Issue 287: Hi Max

In the end the decision came down to reliability, one of the pillars of commercial aviation.

American Airlines’ blockbuster order in July that launched the MAX was all about that airline’s and Boeing’s lack of confidence that the manufacturer could bring to market an all-new composite 737 replacement around 2018, and ramp up to a required 60 aircraft a month production rate within two years of its EIS, which is what was being touted and demanded.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes president Jim Albaugh conceded this at the American order announcement press conference, saying that while the technology exists for an all-new aircraft the “production system is not understood. ” Albaugh added that Boeing’s customers “wanted certainty on delivery schedules. ” Airbus faces a similar challenge with its A350, which is forecast to have a production rate within two years of its EIS of between 10 and 13 a month, while Boeing still has to prove to a skeptical world that it can achieve 10 a month on its 787 by the end of 2012.

While narrowbody production rates of 40 and upwards a month may be manageable within a very mature program, it is virgin territory for an all new design that pushes the technology envelope.

Production blues

Production ramp ups have caused considerable grief over the decades.

In the late 1950s, in a desperate bid to pare back Boeing’s one-year lead with the 707, Douglas committed to its DC-8 without a prototype and with a rapid production ramp up. When the DC-8 required modifications to its wing to rectify performance shortfalls found in flight tests, they could not be incorporated until ship 149, thus necessitating costly out of sequence work and refits.

Into the next decade, overselling of the Super DC-8s and DC-9s – to wrest market share back from Boeing – snarled production lines with up to 30,000 hours of open items on each aircraft.

Only a reluctant merger with McDonnell Aircraft saved the company.

Boeing was also forced to shut down its 737 and 747 lines for a month in 1997 when it tried to build production rates too quickly.

Over the decades production rates of four and five a month have been considered robust, and many programs have “survived” at a paltry two a month or less.

The 727 at 13 a month in 1968 and the 737 at 10 a month in the same year were industry highs at the time, but built on the experience gained on the same fuselage and systems of the 707, which had been in production since the late ’50s.

In the widebody stakes the 747 achieved a rate of 7. 6 a month in 1970, a figure never to be repeated for the jumbo jet, while the DC-10 achieved a peak 4. 25 in 1972.

It took the 777 five years to build to a production rate of 6. 9 a month in 1999, and it is now being pushed to 8. 9 a month.

It was 20 years after the first A320 was delivered in 1988 that it achieved the rate of one a day.

Achieving a rate for a new widebody of 10 a month within a year or two of EIS appears to be beyond the current industrial complex, so reaching 60 a month for an all-new narrowbody is perhaps in the realm of fantasy for the moment.

Plan B

While the 737 MAX is the second option, it is an excellent one that promises to keep the design going to 2030.

Boeing’s board of directors formally approved the launch on August 30 of the reengined 737, which the company claimed will burn four per cent less fuel than the Airbus A320neo.

The aircraft will be offered in three variants – the MAX 7, MAX 8 and MAX 9, developments of the 737-700, 737-800 and 737-900, respectively.

Boeing said that it has “order commitments” for 496 re-engined 737s to be exclusively powered by CFM International Leap-1B engines, from five airlines – of which only American Airlines has been identified to date.

At the announcement, Boeing said deliveries will start in 2017, though American Airlines stated that it “expects to be a launch customer for Boeing’s re-engined 737” starting in 2018.

However, Australian Aviation has been told that an EIS of 2016 or better is the target, and the 2017 date is ultra-conservative.

According to some Boeing insiders, the plan is to just focus on the re-engine built around the Leap-1B engine, and other improvements will follow and will not hold up the earlier target date.

Albaugh defended the timeline, saying that “one of things we’ve learned on the 747 and 787 programs is we want to make sure that any date that we quote is the date that we can meet. And I’d rather underpromise and over-deliver, rather than overpromise and under-deliver. ” However, Boeing’s VP of business development and strategic integration Nicole Piasecki said Boeing wants to advance that date.

“Jim wants to under-promise and overdeliver, so he is challenging the team to bring the airplane to market as soon as possible,” Piasecki said.

“Given our recent track record, we’re being very conservative – not conservative, we’re being very prudent, I should say – and disciplined to make sure that whatever we talk to our customers about, we actually have a plan to deliver on. I think you’ll see improvements on 2017, but again our team is disciplined and we’re going to make sure we have a plan before we make a commitment. ” Boeing is promising customers up to a seven per cent advantage in operating costs over “future competing aircraft”.

Further gains may come from the Boeing “evolutionary ecoDemonstrator Program” set to fly in 2012, when an American 737‑800 will be used to flight test and accelerate the market readiness of emerging technologies, as well as being a testbed for the FAA Continuous Lower Energy Emissions Noise (CLEEN) program.

