Paris Airshow News 2023

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PARIS AIRSHOW NEWS

Modern jets face a technological wall, and the only way to achieve further significant carbon reductions will be to burn 100 percent SAF in their engines.

PRESSURE GROWS ON CO2 CUTS

by Charles Alcock

The countdown clock keeping track of how long aviation has got to eliminate damaging emissions keeps ticking, and more loudly than ever. The air transport industry has another 27 years to deliver on the net-zero carbon commitment in 2050, and yet at the 2023 Paris Air Show, many will wonder whether it really can break its dependence on fossil fuels.

Pressure is becoming unrelenting, with eco-protesters anticipated at the Le Bourget event this week and governments showing a willingness to force the issue with measures

such as France’s ban on domestic flights between cities for which the train journey takes less than two and a half hours.

This November’s COP 28 UN Climate Change Conference in the UAE is expected to acknowledge that the world is falling well short of the key objective of the COP 25 conference held in Paris at Le Bourget Airport in 2015 to limit “the increase in global average temperature well below 2 Celsius above pre-industrial levels” and “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 Celsius.” The latter pledge looks set to be in tatters before the end of this decade, as the continues on page 53

AAM

Eve makes progress

Ground testing of Eve’s eVTOL is underway, in preparation for making the full-scale model | 10

MANUFACTURING

Boeing stability CEO Stan Deal promises customers a more stable Boeing and better ontime deliveries | 12

SUPPLY CHAIN

Relief is coming

Manufacturers report relief from severe supply chain issues stemming from the pandemic | 34

SUSTAINABILITY

Welcome to Hall 3 Made almost entirely of wood, Hall 3 was built to the latest enviromental standards | 47 airshow repor ts

We’re building new roads in the sky.

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High-voltage e-aircraft need careful connections

by Charles Alcock

TE Connectivity is applying its expertise to help electric aircraft developers cope with ever-increasing high-voltage direct current loads. The interconnect technology specialist’s stand at the Paris Airshow features an eye-catching transparent acrylic mockup featuring no fewer than 120 components the company produces for new eVTOL vehicles, including 50 different types of connectors.

Safety ranks as the top concern, according to Karl Kitts, TE’s senior engineering manager for advanced systems architecture. Electrical loads as high as 1,000 volts mean less time to react to a failure condition. Installing faster circuit protection can resolve that issue. “With these power levels, you could burn

through a fuel line very quickly,” he warned.

Instinctively, aircraft manufacturers address such challenges by adding a lot of redundancy, using multiple power control boxes and motors. But, especially for small aircraft like eVTOLs, space and weight are at a premium, meaning compromised performance if designers do not carefully integrate systems with the airframe.

TE Connectivity supports Textron eAviation by providing power distribution equipment, contactors, over-current relays, and fuses for its Nexus eVTOL design. “It’s small so everything has to be lightweight, and we’re helping to install it where it’s needed and working with the geometry,” Kitts explained. Later this year, the company expects to supply

Embraer, Nidec partner on electric propulsion

Embraer is collaborating with Japanese electric motor manufacturer Nidec to develop propulsion systems for electric aircraft, the companies said on Sunday at the Paris Airshow. The Brazilian aircraft manufacturer and Nidec have agreed to form a joint venture company called Nidec Aerospace to develop a vehicle-agnostic portfolio of products for the aerospace industry, starting with electric motors for eVTOL aircraft.

Eve Air Mobility, which is developing a four-passenger eVTOL air taxi, will become Nidec’s launch customer. At the briefing, Embraer and Nidec representatives

revealed a half-scale mockup of the 70-kilowatt engine that will power Eve’s eVTOL.

Eve also announced two addition suppliers on Sunday. BAE Systems will provide Eve’s battery system, while DUC Hélice Propellers will supply rotors and propellers.

Embraer and BAE Systems have collaborated for the past year on potential defense applications for Eve’s eVTOL.

“Eve has taken a ‘building blocks’ approach to further enhance the maturity of the technology and its eVTOL,” said Eve v-p of program management and operations Alice Altissimo. “We continue to make very

TE Connectivity’s Paris Airshow exhibit shows high-voltage connectors and components that would tie together the wiring in a typical eVTOL aircraft.

the power distribution unit ready for flight testing with a Nexus technology demonstrator. TE Connectivity also supports Vertical Aerospace with its eVTOL program.

At the same time, TE’s engineering team also focuses on how electric aircraft developers can maximize every bit of the power available in today’s batteries. That involves developing solid-state power controllers that automatically assess the state of the charge and control how much gets through to limit surge currents.

The company provides interconnect solutions for airliners, supporting equipment such as reclining seats and inflight entertainment systems. It also serves as a supplier for commercial space platforms. z

good progress and we are looking forward to working with these new suppliers as we accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable air travel.” H.W.

DAVID M c INTOSH

DAVID M c INTOSH

(L to r) Nidec’s Takamitsu Araki and Michael Briggs appear with Embraer’s Francisco Gomes Neto and Dimas Douglas Tomelin.

The future is our starting point

Every day, we’re working to help move the world forward. Today, and for generations to come. The future of flight starts now.

Rolls-Royce to test new small turbine

by David Donald

Rolls-Royce plans to begin testing its still-unnamed new small gas turbine engine in the coming weeks. The company is preparing the first example for its first run in a test rig at the company’s Dahlewitz plant near Berlin.

Offering a 15 percent increase in efficiency when compared with the company’s current small engine, the M250, the new turbine features an integrated turbogenerator system to power hybrid-electric regional air vehicles in the nine- to 19-passenger category. The company plans to start testing the generator element next year and expects the whole system to enter service in 2029.

Nominally rated at 800 kilowatts, the turbogenerator is scalable to offer power ratings between 600 and 1,200 kilowatts and offers low noise levels of no greater than 62 dBA at

500 feet. The system is compact, measuring less than 1.5 meters long and 0.5 meters in diameter. A mean time between overhaul of 10,000 cycles represents a key design goal. Initially designed to run on 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), the turbine will also be adaptable to run on hydrogen fuel in the future.

Regional travel for vertical takeoff air vehicles over ranges of 200 to 500 kilometers is beyond the capabilities of current and projected battery technology alone, meaning there remains a place for gas turbine power.

Combining the turbine with an energy storage system provides flexibility, as the turbine can either provide direct power or charge batteries in flight.

The new turbine/turbogenerator forms part of a growing portfolio of Rolls-Royce Electrical products aimed at the growing advanced air mobility sector. The division is developing efficient, air-cooled electric power units for smaller, short-range urban air mobility vehicles, as well as electrical power distribution and energy storage systems. z

IBA forecasts thousands of aircraft orders at Paris Airshow

UK-based consultancy IBA predicts orders for between 2,100 and 3,000 aircraft at the Paris Airshow this year.

“Over the past few weeks, we have been focusing heavily on supply chain, order rumors, regional growth, ESG, rising costs, failures pointing the blame at reliability, and strengthening airline results,” said Stuart Hatcher, chief economist at IBA. However, uncertainty due to long backlogs and lead times makes it hard for airlines to place orders if they don’t know what competitors are doing, he said.

Looking at orders already announced this year, he identified a total of 961, of which Boeing would take the majority share. Among those, IBA highlighted commitments already announced by Air India for 470 aircraft plus 70 options, a mix of 78 Boeing 787s with 43 on option for new Saudi flag carrier Riyadh Air and incumbent Saudia,

and Ryanair’s MOU for 150 Boeing 737 Max 10s and 150 on option.

