Posts Tagged ‘Airbus’
Eyewitness: building an Airbus A350 from the inside-out
Click on photo to enlarge
Employees work on an A350 Airbus plane at the company’s facility near Saint-Nazaire, western France. The company is to hire 4,000 staff in 2012, about half of them in France.
The growth at Airbus is matched pretty much one-for-one at Boeing. As the global economy shuffles forward from the joys brought to us by an unregulated Wall Street, an underfunded SEC, a total disregard for oversight, honesty and integrity for a decade or more – some aspects continue to grow slowly and steadily – especially in capital goods.
In spite of 19th Century ideologues who prefer to return us to Bush-league standards.
Airbus A320neo orders trounce Boeing at the Paris Air Show
SAFRAN Snecma’s LEAP engine selected by Airbus to power the A320neo
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
As expected, the Boeing vs. Airbus rivalry is again front and center at this year’s Paris Air Show.
The Associated Press writes Airbus “is trouncing Boeing in the race to be the world’s biggest planemaker,” buoyed by what the European jetmaker says is the largest-ever order for commercial passenger jets.
As for the order that Airbus is lauding as historic, that comes from Malaysia’s AirAsia, which officially signed off today on a deal for a whopping 200 of Airbus’ 320neo jets…
The record-setting AirAsia order comes only a day after Airbus received what was then the record order. AP writes Airbus set “the previous record … just Wednesday by (winning) another A320neo customer, (Indian) carrier IndiGo.”
The Financial Times notes “the deal makes AirAsia Airbus’s biggest customer for narrow-body jets, with a total of 375 orders for A320-series aircraft, including 89 already in service.”
Airbus’ next-generation A320 neo — neo stands for “new engine option” — “has proven to be the star of the aviation industry’s premier event,” AP writes…
Dow Jones Newswires details the numbers for the A320neo, writing Airbus “racked up 667 orders and commitments for the A320neo, a new, more fuel-efficient version of the Airbus A320, a favorite of low-cost airlines operating medium-haul routes. Offering airlines up to 15% fuel economy compared to a present-day A320 due to new engines and wing appendages, it will be delivered to Airbus customers starting in late 2015.”
Overall, Airbus has announced deals for 730 aircraft at the air show. The orders would be worth $72 billion at list prices, though customers typically negotiate prices that are substantial lower. Boeing deals announced at the show totaled 142 aircraft worth $22 billion at list prices.
When you get past the crowing by EADS and the whining and rationales by Boeing, one factor stands out. Airlines are quite reasonably spending their money on more economical aircraft. If you can spend less per mile you stand a better chance of being competitive.
Boeing sits back on its butt in a nation that has no sensible energy policy and provides subsidies to industrial barons whether they’re advancing energy and cost-saving practices or not. The White House hasn’t the backbone or the votes. Congress is too widely owned by Big Oil to fight for practical economy.
Euro manufacturers like EADS have to compete in the real world – the one that recognizes every factor from climate change to peak oil as affecting their ability to do business. That’s a significant difference.
Airbus unveils images of their plane of the future
Perhaps TSA will be a thing of the past by then – and I’ll resume flying.
Easyjet funds volcanic ash detector
Easyjet has unveiled a system that it says will allow airlines to safely fly around ash clouds. It involves infra-red technology that allows pilots to see the damaging particles up to 62 miles ahead.
The theory is that a pilot can then change course and continue to fly safely…
Earlier this year, many air passengers had their travel plans wrecked when airlines had to scrap thousands of flights due to the Icelandic volcanic ash problem…
Easyjet’s proposed Avoid system will work in theory by spotting ash at sufficient distances to allow air traffic controllers enough time to re-plan flight paths. It will also act as a “spy in the sky” – giving traffic control extra detail on any ash clouds that are out there. The device, which works using infra-red technology but essentially looks like another radar in the cockpit, is light, small and easy to install…
Easyjet, which is spending $1.47 million on the system, says it is happy for rivals to share its knowledge.
Mr Harrison, said: “What we don’t want to do is to gain a commercial advantage over other airlines so we can fly and they can’t. We are not going to exclude people from this technology.”
He said the hardest part would be to get approval from European authorities.
That certainly doesn’t surprise anyone, does it? The premise of safety designs in the EU seems to be preventing law suits more than anything else. That and not losing elections.
Upon reflection, that doesn’t seem very different from Congress – does it?
Feel like sharing a plane with 839 other passengers?
The retail adage “stack ‘em high and pack ‘em tight” is to be introduced to airlines after plans were announced today for economy-only flights carrying a record-breaking 800 passengers in Airbus A380s.
The French company Air Austral said that it placed orders for two “high density” double-decker A380s with a capacity for 840 seats.
When full, the flights between Paris and the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, where the company is based, will easily involve the most passengers ever to fly in a single aeroplane…
The A380 began commercial flights in 2007 carrying around 500 people. The planes included space-consuming business and first class seating areas complete with showers and bars. But it was safety tested for evacuating more than 800 people before it entered service. With a crew of 20 included, it has been approved to carry up to 873 people.
Air Austral’s plans for no-frills A380s flights will make it the easyJet or Ryanair of super-jumbo travel.
