Replacing Air Force One: will 747-8 production remain open, or can 777-300ER become AF One?

Bloomberg has this story about the prospect of replacing Air Force One “early in the next decade.” Aviation Week has this story as well. The Aviation Week story links to the Dayton Business Journal,
and reports that the USAF wants a commercial derivative, four-engine
airplane for delivery in 2021 or later. This description, of course,
says “Boeing 747-8″ without saying so.

The assumption is that Boeing will provide the 747-8I (Airbus already
said it will not bid the A380), but the timing could make it
problematic. At August 31, there was a backlog of just 53 8Is and 8Fs,
or 30 months at the current production rate of 1.75 per month–to 2016.
Boeing has had several dry spells for orders. The 8I isn’t selling well
at all and the cargo market hasn’t recovered yet, suppressing sales for
the 8F. How does Boeing keep the 747-8 production going until delivery
of Air Force One replacements “early next decade”?

Boeing has a couple of 8I campaigns we’ve heard about, hoping for
orders this year. These include British Airways and Lufthansa Airlines
and a third airline we haven’t yet identified. Lufthansa is expected to
announce a wide body order any day now. The publicly acknowledged
competition has been between the Airbus A350 and a combination of the
Boeing 787-10 and the yet-to-be-launched Boeing 777X. But the 787-10
entry-into-service is planned for 2018 and the 777-9X in around 2020,
followed a year later by the 777-8X. Airbus is believed to have delivery
slots earlier that either Boeing airplane.

So what would entice Lufthansa to buy Boeing with the later delivery
slots? According to our market intelligence, Boeing has offered LH the
747-8I at steep discounts to serve as an interim airplane. This not only
would keep LH in the Boeing camp but would help keep the 747-8
production line open. An order from the second of the three airlines
would also be needed in this scenario to keep the line open. These
orders would also enable Boeing to avoid another write-off for the 747-8
program, our market intelligence says.

But does Air Force One have to be a four-engine airplane? The Secret Service reportedly demanded such when seeking a replacement for the Boeing 707, but according to Wikipedia,
the USAF specified a plane with at least three engines and 6,000 mile
range. Air Force Ones (there are two of them). When the RFP for the new
AF One was issued, in 1985, twin-engine, long haul airplanes with ETOPS
were still early in their service, eliminating the prospect for the
twin-engine Boeing 767. The Secret Service was said to want more than
two engines for safety.

But today, twin-engine ETOPS airplanes and the engines are incredibly
reliable. The Boeing 777-300ER has a dispatch reliability second to
none as far as we can tell and the GE90 engines that power it are
superb. Could the Secret Service and USAF accept a 777-300ER bid? (We
doubt the Secret Service or the USAF would accept the new, unproven 9X
as Air Force One.)

The 777 certainly doesn’t have the panache of the 747, but
operationally there certainly is nothing wrong with the airplane and
engines and there is no question about the line being open to 2020 or
even somewhat beyond.

The Air Force also needs to replace the 747-200 that serves as the
flying command post for the President and the top military brass. This
is the white 747 that was spotted over Washington (DC) on 9/11/2001, the
day America came under airborne attack by Al Qaeda. But the news
articles don’t mention replacing this aircraft.

 | Leeham News and Comment

The Unexpected Success of the Boeing 747 by Ed van Hinte (Works That Work magazine)

Ask anyone to name the first type of airplane that springs to mind,

and the answer is likely to be the Boeing 747 jumbo jet. From 1970 until
the 2007 introduction of Airbus’ A380, it was the largest passenger
carrier ever, and the remarkable image of its bulky head has become part
of our cultural consciousness. It may come as a surprise that this
unique shape was not a design choice, but rather the by-product of an
extremely complicated development process that involved gruelling
effort, interminable paperwork, vehement debate and little attention to
visual values.

Passenger airplanes are extraordinary machines. They are a crucial
element in a worldwide system that transfers millions of people safely
and efficiently through thin, icy air over vast distances in a very
short time. Day in, day out, they fly higher than the highest mountain
ranges and move faster than any other means of public transportation.
Yet there are surprisingly few of them: the total world fleet of all
passenger airplanes presently amounts to 25,000 at the most, including
almost 1,500 Boeing 747s. For comparison, over the past year 800,000
cars were sold in Beijing alone. Even a large airline such as British
Airways typically operates fewer than 250 planes (a quarter of which are
747s) that make an astonishing total of 200,000 flights a year.