Existing interest in earlier variants made it unlikely that Airbus would proceed with the A220-500 for some time, while “some positive news from Boeing would be good—along the lines of light at the end of the tunnel regarding certification or more news surrounding the future of 767 freighter new deliveries in the lead-up to the 2027 deadline.”

Turkish Airlines’ intention to order up to 600 aircraft including options from Airbus and Boeing, could presage further movement from the Gulf’s big three, although Emirates could postpone any announcement until the Dubai Airshow in November, he said.

“It feels like a race to grab market share in unproven markets based on long-term predictions that have yet to show their full potential,” he concluded.

P.S.-S.

Rolls-Royce’s new engine enters its testing phase this summer and associated gearbox trials next year.

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Eve steps up ground tests of eVTOL design

by Matt Thurber

Eve Air Mobility is now selecting “main equipment” suppliers and during the second half of this year will begin assembling the first fullscale prototype of its eVTOL aircraft, according to Eve co-CEO Andre Stein. Speaking to reporters during a briefing held by parent company Embraer in Portugal on May 26, he said that recent ground tests of propulsion systems and wind tunnel testing have also helped move the program forward.

“Eve Air Mobility is not just about routes, solutions, or infrastructure,” Stein said, “it’s about the evolution of mobility as the key to making life more fluid and cities friendlier. This is the first project to graduate from EmbraerX,” he added, referring to the airframe manufacturer’s innovation hub.

Having submitted the basis for type certification to Brazilian aviation safety regulator ANAC in March, Eve plans to build its fullscale prototype in the second half of 2023, to be ready to start a flight test campaign in 2024 that it hopes will lead to certification and entry into service in 2026. ANAC will be the primary certification organization, Stein said, and Eve will seek FAA validation of the design, hopefully simultaneously as Embraer did with its E2 airliner.

Meanwhile, the cabin mockup of the Eve eVTOL is making the rounds of events, with

its first showing this year at the SXSW show in Austin, Texas, in March. Eve’s first appearance after becoming a publicly-traded company takes place at the Paris Airshow June 19-25, where the mockup and a virtual reality simulation of an eVTOL flight will be on display at the Eve/Embraer pavilion.

Embraer is the majority stockholder and it is closely involved in the development of the all-electric vehicle. Eve, which now employs around 300 people, can call on support from a 3,500-strong engineering team at its parent company. “We see that as an advantage,” Stein said. “We can flex that up and down. We don’t always need the same expert at the same time.”

Eve is aiming to garner a chunk of what it and its many rivals project to be a huge market for advanced air mobility (AAM) aircraft, estimated at three-quarters of a trillion dollars by 2040. So far Eve has signed letters of intent for 2,770 Eve vehicles from 26 prospective operators that include airlines, technology companies, and lessors, including Brazil’s FlyBIS. “This gives us confidence there is an actual market behind it,” Stein said.

The recent testing involved measuring aerodynamic performance and sound properties of propellers on a test rig, with the aim to maximize efficiency, lower the sound footprint, and reduce operating costs. Eve also began testing vertical-lift rotors on a truckmounted mobile testbed at Embraer’s facility

at Brazil’s Gavião Peixoto Airport to evaluate rotor performance during the transition phase of flight.

“This allows us to understand the sound profile,” he said. “It’s not only about decibels, it’s the profile.” He explained that engineers were able to test various propeller shapes on the rig and to gather visual data showing the sound profile during various phases including the transition between hover and cruise. This testing along with computational fluid dynamics calculations will help Eve refine the fidelity of its flight simulator and fly-by-wire flight controls, according to the company.

Eve’s initial 60-mile (100-km) range, based on the current limits of battery technology, is designed to fulfill 99 percent of urban air mobility trips, and it will initially carry a pilot and four passengers. Eventually, if fullyautonomous flight without a pilot on board becomes possible through regulatory changes, Eve will accommodate six passengers.

As it refines the design of the eVTOL aircraft and prepares for prototype construction, Eve is selecting component suppliers.

Stein admits that it will be a challenge to certify the Eve eVTOL in 2026, particularly considering a typical Embraer aircraft program takes six to seven years from conception. However, he said, “We started with the date we believe is most possible.” He noted that many other eVTOL programs have moved their certification schedules “to the right.”

With its background stemming from being part of the Embraer family, Stein believes that Eve has a huge head start on the competition to bring an eVTOL to market. “Hell yeah, we do have an advantage,” he said. “We’ve seen big players trying to certify and failing. Having a cohesive group of engineers, access to IT, and tools, it gives us an advantage. Finally, the grownups are in the room. It’s an ambitious timeline,” he admitted, “but we have a much better understanding of the process. Our peers weren’t expecting certification to be so complicated.”

That said, Eve isn’t expecting to hit a switch and suddenly start manufacturing thousands of eVTOLS. “We’re ramping up,” Stein said. “We’re not waiting for a magic battery or magic composite [materials]. We’re doing our math on existing technology.” z

Eve Air Mobility’s eVTOL aircraft initially will fly to a range of about 60 miles.

Boeing’s Deal pledges return to stability, schedule fidelity

by Cathy Buyck

Anyone attending the Paris Air Show in 2009 likely remembers the outburst of Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker directed at Boeing. Executives at the U.S. airframer, he said, should spend less time “wining and dining” and more time on ensuring timely aircraft deliveries. Qatar Airways had ordered sixty 787s but production issues at Boeing left delivery schedules in limbo.

Long-time Boeing executive Stan Deal became CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes only in 2019, but he recalls the criticism.

“I never want to disappoint a customer again,” he told AIN when asked about the procedures and processes in place at the company to avoid the certification, production, and delivery headaches that beset the 737 Max, the 787, and the 777X. Part of that commitment will hinge on thoughtful, patient consideration of market realities and the rate of technological advances.

“As you know, we have stated we will not launch a new program before 2035,” Deal noted. “Why would I launch a new airplane when all the existing models sell so well?”

Boeing CEO David Calhoun has attributed the decision to a lack of maturity in new technology that would deliver a 20 to 30 percent improvement in fuel efficiency over currently available airplanes.

Meanwhile, the 787 backlog extends through 2026 and no open slots exist for the 737 Max until at least 2028. At the end of April, the airframer enjoyed a backlog of 4,567 commercial airplanes.

“[We must] get back to stable commitments to our airline customers [and assure] that when we say we are going to deliver on X and the performance is going to be Y, that X and Y are true,” said Deal, who added that he and his team at Boeing Commercial Airplanes are working on several “levers” to ensure “we don’t get an angry Akbar [Al Baker] or an angry [Lufthansa Group CEO] Carsten Spohr.”

The first action involves positioning the supply chain for upcoming technologies and future advancements. “We do a lot of precursor supplier development work to safeguard that our suppliers invest in research and development themselves and that the capabilities that they are developing add to the product benefit that we are going to sell to our customers,” Deal explained. The second action involves the division’s future production system, where combining automation and the creation of an environment that allows workers to assemble airplanes “rapidly and precisely” prevails. Other work tracks center on the digital tool suite that facilitates a more predictive development process and on attracting and retaining talent.

At the Paris Air Show, Boeing is displaying the 737 Max 10, the 777-9, and a 787 featuring the livery of Riyadh Air, the planned second flag carrier of Saudi Arabia. “I do expect orders, I honestly do,” Deal said, while pointing out that the airframer already inked several contracts this year, including Ryanair’s firm order for 150 Boeing 737-10s with options on another 150.

