Boeing Reveals 747-8 Family Progress
After Boeing’s fourth quarter/year end earnings call, speculation on the future of the 747-8 family seemed to dominate above that of the 787 Dreamliner, itself delayed numerous times due to various work and production issues caused by Boeing’s unique approach to outsourcing work to partners and suppliers.
Boeing CFO James Bell explained the forward-reaching $685m charge on the 747-8 thus:
“Late maturity of the 747-8 design drove substantial changes for our supply partners. This coupled with the already existing schedule pressure caused significant disruption throughout the supply chain resulting in the charge we took this quarter.”
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“Now, about 50% of the charge is related to the late maturity of wing design driving new load requirements into the fuselage and statement of work changes for our suppliers. Approximately 15% is related to later than planned transition of component manufacturing to lower cost suppliers due to their production readiness. Another 10% is due to design and load changes, which resulted in reduced commonality with the 747-400 causing some of the procured components and systems inventory to be obsolete. 10% is the impact to our internal production process as a result of the issues facing our supply chain. The remaining 15% is due to, as Jim [McNerney] mentioned earlier, the higher pension costs.”
Fresh back from Everett, WA, discussions with 747-8 Chief Engineer Michael Teal revealed some insights on the 747-8F and 747-8 Intercontinental – which were not reflected in the earnings call.
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Schedule, Resources & Engineering
Michael Teal took over the role of Chief Project Engineer on the 747-8 from Corky Townsend and set about explaining the challenges the 747-8 team has faced along with news that the program has exceeded targets with a view to having an all-improved airplane out-of-the-box at service entry.
Aside from nominal weight issues, Teal explains that progress on the 747-8F has been “pretty good” and that key performance parameters targets are being met and exceeded.
He went on to describe the recent challenges across the whole of BCA due to the 58-day IAM strike and the subsequent knock-on effect of pushing back the 747-8 schedule, but Teal was upbeat and very confident that the new time frame would allow the company to better define and refine the first major stretch of the 747 to ensure maximum benefits for operators.
“The performance of the airplane (747-8F) in terms of increasing revenue payload from the 747-400, we’re doing pretty good in terms of meeting our goals.
The weight of the airplane has been a little heavy as typically at this stage of the program it is but through changing some of the maximum landing and zero fuel weights we’ve been able to keep very strong revenue payload lines, so we’re doing really well there. From a performance side in terms of our cash operating costs our tonne-mile costs and the fuel burn, we’re meeting and exceeding what we’re asked to do, so we’re feeling really good about that.
We worked for a long time to hold the original schedule and really a few things came and hit us all at once. One being of course the IAM strike, along with that over the past year or so, the amount of change that has occurred in the airplane in terms of making sure we get the performance, so ensuring we get the aerodynamic performance to get the fuel burn [targets] – we ended up changing more of the parts than we originally thought which drove more change in the supply chain. When the time came to getting the parts in the factory, it became pretty obvious we weren’t gonna make it.
Some of it had to do with competition for resources – we ended up getting the resources a little later, so it took a while to train and get people up to speed, but they’re up to speed now and we’re doing really well and the “big bones” engineering’s done.
It’s not without its challenges, but for the most part, the people who have put the airplane together so far, the pieces they’ve put together, it’s actually fitting together much better than the 747-400.
On the [747-8] Intercontinental, we’re right now in the engineering phase of that, starting to release the engineering [drawings], and then we’ll have to get that into the supply chain so once they get done churning through the freighter, they’re gonna start doing that [on the 747-8I].“
Engine & Wing Improvements
With the availability of the GEnx engine from the 787, Teal explained that availability of new propulsion coupled with a “nose-to-tail” redevelopment of the 747 airframe allowed it to realise aims that had been outlined on previous versions of the airplane that never made it off the drawing board, such as the 747-400X Quiet Longer Range.
