Airbus versus Boeing

Maybe time to revisit this old chestnut of a thread... but from the single-aisle/narrowbody perspective.


So, whats the recent goings on?

1. Airbus decide to re-engine A320 with the geared turbofan from P&W (GTF) and the CFM LEAP-X.

2. Airbus quickly acquire many orders for said New Engine Option (NEO).

3. Boeing also consider re-engining the 737, but hit a snag, the GTF won't fit under the existing aircraft without landing gear mods. Apparently the CFM will.

4. All NEO orders that have selected an engine so far have selected the GTF. Indicative of a significant performance gap?

5. Airbus decide to bring forward the NEO introduction, from 2016 to 2015.

6. Airbus decide to extend the slated A30X introduction, from 2025 to 2030.

7. Boeing decide.... ?


Meanwhile COMAC and Irkut are developing competitors, both scheduled for introduction in the 2014-2016 timeframe.




Interesting times.

reply to post by kilcoo316


The COMAC story gets very interesting considering thier potential partnership with bombadier

reply to post by FredT


I agree Fred. I think there is more potential for success there than the Russian MS-21.

I also think anyone who thinks Boeing and Airbus have it all sewn up and theres no room for anyone else needs to revisit 1970, when the recieved wisdom was that, due to the near total control of the civil market by Boeing Lockheed and Douglas, there was no chance of the newly formed and virginal Airbus making any meaningful progress at all. We all know how that turned out.

reply to post by waynos
Hi Waynos long time since I have seen or spoken to you.

You are quite right about the ever changing landscape of commercial aircraft and lets not forget that Lockheed itself has quietly been producing design concepts recently for advanced airliners, both subsonic and supersonic. Incidentally have you or anyone heard anymore about these and whether Lockheed is seriously considering re-entering the commercial market? Given the deep hole they have dug themselves with military projects like JSF they may be looking for comparatively easier and more constant pickings in the commercial sector?

LEE.

reply to post by thebozeian


Hello Lee, yes its ages ago that I was on here every day debating topics. I'm afraid I've been guilty of looking at many of the topics posted and feeling that I didn't want to get involved with such childish nonsense as a lot of them tend to be nowadays. Which is a great shame as debate on here used to be lively and largely reasoned.

As Lockheed can claim to have built the most beautiful airliner ever made it would be nice to see them back in the game, but I wonder how they would finance a move back into commercial aviation or build the confidence of the airlines?I think that they would need to deliver a qualitative leap over the established payers to gain their foothold, more so than the likes of Comac who can temper their relative lack of experience with a cheapness not practical to today's big hitters. I know Fred had big issues over the way Airbus built itself up, but I think that may well pale into insignificance once China gets into it's stride.

reply to post by FredT


Ahh, I'm not sure.

The knowledgebase just doesn't seem to be there. If you look around, there are a shockingly large amount of contractor positions based in china for aerostructures, systems, aerodynamics etc, and they are at ludicrously high rates - but they (COMAC) cannot get people to go.


Sure, they can (and will) send out work packages to western sub-contractors (like GKN, Parker or GE for instance), but if COMAC do not have the knowledge to integrate it all, it'll become a massive mess very quickly. If you think JSF is FUBAR....


Even Airbus and Boeing seriously struggle to integrate their designs coming from disparate design teams, and they have serious engineering knowledge oozing out of them (although in saying that I'm the first to moan and gripe about the recent and unwanted trend of the project managers running things as opposed to the lead engineers). I just cannot see how COMAC can do this in the timescale and hit even ballpark performance targets (by ballpark, I mean anything within a 10% deposit across the board, OEW/pax, range, cruise fuel burn etc relative to the competition).