Deal vowed he will remain “disciplined” on production rates. “I am not going to run rates irresponsibly high,” he insisted. “I am going to try to run them so I always have a little supply buffer. I think that is prudent and smart.” At the Bernstein conference on June 2, Calhoun said the OEM has set a target rate of fifty 737 Max jets and ten 787s a month starting in 2025 or 2026. The U.S. manufacturer’s

main competitor, Airbus, plans to increase the A320neo family production rate to 65 aircraft per month by the end of 2024 and a record output of 75 in 2026.

The supply chain remains constrained, Deal said, though he dismissed the notion that the issue exposes a systemic difficult relationship between the OEMs and their suppliers. “Covid took these companies virtually down to zero and then demand came back very fast,” he said. “The human capital toll was high and in the manufacturing industry, it was difficult to get the human resources back in. The training footprint needed to be re-established.”

Deal expressed optimism that deliveries to Chinese customers will normalize despite the political tensions between the U.S. and China. “Our approach is first and foremost to take care of our customers,” he noted. “Throughout the Covid downturn and the Max grounding, we have been reaching out and our teams remained deployed in China.” The good news, he added, resides with the recent traffic recovery in the country and the region. “When demand is back airplanes need to be delivered,” he concluded.

In 2018, before the Max crashes, the Covid outbreak, and the trade war between the two countries, mainland China accounted for 24 percent of Boeing’s global deliveries. Last year, the airframer delivered just 12 aircraft—nine 777Fs and three Maxes—to customers in mainland China. At the end of April, Boeing held unfilled orders for 160 airplanes in China, consisting of 42 widebodies and 122 narrowbodies. z

“[We must] get back to stable commitments to our airline customers [and assure] that when we say we are going to deliver on X and the performance is going to be Y, that X and Y are true...”

Stan Deal, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes

EU sets world’s largest SAF blending mandate

by Cathy Buyck

If all goes according to plan and no unforeseen eleventh-hour hiccups surface, the European Union will introduce legislation mandating the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for flights within and departing the bloc. A deal on the ReFuelEU Aviation proposal, agreed upon at the end of April after lengthy and often tense negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, mandates that as of 2025, SAF must account for at least 2 percent of aviation fuels. This minimum increases every five years, to 6 percent in 2030, 20 percent in 2035, 34 percent in 2040, 42 percent in 2045, and 70 percent in 2050.

A specific proportion of the fuel mix must consist of synthetic low-carbon aviation fuels like e-fuels or e-SAF using power-toliquid technology.

Adina Valean, EU commissioner for transport, hailed the political agreement as “a turning point” for European aviation toward a pathway to decarbonization. “Shifting to sustainable aviation fuels will improve our energy security, while reducing reliance on fossil fuel imports,” said Valean. “[The new rules] will help make Europe a front-runner in the production of innovative clean fuels, globally.”

Darko Levicar, mobility policy director at Hydrogen Europe, added that binding mandates for the uptake of SAF deliver “long-term certainty” for fuel suppliers to establish a European supply chain for cleaner fuels. Airlines, however, appear less convinced. “While mandates for SAF use send a signal to producers and the market, without a comprehensive policy framework to incentivize cheaper production and more flexible rules of supply, mandates alone simply risk a huge increase in cost and a license to print money for fuel suppliers, while raising the price of mobility throughout the EU,” remarked International Air Transport Association (IATA) deputy director general, Conrad Clifford.

According to IATA estimates, fulfilling the

ReFuelEU mandate would require slightly less than 1 million tonnes of SAF in 2025, for a total jet fuel uplift of slightly less than 50 million tonnes.

Whether SAF production capacity in the EU will cover the increasing mandate requirements remains unclear. Research indicates that producers plan about 59 new bio-refineries in Europe, with various dates to come online and no visibility of how much SAF will account for the output; typically, SAF represents 30 percent of output from a biorefinery. “This is why incentives are needed to make sure that SAF can compete with biodiesel,” IATA stressed.

ReFuelEU is a key pillar of the EU’s Fit for 55 legislative package to reduce the bloc’s net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels and to achieve climate neutrality in 2050. The Commission projects that the ReFuelEU measure on its own will reduce aircraft CO2 emissions by around two-thirds by 2050.

Under the new rules, the share of SAF that the legislation requires producers to blend with fossil kerosene is binding throughout the EU and it disallows member states from setting higher or lower mandates, a decision welcomed by Airlines for Europe. “The single EU-wide mandate for SAF will prevent fragmentation of the EU’s single market for aviation through differing national targets in different member

states,” the Brussels-based trade body of European airlines noted.

The upcoming legislation puts the obligation to provide SAF with the fuel suppliers, and not with the airlines directly. As drafted, fuel suppliers must provide SAF at all EU airports that handle more than 1 million passengers annually, while airports must ensure the availability of fuel infrastructure “fit for SAF distribution.”

Data from airports trade body Airports Council International show that around 150 airports in the EU processed more than 1 million passengers in 2019. Currently, just 20 airports in Europe supply SAF, leaving a major gap to bridge in just 18 months.

“[It is] technically possible to have SAF at all airports” IATA asserts, though it concedes the challenge to meet the mandate requirements. Not all airports connect to pipelines or have otherwise easy access to SAF, so bringing it to them would be inefficient. “At a minimum, it is essential that a book-and-claim system be established to create a flexible market for SAF across the EU,” Clifford said. The ReFuelEU provisional agreement requires the Commission to report by 2024 on the feasibility of book-and-claim for airlines to manage the supply of SAF in a flexible way across the EU.

In the meantime—and recognizing that SAF supply will be uneven across the bloc—negotiators of the EU institutions agreed to allow for a 10-year transition period during which fuel suppliers can provide the total amount of mandated SAF as a weighted average across the EU, rather than at each EU airport.

Still, IATA expressed concern that “if producers aren’t able to meet the mandate requirements, they will simply pass the price of the fine on to their customer, that is, the airlines.” z

KLM has used SAF blends for all its flights departing Amsterdam Schiphol Airport since January 2022.

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GE’s hybrid-electric R&D promises big payoff

by Gregory Polek

A $20 million investment by GE Aerospace to add a new test cell and equipment at the Electrical Power Integrated Systems Center (EPISCenter) in Dayton, Ohio, underscored the company’s commitment to hybrid electric powerplant technology in coming years.

What will become the facilities’ seventh test cell will add another 2 MW of testing capacity to support NASA’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration (EPFD) program. Plans for EPFD call for ground and flight tests of the hybrid-electric system this decade using a modified Saab 340B aircraft and GE’s CT7 engines in collaboration with Boeing. NASA also previously awarded GE Aerospace a contract for the Turbofan Engine Power Extraction Demonstration under the Hybrid Thermally Efficient Core (HyTEC) project.

Speaking with reporters in Dayton just ahead of the Paris Airshow, GE Aerospace hybridelectric systems leader Christine Andrews listed three essential tenets of the EPFD program. “One, we’re going to pull power off the battery to run electrically; two, we’re going to pull power off the engine and charge the battery; and, three, we’re going to move power from the left-hand side to the right-hand side and do a power-transfer test,” she explained. “And that power-transfer test is really the altitude integration testing that we had announced as a success last year at [the] Farnborough [Airshow.]”

