantas on the 747-400ER in 2002 is fully automatic, hands-free radar system which significantly reduces pilot workload and enhances safety and passenger comfort by minimizing unexpected turbulence encounters, while providing optimal clutter-free weather detection out to 320 nautical miles.

Other equipment that Rockwell Collins is providing for the 747-8 includes; Communication Management Unit, Satellite Communications System, VHF and HF transceivers, VHF Omnidirectional Radio, Distance Measuring Equipment, Automatic Direction Finder, Mode S Transponder, Cockpit Voice Recorder, Digital Flight Data Recorder, Emergency Locator Transmitter, Flight Deck Printer and the Data Management Unit.

Honeywell’s Next Generation Flight Management System (NGFMS), which has been four years in development, will give the 747-8 full capability for all future air traffic control developments.

According to Carl Esposito, VP, Marketing and Product Management, Honeywell Aerospace the NGFMS provides all of the capability to meet requirements for improving air traffic management through decreased separation and more direct routing.

“The future of navigation and air traffic management is flying today.” Esposito said.
With 4-D (trajectories), required time of arrival and trajectory based optimization, the FMC system is going to be at the heart of an aircraft cockpit says Honeywell.

The NGFMS, enables Required Navigation Performance (RNP) 0.1, and allows operators to comply with the U.S. initiative NextGen Air Traffic Management (ATM) and the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) program. It also supports Wide Area Augmentation System – Localizer Performance with Vertical guidance (WAAS-LPV), Future Air Navigation System 1 (FANS-1) and FANS-2 requirements.

“The NGFMS is being designed to meet increasing requirements for integrity and availability required by NextGen and SESAR,” according to Chad Cundiff, VP, Crew Interface Products, Honeywell Aerospace.

“The new architecture will ensure higher quality performance and functionality while allowing faster development of new functionality enhancements.”

The NGFMS provides enhanced flight planning, navigation and guidance, and aircraft performance capabilities to the aircraft as well as a large navigational database that meets future growth requirements. The system works both as a standalone product, as it is in the Boeing 747-8, or integrated with other avionics.

In addition to being available on new Boeing 747-8 and Gulfstream G650 aircraft, Honeywell’s NGFMS will be offered for retrofit on Boeing 747-400 aircraft.

The upgrade for 747-400 operators involves sending in their FMS boxes for the card change-out. Additional wiring is required for Future Air Navigation System (FANS) capability, as well as revamped displays for Required Navigation Performance-Authorization Required (RNP AR).

Honeywell says that there has been considerable feedback from 747-400F operators who plan to keep the aircraft for several more decades.

Another subtle change in the 747-8 cockpit explains Zarfos includes the removal of the center detent in the landing gear lever. Previously, crews set the lever to up then to off once the gear was retracted however now pilots only need to set the up position to retract the landing gear.

Also the auto brake selector has been relocated to above the first officer’s FMC, in a similar fashion to the 787 and 777.

As well as having a near identical cockpit Boeing wanted the 747-8F to handle the same way as a 747-400 which has necessitated a move to partial fly-by-wire for lateral flight control says Zarfos because of the increased weights without increase in wing area. The partial FBW controls the out board ailerons and six spoilers on each wing. “Both aircraft have identical handling characteristics,” says Zarfos.

The removal of the mechanical actuation is a weight saving and Zarfos says that an extra benefit is the provision of load-manoeuvre alleviation which greater structural efficiency.

Pilots flying the 747-400 will be able to transition to the 747-8 with 2-3 days transition training and retrain common type rating, while pilots from a 777 and 787 will require about 6-8 days of training.

But one thing that is different in the cockpit is the aerodynamic noise which has been significantly reduced with new insulation and much quieter engines and that reduction in noise will transfer into the passenger cabin of the -8I says Tinseth.
“Everything we understand is looking good from the noise perspective,” Tinseth told Australian Aviation.

A380 competition

Well away from the numbers one of the major challenges for the 747-8I is the “Emirates Effect” with its massive buy for the A380 and the airline’s seemingly unstoppable momentum.

Airlines faced with the prospect of Emirates entering their markets are under pressure to at least match the airline with equipment even if they can’t match their network strengths. There is little doubt that passengers love the A380 even if it is frustrating airlines with its reliability.

Emirates’ President Tim Clark told Australian Aviation that “in some weeks we get 99 per cent dispatch reliability other weeks we get 90 per cent. There are a few exasperating issues but we now understand the complexity of the aircraft but it’s a challenge. We get stupid failures,” he laments.

A large part of the exasperation explains Clark is that “passengers love the aircraft and it is very, very profitable for the airline.” He cites the fact that the airline has services to both Gatwick and Heathrow and now he finds that Gatwick passengers are driving on the normally heavily congested M25 to Heathrow to fly on the A380.

And that experience is being replicated at both Qantas and Singapore Airlines which are finding the A380 is a magnet to passengers.

Addressing the A380’s reliability record Airbus’ Carcaillet points out that the current 97 per cent reliability on technical issues compares favourably with the 777 at around 98 per cent and is well ahead of the 747-400 which swung between 89 per cent and 93 per cent for its few two years.

New software upgrades, introduced on the 33rd and first Air France A380 last year addressed many of the reliability issues and upgrades are being installed on the other aircraft in service.

Boeing is hoping that once airlines see and ride the 747-8I in Lufthansa configuration they will be won over that the aircraft is robust competitor for the A380 that will draw passengers.

The Seattle giant missed some great opportunities to win a passenger order from Emirates when they firstly didn’t have a full mock-up to show, only partial, and then didn’t respond in a timely manner, due to then 787 sales focus, to the airline’s needs to come up with a solution to the airline’s requirements to accommodate its unique first class “Suites” product.

Emirates’ problems was it wanted more Suites in the nose than the 747 could accommodate and a solution would have been to move first class to the upper deck but to maintain exclusivity for its passengers, which the airline demands, it would have necessitated moving stairways access to the upper deck forward as it was originally located when the 747 was first introduced.

Emirates could have then put its now famous A380 bar in the nose of the 747 and perhaps gone back to a United Airlines suggestion from 1966 and put a viewing window in the nose. Now that would really be the place to be!!