2/15/2012

Airbus A320Neo Engine Race

It is just another "intermediate result" in a race that could last for 20 years or maybe more (and we are just at the beginning): but now that the PW1100G-JM scored another two sales (TransAsia for six aicraft plus six options and GoAir for 72 aircraft), the Geared Turbo Fan is in the lead over the LEAP-1A again. The LEAP engine scored big during the Paris Air Show, taking the lead by a wide margin then after announcing a design change with a seventh LPT stage and a larger fan diameter. With these changes CFM claimed to be as good if not better than the GTF in fuel burn. That claim was dismissed by John Leahy last week when he said that the GTF would be about 1.5% better in fuel burn.
The GTF has now announced orders for 488 aircraft, the LEAP-1A has announced orders for 465 aircraft.

UPADTE:  CFM just annouced that ALAFCO choose the LEAP-1A for the 35 additional A320neo orders. So LEAP-1A is in the lead again:
LEAP-1A:         500
PW1100G-JM: 488

2/09/2012

Airbus: GTF better than LEAP...

I obtained an interesting note from Forecast International, itself claiming to be the "Leading Provider of Aerospace, Defense, Electronics and Power Systems Intelligence. Here it is:

2/01/2012

Ryanair and B737MAX

Not often I tend to agree with the outspoken Ryanair CEO Michael O´Leary, nicknamed by the twitter community with @MichaelOhReally. But when he recently talked about the B737 MAX, I had to agree with him. He said that he has been impressed by the fuel burn improvement the A320neo promises to deliver, but he is not impressed by the B737 MAX and said that the fuel born improvement is inferior.
Particularly he fears that the heavier CFM LEAP-1B engines and the subsequent heavier airframe will offset the better SFC, when compared to the CFM56-7B(E).
Meanwhile I had the opportunity to read the latest