At Farnborough, GE and NASA announced they were first to successfully test high-power, high-voltage hybrid-electric aircraft engine components in high-altitude conditions. Specifically, GE and NASA ran a megawatt-class, multi-kilovolt hybrid-electric system in conditions simulating altitudes to 45,000 feet. The test took place at NASA’s electric aircraft testbed (NEAT) facility, the only installation capable of simulating such conditions and large enough to fit an electric powertrain.

Andrews noted that her team will spend

two years testing at the component level and systems level in Dayton to get ready for ground and flight tests. Next, GE will partner with Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences to test the system in the air on the Saab 340. Andrews declined to name a target date for first flight, however. “We, in typical hybrid fashion, as we progress the technology, we talk about it much later after it’s already been done,” she explained. “We’re just releasing today, but I did a [preliminary design review] last year, so that should give you an idea of where we’re at.” Andrews confirmed that GE and NASA performed systems-level testing at NASA’s NEAT facility and the results proved promising. “The system and component have only gotten better from that test,” she said. “We’ve gotten better in quality and understanding and have

which stands for Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines, center on an open-rotor concept conceived by the GE-Safran CFM partnership as a bid to deliver at least 25 percent better fuel efficiency at the airframe level over today’s most efficient engines. The RISE program includes research into integrating the open-fan design into a hybrid-electric system to optimize engine efficiency and enable electrification of aircraft systems.

GE Aerospace general manager of advanced technology Arjan Hegeman explained that the hybrid-electric application to RISE would happen at a systems level, effectively allowing designers to make the engine core smaller.

“It’s hard to describe from a propulsive efficiency or a thermal efficiency [perspective], because it’s really a third system-level type technology that allows you to run a slightly smaller core and still get the same thrust levels and responsiveness that you need,” said Hegeman. “So it’s an additional system-level technology that sits in that engine that will allow us to undersize the core just a little bit more.”

Hegeman described the exercise as “defi-

done more testing, but we’re looking at that as our full system test. When we look at the aircraft piece here, this is why we have [Boeing] involved to bring in their knowledge at the bird side of it, and then NASA certainly as a third party and bringing it together.”

The point of GE’s studies, of course, isn’t limited to exploring the potential of a standalone hybrid-electric airplane, but it will also inform the development of elements of CFM’s RISE engine program. Studies into RISE,

nitely an aircraft-integrated technology,” meaning the efficiency gain will come partly from the engine. “We can do a small part on it on the engine itself, independent from the aircraft and get quite a few points of efficiency out of it,” he explained. “But then clearly once you do that, you have an architecture in place that when the aircraft and energy storage technologies continue to mature, you can start getting more and more efficiency out of the architecture. So it’s definitely a step-up type approach.” z

A GE Aerospace engineer inspects a current sensor board at the company’s EPISCenter facility in Dayton, Ohio.

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E2 PROFIT HUNTER. EVE. ENERGIA.

Upbeat engine OEMs focus on R&D for tomorrow

by Chris Kjelgaard

With passenger traffic rebounding strongly, Rolls-Royce, GE Aerospace, CFM International, and Pratt & Whitney have seen healthy sales of their commercial-engine families.

But even as they try to recover production to 2018 and 2019 levels while fighting to surmount long-term supply-chain disruptions involving materials and critical parts, all four stand committed to conducting research and development to ensure their product lines will meet the air transport industry’s 2050 zero-net carbon emissions target.

Rolls-Royce Takes Aim at 2035

Rolls-Royce remains focused on the airline industry’s long-term future, from 2035 onward, when SAF, hydrogen propulsion, and electric power take part in achieving net-zero carbon, said Alan Newby, Rolls-Royce’s director of aerospace technology and future programs.

Newby said that by the end of 2023 “virtually all” of Rolls-Royce’s range of Trent large turbofans will gain certification to operate commercially using 100 percent SAF as a fuel. But Rolls-Royce also believes “hydrogen will play a key part in de-carbonizing the world.”

Rolls-Royce’s research has indicated liquid hydrogen can replace SAF as a fuel for shorterrange operations by regional and even singleaisle jet aircraft, though long-range flights by large aircraft will continue to need jet-fuel power indefinitely. Even though liquid hydrogen weighs less than jet fuel, its much lower energy density requires much larger fuel tanks

than those for any conventional fuel or pure SAF. Also, said Newby, the minus-253-degree C temperature required to keep hydrogen in liquid form, plus the need to heat it to roomtemperature for combustion, will make onboard heat-management and pumping infrastructure for liquid-hydrogen complex and heavy.

Rolls-Royce and 25 partners have established a rig at Cranfield Airport to test integration of an onboard hydrogen fuel-provision system with an engine and nacelle.

Newby said in other hydrogen-propulsion research in which the engine maker partners with German aerospace institute DLR, RollsRoyce Deutschland is designing fuel-injector architectures for testing on a rig DLR has developed to test hydrogen fuel systems.

Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce continues to

develop its geared-turbofan UltraFan architecture; the company announced on May 18 that it had successfully completed the first ground runs of its 140-inch-fan UltraFan demonstrator powered by 100 percent SAF.

CFM Rides Leap To New Sales Heights

CFM International, the 50-50 partnership between GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines, has accumulated orders and other commitments for some 21,000 Leap engines, making it the fastest-selling jet-engine family in history, according to Gaël Méheust, CFM’s president and CEO.

Méheust noted that the Leap-family engines had accumulated more than 30 million flight hours by mid-May, achieving a 92.5 percent utilization rate. The highest-time

Rolls-Royce ran its gearedturbofan UltraFan demonstrator engine in May on 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel.

CFM ran tests of its Leap engine in a special rig to replicate high temperatures and sand ingestion.

engines have already recorded 10,000 flight cycles and 18,000 flight-hours on wing since entering service only seven years ago.

The Leap family is demonstrating in-service fuel-efficiency improvements in the 15 to 20 percent range over its direct predecessors, primarily the CFM56 family, Méheust said.

CFM has experienced a durability issue with Leap-1A and Leap-1B engines flown by airlines primarily operating in hot and harsh conditions, particularly in the Middle East. The durability problem resulted from a combination of hot external temperatures and ingested sand, causing premature wear in Leap high-pressure turbine (HPT) nozzles and high-pressure turbine blades.

To find a permanent fix, said Méheust, the manufacturer built a ground-testing rig that duplicates the exact sand-ingestion and external-temperature conditions that led to the durability issues. Rig-testing of the relevant HPT parts saw the parts experiencing the same problems in-service engines experienced.

However, when tested in the rig, newly redesigned HPT nozzles and blades did not display the wear. “So we know the fix will work and we are confident it will be successful,” said Méheust. “It is now a matter of a little bit of time before the Leap behaves like the [ultra-reliable] CFM56 in the Middle East.”

GE Aerospace’s Genx Dominates Class

Although volume production of the GEnx-2B large turbofan powering the Boeing 747-8 has finished, GE Aerospace continues to see strong demand for the GEnx-1B powering the Boeing 787, according to Kathy MacKenzie, president and CEO of GE Aerospace’s commercial engine operations.

Some 2,400 GEnx engines have entered service and GE holds orders for 520 more, almost all of them GEnx-1Bs.

MacKenzie said GE Aerospace plans not to introduce another major GEnx upgrade package for the next two years. “We will be trying to advance our next suite of technologies [during that period]” developed from GE’s participation in CFM’s massive Rise R&D program. “We’ll evaluate bringing those improvements back into our existing engines,” she added.

