"The short-haul 787-3 "Addison Schonland, chief executive of AirInsight Research feels that the NMA could be a revived 787-3. Perhaps unlikely but it would take care of the upper end of the segment and open the way for a narrowbody 737 replacement.
https://www.flightglobal.com/airfra...7-3-could-be-reborn-as-the-nma/136589.article
Would Boeing now be better served by doing what they should have done with the MAX, retain the 737 fuselage for now, and concentrate their design efforts on new wings, tail, and corresponding undercarriage ?
Boeing Hints At New Direction For NMA Refocus | Aviation Week Network
Boeing appears to be redirecting its next new airliner project to compete more directly with the long-range Airbus A321XLR rather than take on the broader 757-767 replacement market previously studied under the shelved New Midmarket Airplane project.aviationweek.com
Is this based on anything beyond speculation?
Boeing Chief Executive Officer David Calhoun confirmed to investors this week that the aircraft manufacturer is not looking to introduce a brand-new model anytime soon. He cited the lack of propulsion systems on the horizon that can deliver the improvements to make developing a new airframe worthwhile.
As aircraft often remain in the market for many years, Calhoun wants the next jet to be groundbreaking rather than rushed through to fill a gap. He explained that fuel efficiency and carbon emissions reductions are crucial hurdles that Boeing must overcome before moving forward.
Boeing estimates that customers will want 20-30% cost savings over existing models before considering a fleet renewal. Aircraft manufacturers can achieve this partially by integrating new technology, but a significant portion will likely come from reduced fuel consumption. CEO of Boeing, Dave Calhoun, cited the lack of propulsion technology available that would deliver the desired efficiency:
“If it doesn’t have a sustainability wrapper all around it, if it can’t meet the emissions tests, if it can’t deliver significant performance advantages, then there won’t be an airplane.”
He went on to conclude:
"There'll be a moment in time where we'll pull the rabbit out of the hat and introduce a new airplane sometime in the middle of the next decade."
And, conveniently for Mr Calhoun, he'll be on a golf course enjoying his stupendously large retirement holdings by then."There'll be a moment in time where we'll pull the rabbit out of the hat and introduce a new airplane sometime in the middle of the next decade."
Guy Norris:
Michael, this is just to add to something that Joe observed early on in the beginning of this podcast. I remember as a young, foolish, naive journalist covering McDonnell Douglas in the '90s, I was amazed when the Wall Street Journal gave McDonnell Douglas full marks for not launching the MD-12. Their share price rocketed up and everybody seemed delighted and I was thinking, “What's going on? It's the beginning of the end,” or the end had already been coming for a long time before that, the last all-new airplane having been launched in the '60s with the DC-10 really.
But I didn't understand it, and of course you're absolutely right. It's all about Wall Street. And that was the moment where I realized that this game wasn't just about new air planes. It's a much bigger picture than that. Of course what they were doing is they were fattening the turkey for the Christmas sale where Boeing came in and the merger was completed. But anyway, that was a very good observation.
Joe Anselmo:
Guy, you preempted me. That was actually going to be my next question to you, because you and I have been around long enough to remember McDonnell Douglas and I think our younger listeners might be surprised to hear that McDonnell Douglas had a huge lead on Airbus. Airbus was a distant third in this market, and then McDonnell Douglas seemed to focus on shareholders and stopped investing in the future. By 1997 it was gone. Just gone.
Guy Norris:
Absolutely. And I think that's one of the things that are Richard Aboulafia, who's a friend of the podcast, has observed quite rightly, that if you look at the trajectory in history, that's exactly what happened. McDonnell Douglas really stopped investing in all new designs and it withered on the vine. Airbus came in, an aggressive competitor, and it was able to bite away mostly at McDonnell Douglas's market share before of course it became a duopoly.