The
latest version of the aircraft, the 747-8, is in production at the
Boeing Everett Factory. This variant has a maximum payload capacity of
154 tons of cargo (16 percent bigger than its predecessor), allowing it
to carry seven additional containers. Its body is more than twice as
long as the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk. (Photo
courtesy of the Boeing Company)

The birth of the Boeing 747 in the late 1960s heralded modern
intercontinental mass transportation. It represents not only the
impressive result of an intensive engineering and design process, but
also the spirit of its era, a time when belief in progress, including
access to air travel, was a phenomenal force. So much so that
corporations and governments alike began to dream out loud about
supersonic travel, about moving more people across the earth through
sheer speed: more flights per day rather than more passengers per plane.







Boeing wanted a piece of that prospective market too and launched a
government-supported project to develop the 2707 SST, an aircraft
planned to carry 300 passengers at three times the speed of sound. (By
comparison the now obsolete Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde flew 100
passengers at twice the speed of sound.) The company considered the 747 a
less-important intermediate product: something for the lower-end
subsonic market. They expected to sell a couple of hundred units or so
and projected that it would find more use as a container-carrying
freight plane. It had to be developed within 28 months, which was 30%
faster than usual even for a normal-sized jet, let alone an entirely new
flying colossus. While the 747 was still in development, however, the
government cancelled the SST programme, finding it neither
cost-effective nor fuel-efficient.

The historic Everett Factory. In 1966, having signed a US$525 million
contract with PanAm, Boeing purchased 780 acres of land in Everett,
Washington, 30 miles north of Seattle. No existing facility could
accommodate the 747’s unprecedented size, so to build the world’s
largest airplane, Boeing had to build the world’s largest factory. With a
floor area of 398,000m² (4.3 million sq. ft) and a volume of
13,385,378m³ (472 million cu. ft), the Boeing Everett Factory is still
the largest building in the world. (Photo courtesy of the Boeing
Company)

While it still existed the SST programme drained valuable resources,
leaving Joseph Sutter, engineering chief of the 747 project, grappling
with a lack of company support. Nevertheless, he and his 4,500-member
engineering department set out to develop a very large airplane suitable
for both freight and passengers. This group in turn became the core of
the 747 programme led by Malcolm Stamper, involving a staggering total
of 50,000 people committed to developing the market, negotiating
financing, training pilots, and safety testing each and every component.
Furthermore, PanAm Airlines, as Boeing’s most important customer, also
exerted an unprecedented influence on the design process.

Boeing
747, interior mockup. A full-scale mock-up of the interior of the 747’s
passenger model. Boeing initially expected to sell only about four
hundred 747 passenger planes and designed them for easy conversion into
cargo carriers. When the passenger seats are removed the fuselage can
accommodate containers stacked two units wide, two units high and two or
three ranks deep. Boeing has since sold more than one and a half
thousand 747s. (Photo courtesy of the Boeing Company)

(Photo courtesy of the Boeing Company)

In his autobiography 747: Creating the World’s First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation
Sutter relates how he had to negotiate some pitched battles during the
design process. Many, if not most of them, concerned weight reduction,
how to balance the systems and components essential to safe, comfortable
flight with the profit-eating expense of transporting their combined
weight. Every aspect of the plane’s design was the subject of intense
discussion within an extensive community of people representing
different interests, objectives and opinions.

No doubt one of the most heated debates concerned the basic shape of
the fuselage. The general belief, one shared by many of Sutter’s
personnel as well as by PanAm CEO Juan Trippe, was that the design
process would inevitably produce a double-decker craft: a tall, narrow
airplane with two floors. This was mainly due to cues taken from ship
design and the general idea that the passenger airplane was a flying
ocean liner. Words like ‘crew’, ‘captain’ and ‘purser’ still bear
witness to this association.