Separately, GE Aerospace temporarily halted the Boeing 777X flight-test program in

2022 when, during maturation and validation testing at its Peebles, Ohio ground-test facility, it found a hot-section part did not demonstrate the expected performance response, according to MacKenzie.

However, she said, GE quickly created a design improvement incorporated in all test GE9Xs, and the affected engine returned to flight test within 10 weeks. GE Aerospace is now “trying to line up the improvement” for incorporation in all production GE9Xs.

GE Aerospace and CFM remain highly focused on the CFM-led Rise R&D program, which Méheust described as “the most comprehensive technology acquisition and maturation program in CFM’s history.”

CFM’s two joint venture partners have dedicated more than 1,000 engineers to Rise. According to Méheust, the companies have seen Rise make “good progress” through early technology maturation. “We’re moving from part and component testing to begin testing sub-systems,” said Méheust. “We’re on track to ground-test a demonstration open fan [engine] somewhere in 2026-2027.”

Later testing of Rise demonstrators will test 100 percent SAF and hydrogen as fuels for the open fan configuration, and for any other engine configuration CFM decides to explore within Rise.

P&W’s Hybrid-electric Designs

Together with sibling Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney (P&W) is developing a hybridelectric and gas turbine-powered propulsion

system. The demonstrator engine completed its first ground run in Québec in December and the partners plan to begin flight testing the system in 2024.

P&W has begun developing the Hydrogen Steam Injected, Intercooled Turbine Engine (HySIITE). That engine will use liquid hydrogen combustion and water-vapor recovery to achieve zero in-flight CO2 emissions, while reducing NOx emissions by up to 80 percent and fuel consumption by up to 35 percent.

P&W’s GTF family has accumulated 21 million flight hours and has won orders and commitments for more than 10,000 engines. “We’ve now met the target level for dispatch reliability, which is at mature levels,” said Dave Emmerling, P&W’s v-p of GTF Engines. “We’ve improved time on-wing since the beginning of the program, and we continue to do so with block upgrades in process on all our GTF variants and the GTF Advantage program.”

The GTF Advantage—a major upgrade on the PW1100G powering the A320neo family—has accumulated 2,800 hours and 8,200 cycles of ground and flight testing into its validation program over two years. Meant to achieve a 1 percent efficiency gain over the current PW1100G, the Advantage program includes extensive endurance testing to provide mature reliability at entry into service, said Emmerling. “The test program is designed with special attention to severe-environment operations. This includes hot-section endurance, rapid cyclic accumulation, and dirt ingestion. z

Ground and flight testing is well underway on P&W’s Advantage upgrade to the PW1100G.

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EU projects point to cleaner future

by Charles Alcock

European Union (EU) efforts to achieve a net-zero carbon future for aviation by 2050 are accelerating with the launch of a flurry of R&D projects under the auspices of the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking. Much of the work will focus on developing regional airliners to decarbonize short-haul flying, with prominent aerospace groups—including Honeywell, Collins Aerospace, Textron, Airbus, Rolls-Royce, and GE Aviation—playing key roles.

Under Project Newborn, for example, Honeywell has signed with 17 partners from 10 European countries to develop a megawattcell hydrogen fuel cell propulsion system. Initially, the partners expect the resulting technology to appear in a demonstrator aircraft by Textron eAviation subsidiary Pipistrel, building on recently completed work under the Unifier19 project, focused in the first instance on developing a 19-seat, hydrogenpowered regional airliner.

Pipistrel is working with Germany’s DLR aerospace research agency and start-up H2Fly on the HY4 technology demonstrator aircraft. The exercise, with test flights starting later this summer, accounts for part of the EU-backed Project Heaven to demonstrate the feasibility of using a liquid, cryogenic hydrogen-powered fuel cell powertrain in an aircraft.

The Clean Aviation program timeline calls for the technology to be ready for ground demonstrations in 2026, followed by flight testing in 2030. Work to integrate the powertrain concept advanced under Project Newborn would dovetail with efforts to integrate the technology with an airframe through the wider Hera project.

In related work, Honeywell leads Clean Aviation’s TheMa4Hera project, whose name stands for Thermal Management for Hybrid Electric Regional Aircraft. The project involves 24 European partners, including Collins subsidiary Nord Micro, which will help devise new approaches for controlling the temperatures of aircraft equipment other than the propulsion system.

European universities also are involved. The project, whose acronym stands for Hybrid-Electric Regional Aircraft Distribution Technologies, has attracted almost $44 million (€41 million) in EU and UK government funding.

Collins believes the introduction of hybrid-electric propulsion systems powerful enough for regional airliners will require a “quantum leap” in high-voltage power distribution. According to Todd Spierling, Collins’s principal technical fellow for electrification, the new-generation hybrid-electric powertrains will have to produce higher levels of electrical power to support both the propulsion system and the secondary power needs of other aircraft systems. “They will have to process a lot of high-voltage power and so it’s going to take a very different approach to power distribution and management,” he explained to AIN. “As power levels go up, things become more critical and there is more potential for damage, so you have to be able to instantaneously implement protections.”

The Hecate partners are addressing that challenge by pursuing a goal of ground testing the power distribution system for a 500-kW-plus hybrid-electric powertrain to technology readiness level five by 2025.

Safran is providing primary power distribution equipment and cabling while Thales and Diehl Aerospace work on new power electronics, system control, and energy management technology.

Slovenia-based Pipistrel, which last year became a key component in Textron’s new eAviation division, has taken a multi-faceted approach to the task of making hydrogen a key part of a green future for air transport.

Tine Tomažič, Pipistrel’s director of engineering and programs, told AIN his team is concentrating its efforts on scaling up liquid hydrogen propulsion systems to support viable payload and range and the associated technology for use in suitable airframes.

According to Honeywell, the project will develop advanced thermal management components and architectures for next-generation narrowbody aircraft.

In January, Collins revealed that it has begun coordinating the development of a high-voltage electric power distribution program under the Clean Aviation Hecate project. Engines and electronics group Safran acts as technical coordinator with Diehl Aerospace, Airbus Defence and Space, and Leonardo, and multiple

All of the work falls under the broad remit of the EU’s Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking, which seeks to meet goals established under the Paris Accord for zero carbon emissions by 2050 with more than €1.8 billion in public funding. The Clean Aviation timeline calls for the technology to be ready for ground demonstrations in 2026, followed by flight testing in 2030.

Other Clean Aviation projects include Heart and Amber, under which Rolls-Royce Deutschland and GE Avio, respectively, work on multi-megawatt hybrid-electric propulsion systems. Both companies also are working on the direct combustion of hydrogen under the Cavendish and Hydea programs. z

H2Fly’s HY4 technology demonstrator is set to start flight testing to evaluate the use of liquid hydrogen.

Spirit AeroSystems will make composite fuselages for the new HondaJet 2600 light business jet.

Spirit to build Honda 2600 jet fuselages

by Charles Alcock

Honda Aircraft is increasing the role Spirit AeroSystems will play in manufacturing its HondaJet 2600 light business jet. Spirit’s contribution to the program, formally launched on June 13, will now include a build-to-print approach to making the aircraft’s composite fuselage and bonded frame.

The company has yet to determine whether it will manufacture the 2600’s fuselage at one of its U.S. sites or at its factory in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Aernnova will contribute aerostructures and components for the new

jet, which Honda will assemble at its factory in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Formerly owned by Bombardier, Spirit’s Belfast facility builds structures for the Canadian company’s Global and Challenger business aircraft. The company also manufactures multiple structures for various Airbus and Boeing single-aisle and widebody airliners, as well as nacelles for aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce.