Some of the technologies that will be flown in 2012 include adaptable trailing edge technology that reduces noise and emissions during all phases of flight including takeoff, cruise and landing, and a variable area fan nozzle that reduces community noise and enables advanced engine efficiency technologies.

Boeing is also looking at a revised tail cone and a hybrid laminar flow vertical stabiliser for drag reduction. Australian Aviation also understands from a source in Dubai that Boeing is looking at raked wingtips to replace blended winglets for a longer range model.

The MAX will have a slight wing redesign and Boeing will introduce some FBW similar to what it has done with the 747-8.

Flight International speculates that the FBW element will be spoilers that could be used for manoeuvre load alleviation to increase the aircraft’s maximum takeoff weight. Winglets will be standard But Albaugh told media that he has demanded that the changes be minor. “There are a lot of things we could do with the airplane, but what we want to do is limit the scope of work,” he said.

“And we’re going to limit the scope of work associated with the engine. I’ve told my team I don’t want to hear ‘simple’ and ‘reengine’ in the same phrase. But we’re going to make this the simplest re-engine possible. ”That extends to leaving the cockpit as is.

“The one thing we do want to make sure we have with this airplane is compatibility with the NG, compatibility with airplanes we’ve already delivered. What customers have told us is don’t touch the cockpit, and our plans are not to do that. ” Behind the cockpit, the Boeing Sky Interior will be standard on the MAX.

The lack of changes will have a flow through to certification, with Albaugh saying that “our expectation is that certification will have to do with the engine and nothing more. ” Boeing is desperate to avoid another blowout in redesign that it experienced on the 747-8, which started life as a simple re-engine plus stretch and ended up almost a new aircraft, with consequent blowouts in costs and delivery dates.

Engine advantage?

At the launch announcement, CFM said the LEAP-1B engine will be a variant of its LEAP-X family “uniquely optimised” for the 737, and this will be one of the fascinating aspects of the two competing designs.

Whereas the 737 MAX will be built around the LEAP-1B with most likely a 173cm fan diameter, the A320neo wing will have to be strengthened to take the heavier PW1100G PurePower geared turbofan (GTF), which could negate some of fuel efficiency of a wider fan diameter that the A320neo can take.

Australian Aviation understands that the only modification to the 737 from a ground clearance perspective is larger nose wheel tyres.

By way of comparison, the current 737NG’s CFM56-7BE engine has a 155cm fan diameter and the LEAP-X1A and Pratt & Whitney PW1100G fans for the A320neo are respectively 198cm and 206cm in diameter.

The key measurement is a 43cm ground clearance underneath the nacelle to avoid contact with taxiway lighting. The 737’s current engine size gives just over 13cm of margin. Thus the 168cm fan diameter margin would require no modifications and the 173cm option only minor tweaks.

Boeing’s Piasecki claims the 737 MAX 8 (or 737-8 for short) “will have the lowest operating costs in the single aisle segment with its fuel burn 16 per cent lower than our competitor’s current offering and four per cent lower than their future offering. ” However, Airbus’s COO customers John Leahy was having none of that, telling The Wall Street Journal that “the re-engined 737 cannot possibly match the fuel efficiency and maintenance cost savings of the A320neo family. ” Piasecki told Commercial Aviation Online (CAO) that “the 737-9 has about five per cent better operating economics for its seat-mile economics and its trip costs will be about six per cent better. Its operating economics are significantly better.

“We are currently working on its range capabilities with customers right now. We have a lot of range in the 737NG and we have to make sure are there missions out there that our customers want more range capability so we can be sure to capture the 757 market. ” CAO’s Scott Hamilton commented that “Boeing and Airbus have claimed their 737-900ER and the A321/321neo are 757 replacements, but none matches the 4000- 4500nm range of the 757. ” Still, Piasecki notes that “the 737-900 is an awesome plane in terms of economics, it’s much lighter than the 757.

“It doesn’t have all of the range capability that the 757 has, which is part of the reason it’s so efficient and so much more efficient than the A321. ” She added that the 737-7 “is a couple of percentage points better in both seat-mile and trip costs than the A319neo. As it relates to the Bombardier CSeries, we believe that our airplane will be slightly more efficient.

Of course, [the 737-7] has that much more to offer from Boeing and the support system behind it. That also assumes CSeries actually delivers as promised. ” According to Hamilton, the assumptions Boeing uses to reach its economic conclusions are a 500nm stage length, US$3. 22/ USgal fuel, 162 seats for the 737-8 vs 150 for the A320neo, lighter weight, lower maintenance costs of between 20-25 per cent, 15 per cent fuel savings for the A320neo, and the performance improvement package (PIP) incorporated today in the 737NG now being delivered vs none for the A320 beyond the sharklets and the new engines.

