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Post by Flying Dutchman on Aug 6, 2014 21:36:48 GMT 1
Shouldn't a A320/737 successor be a carbon fibre design? Maybe more important to reduce fuel consumption that expanding to a 757 capacity.
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philidor
in service - 6 years
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Post by philidor on Aug 6, 2014 22:24:41 GMT 1
A new narrowbody would certainly have carbon fiber wing and HTP/VTP, but I doubt the same material would be used for the fuselage, for two reasons.
First, you would not save as much weight as in the case of widebodies, because the fuselage must remain thick enough to withstand ramp bumps (from i.e. luggage carts ...). You cannot therefore just scale down what was done with widebodies.
Second, narrowbodies are presently produced by Boeing and Airbus at a rate of more than 40 per month, and plans exist to ramp up to 50. I doubt very much they could reach that pace with carbon fiber fuselages.
The consequence is that in the present state of technology, the material of choice for narrowbody fuselages is an aluminium alloy. I think the CSeries, for instance, uses aluminium/lithium. All this is of course depends on advances in technology or increases/decreases in costs, and the situation may be different by 2020 or later.
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s543
in service - 2 years
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Post by s543 on Aug 7, 2014 7:41:35 GMT 1
Philidor - silly question:
Why would be the production using carbon fiber slower ?
What would be the reason ?
It is just a question of preparation and capacities but once reached why ?
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philidor
in service - 6 years
Posts: 8,950
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Post by philidor on Aug 7, 2014 9:27:12 GMT 1
Both Boeing and Airbus have found it challenging to ramp up production of their state-of-the-art widebodies.
Three years after its first deliveries, with three FALs running, the 787 has been struggling to reach its planned production pace of ten per month. Hardly more than 170 planes have been delivered (many of them built in previous years and delivered after a full re-work). Still to-day, most 787s rolled out from the FALs in Everett and Charleston undergo significant completion work before being tested in flight.
Yet, Boeing is desperately trying to ramp up production beyond ten per month, as the existing eight to ten years backlog puts most new customers off (for instance, few 787 sales were announced at Farnborough).
Airbus has been conservative with A350 production plans, and the rate of ten per month is not expected to be struck before 2018. Leahy claims that he could sell much more A350s if he had any available production slot.
This situation is the main reason for the launch by Airbus of an A330neo, somewhat less efficient than a 787, but available from as early as 2017. Being a classical aluminium airplane, the A330 is much more easy to produce.
The situation may be different in the future since both manufacturers are learning fast, but neither of them seems to be ready to bet its future on a CFRP-fuselaged narrowbody.
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s543
in service - 2 years
Posts: 3,957
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Post by s543 on Aug 7, 2014 10:11:33 GMT 1
Right - but the production is not mostly the fuselage - it is "zilion" other things and we do not know where the "narrow road" is..... Few years back it was the engines. Is it still ? Later it was the Spirit shipsets for wings. Not any more as it seems. etc.... It is known that the BO attitude to fuselage made of huge "tubes" has its problems and AB went different more conservative road - CFRP sheets are used "instead" of Aluminum alloy ones. So i still fail to see why it presents any bottleneck. What you write about the LOOOOOONG waiting lists is of course true - those are probably good for the manufacturer but not completely healthy for the whole industry and of course not good for the airlines. The long waiting on A32x drives the sales on 737s since the waiting list is considerably shorter. I would more readily expect that the NB production is the "bread and butter" for both manufactures and they can not take any risk. The production must run in numbers and must be smooth. Also the NB planes makes much much more cycles and the conservative attitude might have something to do with it. Also both manufacturers have "full plate" concerning new development projects...... So we will see - but it will be not earlier than 2020  |
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philidor
in service - 6 years
Posts: 8,950
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Post by philidor on Aug 7, 2014 11:17:56 GMT 1
Most 'travelled work' now concerns Charleston-made fuselage sections.
Why is this work challenging ? I must say I don't know ... Is it because of the Boeing-chosen barrel technology ? I'm not sure, we'll see whether Airbus' panels make a difference.
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Post by xxxx on Aug 7, 2014 11:21:27 GMT 1
I'm always trying to be a as optimistic as possible, so I think we could actually see Airbus launch a new aircraft family as early as next year's Paris Air Show. Airbus achieved joint type certification for the A380 on December 12 2006, but had actually already launched the A350 XWB in July of the same year in Farnborough. So going by this Airbus would have had to announce a new aircaft family a month ago, while the only launched a new aircraft type. Things have obviously changed a lot, but I think Airbus might want to do the same as they did with the A320neo with the A320s sucessor, which was to put Boeing in a situation that told what to do and they couldn't do what they had planned to. Boeing had planned to make a completely new 737 sucessor but after Airbus launched the A320neo, they had to scrap these plans and had to launch the 737 MAX. Airbus could also launch an A350-1100 to close the gap between the A350 and A380.
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XWB
in service - 11 years
Posts: 16,115
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Post by XWB on Aug 7, 2014 16:15:30 GMT 1
Shouldn't a A320/737 successor be a carbon fibre design? Before the A320neo was launched, Airbus had done a case study for a carbon fiber narrow-body jet. The outcome was a 4% efficiency gain while investments would be enormous. It's not worth the investment. |
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XWB
in service - 11 years
Posts: 16,115
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Post by XWB on Aug 7, 2014 22:04:16 GMT 1
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Post by Flying Dutchman on Aug 8, 2014 14:39:39 GMT 1
Most 'travelled work' now concerns Charleston-made fuselage sections. Why is this work challenging ? I must say I don't know ... Is it because of the Boeing-chosen barrel technology ? I'm not sure, we'll see whether Airbus' panels make a difference. New and difficult technology, eventually I believe it will be as efficient as old aluminium fuselages, aluminium has been used for a very long time. The question is will Boeing get an edge in the long term from going for the more advanced carbon fibre solution with a barrel technology? |
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