“This agreement expands our regional and business jet portfolio and is a testament to our expertise in advanced materials and processes,” commented Alex Bellamy, v-p of regional and business jet programs at Spirit AeroSystems.

Bellamy told AIN that Spirit is actively pursuing tier one supplier roles in other new aircraft programs. It has signed an agreement with Airbus to make the wings for its planned CityAirbus NextGen eVTOL aircraft.

“A lot of emerging aircraft technologies will have to be certified, and since Spirit has substantial experience in designing and building [aircraft structures] we can help the new companies to navigate these requirements and find them a path to type certification,” said Bellamy. “There are some very exciting opportunities out there, giving us a chance to shine.”

Honda Aircraft plans to certify the new HondaJet 2600 light jet in 2028, having first unveiled the concept at the NBAA-BACE show in 2021. The aircraft is a larger version of the current HondaJet, featuring the same over-the-wing-engine-mount design, a pair of Williams International FJ44-4C turbofans, and the Garmin G3000 avionics suite. z

GIFAS selects Armée de l’Air et de l’Espace general as new leader

French aerospace industry group GIFAS will have a new leader starting on August 1, when Frédéric Parisot becomes managing director. The former corps general of France’s Armée de l’Air et de l’Espace, Parisot joined the association in mid-May to help prepare for the Paris Air Show. He replaces Pierre Bourlot, who is retiring.

Since 2018, Parisot has served as the Armée de l’Air et de l’Espace deputy chief of procurement and future requirements. Prior to then, he served as air deputy to France’s chief of military sta and in 2017 was the country’s director of civil-military cooperation in the

multi-national “Inherent Resolve” mission in Iraq.

As a military pilot flying Mirage 2000 and F-18 fighter jets, Parisot flew 81 combat missions. He graduated from France’s Ecole de l’Air military aviation school and formerly served as the auditor of the country’s IHEDN Institute for Advanced Studies in National Defense.

GIFAS’s membership rolls total about 440 member companies involved in all aspects of aerospace and defense technology and that collectively generated revenues of € 62.7 billion ($68.9 billion) in 2022. The association organizes the Paris Airshow. C.A.

Incoming managing director of GIFAS Frédéric Parisot.

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Sikorsky Black Hawk: new chapter for Mielec

by Reuben F. Johnson

Poland’s PZL Mielec factory made aviation history more than 15 years ago by becoming the first production line outside the U.S. for the legendary Sikorsky Black Hawk battlefield utility helicopter. Moreover, Mielec is not just any factory; it once served as part of the former Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact’s defense industrial base.

The factory now not only assembles the Black Hawk but it builds other platforms and remains one of the major Polish defense exporters in the country. Meanwhile, Mielec might make history again with another iconic U.S. aircraft.

A new section at Mielec now manufactures the center fuselage and aft and forward sections of the Lockheed Martin F-16V Block 70/72 fighter aircraft. The Polish company still does not produce wing sections, but that might come later as the plant works on creating a completely modernized production and fabrication building dedicated to the F-16 program.

Mielec ships F-16 sections to the Lockheed Martin final assembly line in Greenville, South Carolina. Current F-16 production stands at four per month, but Mielec staff maintain that the production backlog for the aircraft has driven the monthly rate, which the company can augment if needed.

Privately, Mielec management propose repeating the process they completed with the Black Hawk as a template—learning the aircraft’s design and manufacturing methods and eventually becoming an F-16 assembly site.

Beginning by producing pieces of the aircraft, then continuing to modernize additional manufacturing space, Mielec could eventually become a full-scale F-16 assembly line. But the company has not officially confirmed such a plan.

Sikorsky acquired Mielec in 2007, where it initially functioned as a supplier to the U.S. Black Hawk production line. After modernizing the factory’s facilities, the company then became a production site, delivering fully-assembled S-70i models (the export version of the U.S.

Army UH-60 Black Hawk) to foreign customers.

Today PZL Mielec ranks as the largest aviation plant in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region and one of the oldest aerospace enterprises in Poland, having been founded in 1938. The sprawling enterprise is situated not far from the U.S.-NATO staging base at Rzeszów in eastern Poland where munitions and other military hardware destined for delivery to Ukraine fly in every day.

During a visit to the facility, the senior staff explained that several activities take place in parallel with the Black Hawk manufacturing processes, demonstrating the versatility and

of several other nations.” Mielec has subsequently built more than 100 M-28s.

Still, the main activity remains production of the Sikorsky S-70i export variant of the Black Hawk battlefield utility helicopter. The creation of the first European production line meant putting Mielec and the staff of the plant on a dual-track process involving training personnel on the assembly of the helicopter while simultaneously modernizing facilities at the plant to support transitioning from a Polish-design to U.S.-design production equipment.

Sikorsky and Mielec recall the time required for the Polish engineering and production team to “get up to speed” on assembling the S-70i “required only a matter of months—as opposed to the year or more the original build-up to U.S. production plan called for,” one of the senior Polish management team told AIN

Modernization of the assembly halls began in 2008. The factory completed the first

A pair of Sikorsky Black Hawks grace the tarmac outside PZL Mielec’s factory in Poland.

expertise of the company’s personnel. They include the production of a westernized version of the Ukraine-designed Antonov An-28, designated M-28 in the Polish-produced version.

Mielec business development and programs director Piotr Niedbała explained the company built 180 of the original Ukrainian-design An-28 version during the Soviet era. After the collapse of communism, the company redesigned the on-board system’s configuration and adopted a non-Russian engine to create a western-standard M-28 variant.

“Our engineering office made some 40,000 modifications to develop the M-28 version,” he explained. “This involved integrating a Pratt & Whitney engine, a new avionics suite, and a slate of other substitutions. These modifications were necessary to receive certification from the FAA and aviation regulatory agencies

S-70i models in 2009 and the first flight of a Mielec-production Black Hawk occurred in 2010. The Polish company has shipped Black Hawks to 11 nations, including the U.S.

Mielec now sometimes takes the lead role in furnishing export customers with equipment. For example, under the contract terms for 32 new S-70i models ordered by the Philippine Air Force in February 2022, the Polish company serves as the prime supplier instead of the Sikorsky factory in the U.S.

The production of the F-16 work performed by Mielec resulted from Lockheed Martin’s acquisition of Sikorsky in 2015. The purchase made the U.S. defense company the largest employer in the CEE. The staff at the facility numbers about 1,600, but those numbers could increase if the facility begins production of another platform. z

Vanguard carries a variety of sensors

by Chris Pocock

A new version of the Diamond Aircraft DA62 Multi-Purpose Platform (MPP) is on display at Diamond’s Paris Airshow static park. Named the Vanguard, the aircraft serves environmental surveillance missions and is the first multi-mission sensor version of the popular twin-diesel-engine four- to seven-seater. Applications include automated fire mapping, vegetation analyses, flood and oil spill mapping, and wildlife monitoring.

The Vanguard carries a new five-band widearea sensor from Overwatch Imaging designated TK-8 in a small pod under the fuselage. It employs artificial intelligence including change-detection algorithms to help the sensor operator locate small objects of interest within large search areas. A more conventional EO/IR sensor, the Trakka Systems TC-300, sits under the nose. The airplane also carries the Artemis cellular phone detection, location, and communication sensor produced by British company Smith Myers. As with previous DA62MPP versions, the sensor data can transmit to the ground by the satcom pod, which offers Ka-, Ku-, L- and X-band frequencies.