(Photo courtesy of the Boeing Company)

Giant passenger ships are made larger by adding decks, and indeed
this was the idea that Sutter started with, but as he continued to draft
and design this model it began to present problems. In freight
applications, for example, the height of the fuselage would make it
difficult to load and unload containers. In passenger applications, the
height of the upper cabin would make completing an emergency evacuation
within the required 90 seconds dangerous, if not impossible. Searching
for alternatives, Sutter and his payload engineer Milton Heinemann
started to think along ‘heretical lines’ as they put it, developing the
idea of a wider, double-aisle fuselage. They started to explore this
novel concept and discovered that although it might be somewhat heavier,
the spacious cabin would be much more comfortable for passengers. And
loading freight into such a wide body would be much easier. The cockpit
would sit above the front loading door in the nose, trailed by a
fairing, a curved surface to reduce drag, creating a modest extra deck
and the 747’s characteristic bulge.

The engineers realised that they would have to work hard to convince
double-decker believers to accept this radical departure from the
traditional approach, and that it was possible that after the first
rumours of the wide-body solution started to circulate, Sutter could
suddenly find himself replaced by someone willing to pursue the
double-decker concept. Fortunately, by that time he had gained
sufficient authority to weather that conflict.

With Boeing finally more or less behind him, the next, even more
crucial, step was to gain the support of Juan Trippe. A meeting in New
York with PanAm representatives was arranged for this purpose, and
Heinemann, more diplomatic and less explosive than Sutter, was chosen to
present the new concept. Heinemann went about it cleverly, reserving a
conference room 6m (19.7 ft) wide, exactly the width of the proposed
cabin design, so that the executives present could experience it
directly. He let the space speak for itself, and it was a convincing
argument.

(Photo courtesy of the Boeing Company)

Before a final decision could be made, however, there had to be one
more meeting at the Everett facility where PanAm representatives could
compare full-scale mock-ups of the double-decker and wide-body models.
When Trippe enquired about the space inside the fairing atop the
wide-body fuselage, Sutter replied that it could be used by the crew as a
place to sleep or relax. When Trippe disagreed, saying that the space
would be used for passengers, Sutter realised that his wide-body concept
had won. But he probably still didn’t realise that his design would
become an icon of the airline industry for decades to come.

The Unexpected Success of the Boeing 747 by Ed van Hinte (Works That Work magazine)

Why Boeing Is Buying Up Older 747s

---

Photograph by Jens Goerlich

The nose of a Boeing 747





Auto dealers have long
been willing to take an old clunker off a potential buyer’s hands in
order to clinch a sale of a shiny new model. Now airplane makers are
following suit. Boeing (BA)
is acquiring previous versions of the 747 from airlines ordering its
new, tough-to-sell 747-8. Of the 19 older 747s that have changed hands
so far this year, Boeing has snapped up seven, according to data
compiled by Ascend Online Fleets. That makes it the biggest buyer of the
used jets in 2013.

While the purchases put Boeing on the hook for
finding new operators, it helps nurture demand for the newer
747-8—among a class of fuel-thirsty four-engine aircraft that airlines
frown upon these days. New sales are pivotal to keeping 747 assembly
lines humming as Boeing slows output 13 percent to 1.75 planes a month
and stashes some unsold 747-8s in desert storage. “It unloads a problem
[from airlines] to Boeing,” says Douglas Kelly, senior vice president
for asset valuation at aviation consultant Avitas. “It’s just like
trading in your car.”

While Boeing declined to comment on specific
customers or aircraft sales, the Ascend data show that this year’s
sellers of 747-400s to the world’s largest planemaker are all buyers of
the 747-8 family, which includes both passenger and all-freight
versions. The buyers are Korean Air Lines (003490:KS) and Cathay Pacific Airways (CPCAY), as well as Cathay’s Dragonair unit and its cargo joint venture with Air China (AIRYY).

Story: How Boeing Stays Steady When Tragedy Strikes

Production of the 747-400 ended in 2009. New features on the
747-8 include improved engines and an elongated version of the fuselage
hump that gives the plane its distinctive profile. It entered commercial
service in 2011, two years late, after Boeing diverted engineers to the
delayed 787 Dreamliner.

Potential buyers for the 747-8 are
dwindling as cargo companies increasingly ship freight by rail or in the
bellies of passenger versions of large twin-engine jets such as
Boeing’s 777s, favored for their fuel economy and low maintenance costs,
says Richard Aboulafia, an aviation consultant.