The new wing has also been an area that presented not only new obstacles, but yielded much needed aerodynamic performance to ensure that the 747-8 family met noise as well as lift/drag performance targets. Unlike the 747-400 family in service today, the 747-8 will incorporate newer Krueger flaps on the leading edge, with the trailing edge of the wing consisting of double-slotted inboard flaps and a single-slotted outboard flap - similar to the arrangement on the 777-200LR / 777-300ER families.
Meanwhile, General Electric has been eking out fuel efficiency gains on the GEnx-2B engine, allowing Teal to confirm that fuel burn was “better than expected”.
Given the convergence of all these key engineering attributes, where Boeing succeeded in the 777-300ER meeting and beating its specifications, the 747-8 family too is showing ominous signs of following this trend and its evident the company has used the extra time due to the revised schedule to ensure that the new airplanes enter service without the need for incremental performance enhancements to achieve their stated targets.
“GE has five engines in the test program, four of them have been running in different stages- and they’ll fly an engine on their 747 [early this quarter]. The strut has been configured to put the 747-8 engine on.
The engine is quieter and one of the requirements for a new 747 going forward was to have a quieter airplane.“
Image courtesy of Atlas Air
“Today, the 747-400 is a QC4 airplane, the 747-8F is a QC2 airplane on takeoff and landing, and the passenger [747-8I] because it’s a lighter airplane on landing is QC2 on takeoff and QC1 on landing. Without the engine change, we couldn’t have got that level of noise improvement, and putting the chevrons on the engine – it would have been very difficult to achieve the noise improvements to get to QC2 which we believe is required for the market.
The improvements in performance come from two large areas. One is the new aerodynamic wing that improves the lift over drag and also the engine. Because the engine and the wing are the same on both airplanes, the technology changes that increase the improvements for fuel efficiency you get on both airplanes. In terms of the percentage improvement, it’s different whether you’re measuring in tonne-mile costs on the freighter versus seat-mile costs on the passenger, and of course they fly different distances, that’s why you’ll see different numbers.“
In a recent interview with Aviation Week, Teal revealed that the 747-8 family was indeed meeting and exceeding its targets:
“Our goal was 12% better, and right now we think we’re closer to 16%.“
“The margin improves with rising fuel costs; at $2.12 per U.S, gal., COC (cash operating cost) is 15% better, while at $3.50 it rises above 16%.“
Philosophy Of The 747-8 Over The 747-500X / 747-600X
When Boeing decided to terminate the long range 747-500X and stretched 747-600X in early January 1997, the belief that the best opportunity to grow the 747 had disappeared at that the 747-400 would probably be the last model in the range. With costs ballooning over $7bn and losing commonality with the 747-400 family, Boeing pulled the plug because it did not see a situation where the market size would ever justify such investment for what essentially amounted to a derivative airplane.
One of the biggest costs involved was the fly-by-wire system. The 747-8 will use a partial fly-by-wire system for its primary control surfaces, whereas the proposed 747-500X and 747-600X were to be fully fly-by-wire, using a system even more complex and costly than that incorporated on the 777 family. This forced up the costs of the entire program and led some carriers to question the element of commonality in parts/maintenance with their existing 747-400 fleets.
Teal explained the tradeoffs reasons behind why the 747-8 family made it into reality and why the 747-500X/747-600X did not.
“The 747-500X / -600X were much bigger airplanes, in terms of the gross weight which was getting into the million pound mark, but fundamentally with that growth, we had to change the “sider-body”.
So where the wing comes in and essentially goes in under the centre fuel tank, when it got bigger than the 975 [thousand pounds] maximum takeoff weight that we’re at today, it required that centre section to grow and when that grew, the tires ran out, so you had to change the tires – it was getting so heavy you had to put more [landing] gear on.
When you got more gear, all of a sudden underneath the airplane where the gear fit in, it didn’t fit anymore so essentially the whole centre of the airplane where all the components integrate in was changing. Once that happens, it’s basically a new airplane. When you looked at the amount of change and work statement required to change the whole centre of the airplane, that would go out into the fuselage and the wing, you’re talking full scale static tests – we didn’t think that the market was big enough for that size of an investment.“
Wing Changes & Production System
Teal went on to discuss the benefits that the 747-8 family would bring from a manufacturing perspective. With modifications to the existing production line, Boeing was able to keep down costs on the program where it had previously seen engineering changes to proposed 747 derivatives forcing up tooling costs and having to implement new methods of manufacturing.