The availability of 777-class engines was easily forseeable when the MD-11 was launched. I suspect that McDonnell Douglas saw a window before their arrival when a modern trijet would be the best DC-10/L1011/early 747 replacement. It would allow them to remain viable with a redesigned airplane that the competition would have to design from scratch. McD did envision a twin-engined development that looks a lot like a 777/A330 (see MD-20).I'm not sure the MD-12 is all that instructive. Arguably it would have been as great a flop as the A380 and $4 billion R&D costs was not to be sniffed at. And at the time the MD-11 was hardly selling like hot cakes with high sales costs to cover the $1.7 billion development costs and with hindsight the tri-jet was the wrong move as ETOPS came about and aircraft like the 777 were the future.
Yes sticking with the DC-9 and DC-10 design philosophy was probably backwards thinking but I get the sense economic downturns in the 80s and early 90s conspired to restrict what McD could afford to do and there just wasn't the funding or impetus to do a clean-sheet design.
Boeing has more cushion to do something new but let's not kid ourselves that a 7x7 would be drastically different to the current spamtube with two turbofans. 30% fuel reduction sounds a big ask.
Boeing To Focus On Truss-Braced Wing, Autonomy For Next Aircraft, Calhoun Says | Aviation Week Network
Boeing’s commercial aircraft development efforts are focused on emerging airframe technologies that could lead to a new aircraft available starting in 2035.aviationweek.com
Source: Australian Aviation, April 2018.Making a sausage
Boeing’s plans for a tasty ‘new mid-market airplane’
WRITER: JORDAN CHONG
(extract)
How the NMA might look was revealed in a blog post by respected aviation writer Jon Ostrower in early March. An image published on Ostrower’s blog shows a concept design that features a Boeing 767-style nose, 787-style wing and cabin windows and a 737 MAX-style tail cone. “Highly unlikely to be the final form of the eventual 797, its attributes hint strongly at some of Boeing’s efficiency enablers for its
next-generation of medium-range airliners,” Ostrower wrote.
“Elements adapted from existing aircraft are apparent across this early iteration of the NMA design: A 737 MAX-style tail cone, larger 787/777X-sized cabin windows, and a 757/767/777-style windscreen. The door arrangement matches that of Boeing’s last “small twin,” the
767-200, very strongly suggesting a twin-aisle design.”
Entry into service is projected to occur in the 2024 to 2025 timeframe. That puts the NMA somewhere between Boeing’s largest narrowbody
the 737 MAX 10, (3,215nm range with 230 passengers in a single-class layout), and its smallest widebody the 787-8 (7,355nm range with 242 passengers in a two-class configuration).
And Boeing’s initial estimates for the NMA suggest there might be a market for about 4,000 aircraft. Some aviation analysts, who might
define the market differently, have put forward a number closer to 2,500. The replacement of the 757 and 767s would no doubt be a key plank of the potential market for the aircraft. However, Tinseth said Boeing has higher ambitions for the proposed NMA than just replacing those older models.
Rather, the NMA is slated to offer airlines the potential to open up or make profitable thousands of routes that cannot be served with single aisle aircraft or were being operated inefficiently with widebody equipment.
“On the NMA you have an airplane that is kind of alone,” Tinseth said. “It’s an airplane that can disrupt and change and unlock the market so this is about changing airlines’ networks in ways that they can’t operate today.”
“It’s going to open up new markets we haven’t seen before like the 787. “That’s the interesting thing about the airplane. It is also the challenge.”
Tinseth said Boeing was in discussions with the three major engine manufacturers – understood to be CFM/GE, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce – on the proposed 50,000lb thrust engine, adding that the trio were the only suppliers it was currently working with.
Boeing has sought the views of about 50 airlines and leasing companies around the world on what the aircraft should be designed for.
Tinseth declined to go into details of how diverse the range of opinions were, saying only that “those sides were coming together”.
“It’s a little bit like making sausage. It is not a process you want to see but at the end of the day the sausage tastes good,” Tinseth said. “So you have to really figure out how you blend all of these requirements together.
“We have a very strong idea what it will have to do, how the airplane will have to come together, what kind of configuration, what kind of technologies.”