Purchasing older
747s is “a pretty smart move on the part of Boeing,” says aviation
consultant Michel Merluzeau. The latest 747s, which retail for about
$350 million each, have drawn only five orders this year. But there were
also five cancellations, according to Boeing’s website. “I think it’s
one year at a time for that program,” Merluzeau says.

Story: Disgruntled Airline Speaks Up About Boeing 787 Payout

Boeing’s buybacks help 747-8 customers avoid recording losses
on older planes they would otherwise struggle to sell amid a global glut
of used jumbos, Avitas’s Kelly says. With demand weak for air
freighters, conversions of passenger 747s to carry cargo have dried up,
he says, curtailing one of the usual options for airlines to extract
value from aging aircraft. About 75 747-400s are parked in deserts
around the world, according to Ascend, and valuations have tumbled. A
1992-vintage 747-400 that was appraised at $41.6 million in January 2008
is valued at $16.7 million now, Kelly says.

Korean Air, which has
sold six 747-400s to Boeing since 2010, agreed in June to buy five
747-8s as part of a planned $3.6 billion aircraft purchase. The carrier
is the second-largest global operator of the 747-400 and one of the
biggest buyers of the latest version of the 747-8, according to Ascend.

Cathay
Pacific, which has ordered 13 of the new 747s outfitted to carry only
freight, sold one 747-400 to Boeing this year, as did Air China Cargo,
which is 49 percent-owned by Cathay. Dragon-air sold Boeing three of the
jets.

Video: Making a Boeing 777, Inch by Super Hi-Tech Inch

Lately, planemakers are particularly eager to deal on
four-engine models. Last year, Boeing even bought five of its rival
Airbus’s A340s—a four-engine widebody no longer in production—from China
Eastern Airlines (CEA),
which was taking 20 of Boeing’s 777s in a $6 billion deal based on full
list prices (which are often discounted for early or multiple
purchases).

Airbus has acquired three of the nine A340s sold this
year after buying back 10 of the jets in 2012. “In some exceptional
cases, Airbus has bought back A340s to support new business,” Andreas
Hermann, vice president and head of A340 re-marketing at Airbus, said in
an e-mail. “Regardless of the negative perception of some, the
A340-500/600 continues to provide efficient lift for long haul.” Boeing
officials remain optimistic that the cargo market will revive, bringing
new orders for the latest version of a jumbo jet that’s been a
freight-hauling workhorse since the 1970s.

In some ways, the
747-8 is a victim of Boeing’s engineering success: The 777’s extended
range version has a maximum distance of 7,725 nautical miles (14,305
kilometers), giving airlines the ability to use a twin-engine plane on
routes once reachable only by four-engine jumbos. A 747-8 outfitted to
carry passengers has a listed range of 8,000 nautical miles.

Story: How to Fix a Hole in a Boeing 787

With 53 unfilled 747-8 orders, Boeing has enough work to keep
the 747-8 production line busy through the end of 2015, figures George
Ferguson, senior aerospace analyst for Bloomberg Industries. “They see a
mission for those aircraft,” he says. “The market isn’t exactly telling
us that.”

 - Businessweek

The death of the original jumbo jet, Boeing's 747-400

Later this month, Cathay Pacific's 747 will fly from San Francisco to
Hong Kong for the very last time. It's a story we're hearing from
nearly every airline still flying the most recognizable passenger jet in
aviation history -- rising fuel costs are prompting carriers to ground
their fleets, opting to shuttle passengers in more modern (and
efficient) airliners instead. Hundreds of 747s still take to the skies
every day, but their numbers are dwindling, with Boeing's 777-300ER and 787 Dreamliner, as well as the enormous Airbus A380,
picking up the slack. The flagships of yesteryear now litter the
desert, with several sites in California serving as a permanent resting
place for the plane that was once known as the Queen of the Skies, the
Boeing 747-400.

Gallery

25 Photos

Where 747s go to die (Victorville, CA)

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The 400, the most prolific 747 type, first entered service with
Northwest Airlines in 1989. It was the fourth iteration of Boeing's
popular jumbo, featuring a more advanced flight deck, a lighter build
and, perhaps most importantly, a significantly boosted range. The most
recent iteration can travel more than 8,000 miles, enabling airlines to
fly from North America to Southeast Asia or Australia without stopping
to refuel. An extended-range model, which added fuel tanks to the cargo
hold, is used exclusively by Qantas. That plane has a nearly 9,000-mile
range, which covers the 8,500-mile trek from Sydney to Dallas, Texas
(with a fueling stop on the longer westbound return). The Airbus A380
will replace the 747-400ER on that route beginning in September.