“We sold the airplane and then we went in to the wind-tunnels and we were doing all the initial design work on the wing, we realised that we needed a “leap improvement” to get the performance that was required – so it was later in the design process that we agreed we had to change the aerodynamic shape of the wing which pretty much has the same structural load paths [as the 747-400], so that aerodynamic change meant we ended up changing more parts and we later realised the significance of that change. It was around getting the performance of the airplane, improving it and then the amount of change to make that happen.
One of the ways to keep costs down on the program, to keep it affordable was around keeping the same manufacturing system. All the tools, where the wing skins, stringers, the automatic riveting systems – that’s all the same. Where they’re gonna put the [747-8F] wing together, they were able to use the same tools, they had to modify them for the new aerodynamic shape but it was modifications – it didn’t require us to build a whole new production system and then through the supply chain it’s the same.
We’re till building 747-400’s today, we’re finishing them up – originally we were gonna build them intermittent for a while, we would’ve needed two entirely different production systems.“
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New Materials To Further Improve The 747?
As with the 737 family, Teal was very confident that investment in new materials would find their way onto future 747 models to ensure longevity and competitiveness.
“One of the things from a materials standpoint, we did improve the materials on the airplane similar to the 777 technology materials to help with the durability and fatigue life, so from a metallic standpoint we have upgraded the materials to more of a 777 “vintage” and that happened over time – if there’s another leap in metallic technology, sure, why not right!?“
Flight Test Program
Of key interest to me was the flight test program (FTP). Some in the industry argue that certification of a derivative airplane is usually a “straightforward affair”.
For Boeing, this is the first major stretch of the 747 and that alone presents new challenges of the flight envelope, its performance capabilities as well as whether the airplane can be used a platform for future improvements. I asked Teal why the 747-8F FTP would take longer say, compared to the 777F and what that would mean for the 747-8 Intercontinental when it enters its FTP.
“A [flight test program with a] derivative airplane with similar performance capabilities and performance specifications, characteristics, if you will, is shorter. The 777 Freighter is really the same wing and aerodynamic system as the 777-200LR. So, a lot of the testing from a performance standpoint we don’t have to re-do. We’re coming in with the 747-8F first – it’s longer [the flight test program] because we have more aerodynamic changes from the 747-400 than the 777F had from the 777-200LR. When we get to the [747-8] Intercontinental flight test program, I think there is opportunity that that flight test program will be able to use a lot of the 747-8F test program for its certification - with the new aerodynamic shape of our wing we’ve gotta go through a gauntlet of tests that the 777F didn’t have to do.
We have an amended type-certification that means bringing the airplane into compliance with the latest regulations. If there are areas we believe the service history of the [747] airplane has shown the airworthiness to meet requirements, then we can have that conversation [with the FAA/EASA] and if everyone agrees, then we’re okay.
There are many of the regulation changes that we’ve stepped up to and said we’re gonna certify to the latest amendments.“
Image courtesy of NCA
As with Randy Tinseth, I asked Teal whether or not he saw the 747 being around for another forty or more years.
“Why not, why not?! It’s been around forty years, why not another forty years,” smiles Teal.
Overall, the 747-8 program, while delayed is showing significant positivity. While the air freight market has taken a hit, the saving grace is that the market will rebound and cargo operators will have at their disposal a unique airplane that fits into today’s airport infrastructure and will continue to contribute to around half the world’s freighter capacity, as well as interline with the 777 Freighter by using the industry standard 10ft high pallets.
The first 747-8F is due to be rolled out in late August this year, with first flight planned to take place before the end of the third quarter.
Three 747-8F’s will be involved in the flight test program.
First delivery to Cargolux is expected in the third quarter of 2010. The first 747-8I destined for launch customer Lufthansa is due for delivery by the second quarter of 2011.
11 comments February 13th, 2009