Speaking at the Multi-Mission Expo at Sywell airfield in the UK recently, Diamond marketing manager Mario Spiegel said that the MPP versions of the DA62 feature the same performance as the standard aircraft, albeit with four rather than seven seats. Another difference, a top-mounted exhaust system for the AE330 turbocharged diesel engines, avoids degrading the sensor fieldsof-view. Made by Diamond sister company Austro Engine, the AE330 runs on jet-A fuel. A field test of biofuel is underway in the UK.

“The DA62MPP is a cost-effective solution for special missions, with an operating cost of only €250 ($274) per hour,” said Spiegel. “We integrate and certify all the sensors ourselves, and there is a dedicated alternator that provides their power.”

British specialist air services company 2Excel is a new customer for the DA62. It

plans to introduce two for search and rescue missions in the English Channel, mostly targeting illegal immigrants crossing from France, plus a third for survey work. The aircraft will carry the new Trakka TC-375 sensor. Another British company, Flight Calibration Services, has pioneered the use of the DA62 for the calibration of navigation aids. z

The Diamond DA62MPP Vanguard enables higher-fidelity environmental surveillance. DAVID

CFM plans to spool up Rise engine technology

by Charles Alcock

CFM International expects to start testing a technology demonstrator for its Rise open fan within the next 24 months. Executives at the French-U.S. engine maker told a pre-Paris Airshow briefing on Saturday that it will meet its promise of at least a 20 percent reduction in fuel burn compared with today’s Leap engines in time to support new narrowbody airliners now under development.

In the last few weeks, the Safran/GE joint venture’s engineers at Evendale, Ohio, began testing high-pressure turbine blades in a core based on the F110 powerplant. They also have used super-computers to assess new turbine airfoils, nozzles, and blades for Rise in a process that GE Aerospace head of engineering Mohamed Ali said has generated “fascinating, revolutionary results in terms of fuel burn and durability.” The company uses various additive and ceramic manufacturing techniques to make the new components.

To keep up the momentum of the program, Ali said that CFM has started ordering long-lead-time hardware for the technology demonstrator. Later this decade, the company aims to start running tests using hydrogen fuel, and the Rise technology also appears in the NASA-led work on hybrid-electric propulsion. Rise stands for revolutionary innovation for sustainable engines.

“Rise isn’t just on paper, it’s for real,” Ali told reporters, summarizing progress made since program launch in 2021. Airbus has acknowledged its interest in the high-bypass-ratio engine for the single-aisle airliner it expects to launch in 2027 or soon after. CFM has conducted noise tests on its fan design at the Airbus facility in Hamburg, reporting lower noise than the Leap engines that power the European airframer’s current A320 family.

Leap Powers A321XLR

The latest member of that family, the Airbus A321XLR, is one of the stars of this week’s

MTU backs electric for zero-emissions flight

For the first time in its history, German aircraft engine manufacturer MTU will present technologies at the Paris Airshow for electric motors to enable zero-emission flight. “Zero-emission flight is the big goal for commercial aviation, and it is MTU’s vision,” the company said.

MTU in April acquired eMoSys, a German electric motor developer and small-volume manufacturer, to expand its know-how and activities in electrification. Along with eMoSys, MTU plans to accelerate the use of electric motors in aviation and make them market-ready.

MTU claims that eMoSys motors provide the highest known power density and

reliability known today.

The company’s Clean Air Engine (Claire) technology agenda already involves improvements it said it had introduced to the aircraft gas turbine based on the geared turbofan, and “revolutionary” engine concepts like the water-enhanced turbofan and the flying fuel cell.

On the military side, MTU’s booth features an EJ200 Eurofighter engine and the T408 helicopter engine for the Sikorsky CH-53K. It will also present concept ideas for technologies used in the Next European Fighter Engine, the engine for the Next Generation Fighter. P.S.-S.

Paris Airshow. It is powered by a pair of Leap-1A turbofans, which CFM president and CEO Gaël Méheust said has now logged more than 22.8 million flight hours worldwide, while its Leap-1B sibling has flown 10.5 million. He said that the Leap reached the key maturity milestone of 30 million flight hours faster than any other engine.

In a bid to shore up the engine’s reliability record, CFM’s engineering teams have implemented solutions to various durability issues, including starter air valve reliability, non-synchronous vibrations, carbon buildup in fuel nozzles, and degradation of high-pressure turbine blades and nozzles in hot and harsh environments. The latter issue prompted the company to establish a test rig in Ohio that uses imported dust and dirt from the Middle East and Africa to replicate the conditions faced by operators in those parts of the world.

Méheust said the Leap program now holds an order backlog of more than 10,000 engines representing more than five years of production. He said that both engine utilization and production rates have now returned to pre-pandemic levels last seen in 2019. z

CFM has started testing high-pressure turbine blades for its Rise open-fan engine.

Aerospace eyes relief from supply chain pain

by Gregory Polek

Industries everywhere have seen the effects of supply chain disruptions ever since the onset of the Covid pandemic and the aerospace business has felt the impact as acutely as any other. From top-tier OEMs to small companies at the end of the supply chain, it seems virtually no one has escaped the fallout from drastic production cuts during the public health crisis and raw materials shortages.

In a series of interviews with AIN, aerospace companies shared their strategies to address the problem, from shifting sources of titanium to more often engaging in multi-source procurement of parts. Still, turnaround times continue to lag everywhere, as OEMs try to accelerate production rates beyond 2019 levels in reaction to the unexpectedly robust and speedy recovery from the pandemic.

While opinions on when the industry will see a full recovery from the supply chain challenges vary, sentiments expressed by some companies appear to point to a measure of relief. Raytheon subsidiary Collins Aerospace, for one, told AIN that reduction in demand in certain industries and increased investment by others have begun to mitigate challenges associated with the supply of electronic components following stubborn shortages and delivery delays last year. However, it added that raw materials supply remains constrained, causing increasing shortages of machined parts.

“We expect that electronic component demand and supply to be more balanced in the back half of 2023,” said Collins Aerospace supply chain v-p Kristopher Pinnow. “Beyond electronics, we are seeing constraints with the supply of certain specialty raw materials, which is manifesting in increased shortages of machined parts. We continue to monitor and assess this risk and are actively working on mitigation actions with our suppliers.”

Mitigation measures at Collins include what it calls ongoing supplier readiness

assessment activities, aiding visibility and capacity planning in mid- and long-term forecasts for suppliers to plan and add resources and training ahead of respective rate increases. The company also continues to work with its tier-one suppliers to improve the planning and management of its sub-tier supply base.

“As part of our readiness assessment initiative, risk mitigation actions have been identified with the respective suppliers and we are tracking the implementation and corresponding risk reduction,” added Pinnow. “As part of our risk management process, we explore various options to mitigate part shortages including but not limited to resourcing, buffer stocks, pursuing new manufacturing technologies, and dual sourcing and using Collins or [Raytheon] agreements for raw material supply, for example, so that our suppliers can participate in our agreements for supply.”

Although raw materials shortages have no doubt exacerbated the problem, skills shortages resulting in part from accelerated

retirements during the Covid pandemic appear to have posed an even bigger challenge given the tight labor market and the length of time it takes to train new employees. Collins said it sees the situation gradually improving among its supply base “later in the year,” when the wave of new-hire training finally generates sufficient staffing levels.

“A large portion of the problem is labor,” Bloomberg Intelligence senior analyst George Ferguson told AIN. “I think they’re recovering on the backfill now, but the people they’re bringing back aren’t the people that left in a lot of cases, and now they’re busy training those people.”