During the last three decades, more than 500 747-400s have been
built, with British Airways, Lufthansa and United placing some of the
largest orders. That latter carrier still operates one of the longest
747 routes, transporting nearly 400 passengers the 7,000 miles from San
Francisco to Hong Kong every day. The versatile 777-200 has replaced its
aging sibling on many of UA's other long-haul routes, though, offering
significantly improved performance and a better passenger experience,
with amenities such as more comfortable seats, WiFi and in-flight entertainment.

The 747-400's retirement doesn't mark the end for the entire aircraft line. Boeing's built an extended version, the 747-8,
in an attempt to reclaim some of the superjumbo market from Airbus, and
Lufthansa has begun operating that higher-capacity plane on routes
between Germany and the US. And while carriers like British Airways,
Delta and Qantas are phasing out the 747 entirely, other airlines are
reassigning their planes to regional service. Thai's 747 travels
throughout Asia, for example, and even carries passengers on the
one-hour trip from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, while Cathay Pacific continues
to operate the type between Hong Kong and regional destinations such as
India and Bali.

And while passengers may want to avoid traveling 16 hours on a 747
that excludes power outlets and seat-back TVs, such as those operated by
United, getting to fly the quad-engine jet on a short hop is nothing
short of a thrilling treat. Even shorter routes will transition to more
efficient aircraft over the next few years, but for the time being, you
can still experience the original superjumbo on select flights. In the
commercial aviation world, there's nothing more exhilarating than
traveling in seat 1A, where the curvature at the nose makes it possible
to see at a near-forward angle during takeoff and landing. And, if
you're lucky enough to be traveling in business class, climbing the
stairs up to the exclusive second deck is an experience in and of
itself.

Gallery

25 Photos

Saying farewell to Cathay Pacific's 747

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For aviation buffs, the 747's retirement is a devastating milestone,
but it also represents significant progress. Better fuel efficiency
means reduced emissions, and the 777-300ER, 787 Dreamliner, Airbus A380
and the upcoming A350XWB
offer unprecedented comfort, for passengers and crew members alike.
Fortunately, there's still time to hop aboard a 747-400, and while you
might find a better experience elsewhere, I highly recommend taking this
brilliant craft for a final spin.

Why would Boeing design a mid-wing, twinjet, double-decker 747?

via flightglobal.com

Breguet's range equation is a cruel tyrant. The fuel-efficiency conscious airframe designer has only three levers -- weight, thrust and aerodynamics -- to pull, and yanking one often complicates things for the other two. At the concept stage, however, it still helps to tug upon one of Breguet's levers, just to see what happens.

So it appears with the Boeing design concept named "mid-wing aircraft", which is revealed as a patent application published on 28 June.

 

Boeing obviously set a challenge for itself: How to incorporate an ultra-high bypass ratio turbofan engine -- either a geared direct drive system or an open rotor -- into the 747's classic airframe, augmented by a full stretch of the upper-deck. In Breguet-speak, this is about tugging as hard as possible on the thrust lever, at the expense of weight and aerodynamics.
Ultra-high bypass ratios are achieved by significantly enlarging the fan diameter, but that adds considerable weight and more drag. Perhaps to counter the effect, Boeing in this concept reduces the 747's traditional four engines to a twin-jet.

As the fan diameter increases, the 747's classic low-wing attachment to fuselage becomes impossible. So Boeing attaches the wings into the middle of the fuselage, then carves out space for a full payload within the wingbox structure. It's hard to imagine how this works in practice, but as a thought experiment it's an interesting idea.

Airshow: Boeing lands first blow in tense air show battle

Boeing's new jets illustrate different paths with largest customers Emirates and Southwest (Update1)

via flightglobal.com

Many say that Emirates is to the 777 as Southwest is to the 737 and Sunday's order for 50 more 777-300ER aircraft cemented that status further. The order, the largest in Boeing's history, is worth up to $26 billion when factoring in the 20 additional options, though the company's largest customers receive heavy discounts for their purchases.