US based Consultancy Airinsight has run its sliderule over the competing aircraft and found that, based on the data available, the “MAX looks pretty good”.

Using US Department of Transportation 2010 data, it was able to establish benchmarks for the 737-800 and A320 – the key models – and then it took the “improvements promised by the engine makers” to draw up an analysis.

However, it notes, as does Airbus, that Boeing and CFM are yet – at press time – to decide on the diameter for the engine, which may change the numbers.

Airinsight said that it sees the “MAX doing over seven per cent better than the 737NG, whereas the A320neo with the CFM engine, sharklets and aerodynamic tweaks should comfortably exceed 10 per cent over the current A320. ” It adds that the “GTF powered A320neo does even better because P&W promises that its new engine will offer significantly lower repair costs since it has a lot fewer parts. ” Its conclusion is that “if everyone’s numbers are sound, based on our estimate, MAX will be about two per cent better than the A320neo in cost per hour. ” In early September Pratt & Whitney’s CEO David Hess, speaking at the annual Reuters Aerospace & Defense Summit, warned Boeing that it may have to rethink its strategy because the LEAP-1B is too small.

“Time will tell. Boeing responded to pressure and if they feel they don’t have a competitive airplane against the A320neo they may be forced to accelerate or look at their plans for a new plane,” Hess said.

“I would be surprised if it is 15 years before Boeing launch an all new narrowbody airplane. ”be a minimum-change airplane and I don’t see them doing anything else for the airplane that is going to result in substantial fuel benefit, so it is going to have to come from the engine, and I will be happy to take the geared turbofan’s chances against a 66in (168cm) or 68in (173cm) LEAP-X any day,” Hess said.

Hess said he expected Pratt & Whitney would snare more than 50 per cent of the market against CFM on the A320neo.

According to Reuters, of the 1300 A320neos sold by Airbus, 500 had yet to see an engine selection, including the 100 ordered by American Airlines. “We are certainly going after the AMR order,” Hess said.

Orders

Sydney based Centre of Aviation (CAPA) said the MAX could surpass the A320neo commitments as early as November this year.

“Southwest Airlines, the largest 737 operator and the launch customer for the 737NG, has publicly said it is not part of the commitments Boeing so far has,” CAPA said in a special report.

It also notes that American said at its July 20 order announcement that it would not be the launch operator, leaving the door open for Southwest to claim the title.

CAPA also adds that Delta Air Lines could also be expected to order the MAX, following its August 25 order for 100 737‑900ERs.

“Provided the neo has no more major commitments in the short-term, industry watchers see the MAX possibly surpassing the neo by November,” CAPA said.

The research group believes that LCCs and US based airlines will be major buyers of the MAX.

“Low cost carriers operate 20 per cent of the current A320 family fleet, but account for a disproportionate 55 per cent of A320neo orders, and LCCs can be expected to lead in orders for the MAX,” CAPA said.

CAPA also lumps US carriers in with LCCs, noting that in America airlines compete with each other on price, not service.

“More efficient aircraft pose a threat to LCCs by lowering the operating costs of competitors who order them,” as former Virgin Blue CEO Brett Godfrey remarked in September 2009, well before the reengine campaigns gained traction.

In charge

Boeing named Bob Feldmann VP and GM of the new engine 737 family program. Feldman most recently headed the surveillance and engagement division within Boeing Military Aircraft, where he guided the P-8A Poseidon’s development, itself a heavily modified 737-800.

Rounding off leadership of the 737 MAX, Boeing appointed Michael Teal, formerly VP and chief project engineer on the 747-8 program, as VP, chief project engineer and deputy program manager.

Production

The push by Boeing for minimal changes in the MAX is to both bring forward the EIS as much as it is a very prudent move to minimise or even eliminate any costly rework after flight test starts.

It is expected that the majority of orders for the 737 will be for the MAX after 2017, and Boeing will want no glitches in the production rate, which will be at least 42 if not 60 a month at that stage.

Boeing will have the 737 at 42 a month by 2014 with intermediate steps at 35 and 38.

Boeing is yet to decide where to build the MAX and is thought to be eight months away from a firm decision.

“Like on any new program we’re taking the opportunity to make a decision on where we do the work. And certainly our Renton facility has demonstrated we know how to build this airplane, but we are going to look at Renton and other sites,” said Albaugh.

“We don’t believe that the work scope on doing the final assembly of the MAX is going to be immeasurably different from the work scope from the NG,” said Albaugh.

“But we have a team sitting down figuring out, how we might transition to the new airplane in Renton and also how we might start up a new facility in a different location. ” So while it is unclear where the MAX will be built, it is clear, however, that Boeing has a fight on its hands to retain its customer base and lick the production problems which afflicted the 787 and 747‑8.