“We are convinced that airplanes with good-priced tickets will help explode traffic figures,” its founder and president Gerard Etheve told Reuters. It said the giant people carrier was aimed at tapping growth in China and India.
I just mentioned this to my wife.
Her response, “There aren’t 800 people I’d want to be on a plane with.”
Joint venture rolls out the first Airbus built in China
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
European aviation giant Airbus is set to deliver the first A320 airplane assembled at its factory in China, in a symbolic event further marking the nation’s global rise.
The first plane to be made at plant in northern Tianjin, the only Airbus factory outside Europe, will be delivered to Dragon Aviation Leasing and will be flown by Sichuan Airlines, a regional Chinese air carrier…
The plane took its first test flight last month with the first Chinese test engineer trained by Airbus.
Ten middle-distance A319/320 aircraft will be delivered by the end of the year, before the factory starts to churn out up to four planes a month before the end of 2011…
The joint venture factory, about 120 kilometres (72 miles) southeast of Beijing, is 51 percent owned by Airbus, subsidiary of the European group EADS, and 49 percent by a Chinese aviation consortium.
At the inauguration Airbus chief-executive-officer Thomas Enders said the company’s “new house” would become “the jump off point for the future development of Airbus in China and in the region..”
The decision to build the China plant was based on strong growth estimates that expect the nation to buy up to 2,800 passenger and transport planes over the next 20 years…
Smart business decisions. The kind that require intelligent multilateral cooperation between nations.
Whining about a global economy will neither slow down growth nor make your nation and society a partner in the process.
Waggling wings could cut aircraft drag and emissions 20%
Wings which redirect air to waggle sideways could cut airline fuel bills by 20% according to research funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Airbus. The new approach, which promises to dramatically reduce mid-flight drag, uses tiny air powered jets which redirect the air, making it flow sideways back and forth over the wing.
The jets work by the Helmholtz resonance principle – when air is forced into a cavity the pressure increases, which forces air out and sucks it back in again, causing an oscillation – the same phenomenon that happens when blowing over a bottle.
Dr Duncan Lockerby, from the University of Warwick, who is leading the project, said: “This has come as a bit of a surprise to all of us in the aerodynamics community. It was discovered, essentially, by waggling a piece of wing from side to side in a wind tunnel.”
“The truth is we’re not exactly sure why this technology reduces drag but with the pressure of climate change we can’t afford to wait around to find out. So we are pushing ahead with prototypes and have a separate three year project to look more carefully at the physics behind it…”
The new micro-jet system being developed by Dr Lockerby and his colleagues could reduce skin friction drag by up to 40%. If successful this technology could also have a major impact on the aerodynamic design and fuel consumptions of cars, boats and trains.
Glad he’s already thinking about cars and trains. It was the first thing that came to mind.
Improving aerodynamics is effective in automobile engineering at surprisingly low speeds. BTW – I don’t care if this makes our four-wheeled friends a bit uglier. Saving money and fuel – and the environment – ain’t ever ugly to me.
Pilot of Flight 1549 tells his tale
The plane being lifted from the water to a waiting barge
Daylife/AP Photo by Craig Ruttle
The pilot of the US Airways Airbus that was forced to crash-land in New York’s Hudson river after both its engines failed has told investigators he made a split-second decision to attempt a water landing to avoid a possibly “catastrophic” crash in Manhattan.
Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger’s account of the landing was released as salvage crews hoisted US Airways Flight 1549 from the river and on to a barge. Investigators retrieved the plane’s black boxes, which were filled with fresh water, and sent them to Washington for analysis.
The aircraft’s torn and shredded underbelly revealed the force with which it hit the water. A gash extended from the base of the plane toward the windows, its right wing appeared charred and the exterior of the destroyed right engine apparently had been peeled off…
The pilot told investigators yesterday that in the few minutes he had to decide where to set down the plane on Thursday afternoon, he felt it was “too low, too slow” and near too many buildings to go anywhere other than the river, according to an account of his testimony to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Airbus to offer Obama an A380 for Air Force One
Airbus is preparing to offer incoming US president Barack Obama a special A380 superjumbo to replace the ageing Air Force One Boeing 747 jumbo jet.
Tom Enders, chief executive, said the US was already thinking about new aircraft for the presidential fleet and it was “not completely absurd” to consider the superjumbo as an alternative. It can carry as many as 840 passengers and is the European plane-maker’s flagship, with one sold to a Gulf sheikh.
But Enders said it was “much too early to speculate” and Airbus was concentrating on winning the re-run $40bn (£27bn) Pentagon contract for 179 air-to-air refuelling (tanker) aircraft against Boeing.
Airbus won the contract last year after one of the fiercest lobbying battles ever witnessed on Capitol Hill, but the Pentagon later revised the tender under congressional pressure. Enders said Airbus had won that contest fairly and intended to win again – provided it was on a level playing field…
The A380, which has won 198 orders from 16 customers, is the world’s biggest plane, but Airbus claims it is at least 25% more fuel-efficient than the venerable 747 and emits far fewer greenhouse gases – a key Obama preoccupation.
Enders really is a ballbuster with style.