Emirates is known for using the Dubai Air Show for its splash orders, spending an estimated $34.2 billion (at list prices) for 70 Airbus A350s, 11 A380s and 12 777-300ERs in 2007.

With 95 777s in operation today and another 41 777-300ERs on order, Emirates has accounted for 9.7% of the program's total deliveries since 1995. That share will grow to 10.2% in March 2012 when the airline takes delivery of the 1,000th 777, the airline's 102nd of the type. When factoring in the 50 new orders, Emirates is responsible for 24% of the 777's backlog, which stands today at 375.

Emirates also holds the largest share of the A380 backlog at 41%, 73 on order, and the second largest for the A350 at 12.3% with 70 on the books.

To look at the historical ordering patterns of Boeing's largest narrowbody customer, Southwest behaves similarly to the aircraft-maker's largest widebody customer. On an backlog-to-backlog comparison, the 92 outstanding orders held by Southwest represents 4.2% of Boeing's future 737 deliveries.

According to its orders and delivery website, Southwest has placed direct orders with Boeing for 676 737s (of all generations). Though the most frequently occurring order quantity may surprise: Three. Yes, in that total there are huge blocks of orders for 63, 59 and 94 aircraft, but Southwest's Red DNA - its steady methodical growth - has defined its time as a Boeing customer.

Similarly, even with Sunday's mega-order for 50 777s, Emirates' direct buying behavior matches Southwest's, with a median order total of just 11 777 aircraft at a time since 1992.

With their massive stakes in the future of the Boeing backlog, both customers have already laid out their respective capacity bridges to the company's future products. The launched and yet-to-be-defined 737 Max and yet-to-be-launched but more defined 777-9X have met different reactions by the airframer's biggest customers.

The two airlines diverge when it comes to providing public input for Boeing's new development programs. Former Southwest CEO Herb Kelleher's comments to Aviation Week on the eve of the surprise American Airlines 737 re-engining decision was largely seen as the subtle cue for the future of the narrowbody which has forever been the centerpiece of the low-cost carrier's fleet.

Emirates' propensity for public commentary with its aircraft suppliers' product strategies are well documented. President Tim Clark's displeasure with the latest iteration of the A350-1000 and its advice to Boeing about the future of the 777-9X, the composite winged 777-300ER successor, are hallmarks of its methods of persuasion.

The Dubai-based carrier's own relationship with Boeing remains fundamentally different from Southwest's. Despite the mega order and the deep involvement in the -9X's development,

Applying a Red or Blue label to Emirates isn't as straightforward as it seems. While Emirates could be called Red, with its tightly integrated growth strategy with the Emirate of Dubai, it exists in a developing (immature) market, where innovating its products rather than processes yields a high return. For its relationship with Boeing and Airbus, the relationship is zero-sum: "All I have to do is pick up the phone and order more Boeing 777s," Clark warned Airbus in 2010 regarding delays to the A350.

Though Emirates eagerness to serve as launch customer for the -9X stands in contrast to Southwest's reservation of judgement over the 737 Max: "We are just now being briefed on what it does, what it doesn't do, and it's just too early to give you an answer on either our evaluation of that or what we might do," said Southwest CEO Gary Kelly on the airline's third quarter 2011 earnings call.

For Boeing, there remains a marked difference between the inception of the 737 Max and the 777-9X and how the company has developed each product. Both are intended to be incremental evolutions of today's products, with an estimated three years between them, but how each have come about with the input of the airframer's largest customers could not be more different.

New Boeing 737 Vs. New Airbus A320: Who will prevail?

Boeing to build 737 replacement: CEO | Wichita Business Journal: "If Boeing builds a new single-aisle aircraft to replace the 737, as now seems increasingly likely, the key to that decision may be the substantial weight reductions obtainable with lighter materials."
In a related matter 'Boeing patent may provide glimpse into 737 replacement plan'
 Boeing engineers Mithra Sankrithi and Kevin Retz. Retz and Sankrithi have come up with several methods of developing a composite fuselage design to accommodate a seven-abreast 2-3-2 twin-aisle configuration ideal for quick loading of passengers and cargo.