Ferguson added that the large OEMs are doing what they can to mitigate the problem by sending representatives to lower-tier suppliers and, in the case of Boeing and its major 737 Max structures supplier Spirit Aerosystems, with financial help.

“That just goes to show you how strong Spirit’s position is vis a vis Boeing,” noted Ferguson. “Boeing can’t make the 737 without them.”

Leaning on Fabrication Unit

According to Spirit Aerosystems senior v-p and chief procurement officer Alan Young, the crisis has to a degree changed the way

A Collins Aerospace inspector ensures a newly manufactured nacelle meets stringent quality control standards before the component is shipped to the next step in the manufacturing process.

companies view and execute risk management strategies. Dual sourcing accounts for one, but Spirit’s embrace of digitization and automation in the factory over the past years has proved particularly helpful for the Wichitabased aerostructures supplier, he said. Spirit has also invested heavily in its own fabrication capabilities, allowing it to make parts that it simply cannot get from its own suppliers in a timely fashion.

“We’ve got the largest fabrication shop in the world under one roof, and at the moment we have about 2,000 people making parts,” noted Young. “We have a really good industrial engineering, mechanical engineering pedigree, so we can produce parts in a hurry when someone is not performing.”

While Spirit maintains large composite shops and sheet metal forming capability among other competencies, Young said very portable metallic parts probably account for most of its fabrication activity in lieu of components acquired from suppliers. But its massive automated chemical processing line has proved invaluable given the problems many suppliers have encountered maintaining their metal treatment capacity.

“[The processing line encompasses] four and a half miles of monorail and we do tens of thousands of parts a week through it,” said Young. “That’s been one of the challenges in the supply chain—it’s the processing plants and their capacity to ramp up. We have that internally and it’s the jewel in the crown for Spirit.”

For Spirit’s suppliers, though, acquiring working capital to finance rate increases presents its own set of pressures on the supply chain, particularly during an inflationary period when the cost of capital runs high, noted Young. “When you’re accelerating [production], it’s important to start building working capital and inventory to allow you to consume those parts and deliver at a faster rate. So you’ve got to typically do that in advance of when you ship, so that puts some pressures on suppliers.”

Although the Covid pandemic certainly contributed to the production peaks and troughs that led to much of the supply chain constraints, Sprit encountered its own set of difficulties resulting from the complete halt in production of the Boeing 737 Max, for which it

supplies fuselage sections. From a peak rate of 57 shipsets a month entering 2019, Spirit saw the grounding of the Max reduce its output to zero over the course of a month.

“[The Max grounding] was pretty dramatic for Spirit,” said Young. “We were producing exceptionally high levels one month until the next month we were asked to produce nothing. It was seismic. We as a supply chain team talk about the resiliency in the supply chain and the ability to get up from a punch. You have to have that. And the aerospace supply chain is known for doing that because there are vagaries and cycles in this industry.”

While Bloomberg’s Ferguson characterized raw materials shortages as less of a concern than components, companies without the good fortune to have stockpiled supply lost access to a major source of titanium due to Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. As large airframers benefitted from an accumulation of titanium due to Covid-related production slowdowns, Renton, Washington-based specialty spring manufacturer Renton Coil Spring enjoys no such luxury. The company uses a higher grade of the metal than what owner and CEO Chuck Pepka called the garden variety titanium supplied by Russia’s VMPSO, for example, but its

suppliers continue to struggle to meet their lead time guarantees due mainly to manpower shortages, he explained.

Pepka told AIN that its “best” titanium suppliers now meet their lead time quotes about 40 percent of the time, and the most recent lead time estimate stands at 50 weeks. Consequently, Renton Coil Spring quotes a 52-week lead time for its own customers. Pepka, whose company supplies parts for several programs including the Boeing 737 Max, already had suffered a major interruption to his business with the 19-month grounding of the narrowbody. At its peak employing 88 people, Renton Coil Spring saw its headcount shrink nearly in half at its nadir, said Pepka. It now employs about 55 people, who produce about three-quarters of the volume the company shipped before the 737 Max grounding began in March 2019. Pepka told AIN that he expects his company’s production to return to its 2018 output within about a year and a half.

Shortages Widespread

Meanwhile, Renton Coil Spring’s biggest customer, French tier-one supplier Safran, continues to suffer from shortages of aluminum, steel, and titanium, affecting foundry activities for the company’s entire range of

Liebherr technicians work on an air-conditioning pack at its assembly plant in Toulouse, France.

products. According to Safran CEO Olivier Andriès, the company’s supply chain ranks as its “number one watch item.”

“Our teams are fighting every day to get parts,” Andriès said during the company’s first-quarter earnings call. “We believe that supply chain [constraints] are going to be persistent throughout 2023 and probably also in 2024. Our suppliers are struggling in recruiting people. The main roadblocks are people, equipment, and also raw materials. But I have to say, and this is good news, on the engine side we are not pacing the aircraft assembly lines on [either side] of the Atlantic.”

In the case of Toulouse-based Liebherr Aerospace, not only have the sanctions against Russia disrupted its supply of titanium parts and forgings, they forced the company to stop production at its Nizhny Novgorod factory there. Liebherr also has discontinued the sale and support of aerospace equipment, including spare parts, in the Russian Federation to comply with the international sanctions regime.

“So we had to re-source our Russian supply chain, which we did without impacting the final assembly lines of our customers, which was a huge effort,” Liebherr Aerospace and Transportation managing director and CFO Francois Lehmann told AIN.

Liebherr, whose range of products includes landing gear, air management systems, flight controls, onboard electronics, and gearboxes, has struggled to keep up with production rate increases mainly due to the difficulties it has encountered getting materials and parts on time from its own suppliers.

“It’s a problem of supply, but it’s also a problem of human resources,” he explained. “We have seen also at some of our suppliers a shortage of experienced staff, which is [aggravating] the fact that we are missing some parts. This supply chain crisis is across the board; it’s not only in our industry. At the same time, we have the ramp-up at many of our customers. So the [combination] of going back to normal [from the Covid pandemic] and having this ramp-up has put a lot of pressure on the supply chain.”

As Collins Aerospace reported, Liebherr has seen a particularly tight supply of electronic components such as microprocessors, mainly from Asia. Lehmann, however, expressed some optimism that the shortage will ease within a few months. “We have not seen it yet, but speaking with some colleagues from the industry, some think there is some sort of relief and it’s getting better,” he said. “But the supply chain crisis, in general, will not totally be over before the end of the year. It

will continue to be difficult because we have built up backlogs.”

On limiting the risk of future supply chain crises, Lehmann said he thinks industry players will engage in more dual sourcing of supplies when appropriate to mitigate the effects of geopolitical uncertainty and price fluctuations, for example. “I think for the next programs, the aircraft manufacturers will also look at this a little bit differently,” he noted. “They may also ask their tier ones to make sure to have more backup solutions for the sensitive components. So some of the risk has to be managed by us a little bit differently.”

Thinking Ahead

The UK’s GKN also sees a case for a more proactive approach to supply procurement. “At our facilities in the UK and Sweden we are now trying to think way ahead, trying to understand what skills we will need in 10 years’ time and how we deliver training,” said GKN chief technology officer Russ Dunn. “This is partly what led to the creation of the Global Technology Centers and we’re also looking at ways to use more artificial intelligence.”

Contrary to the sentiments expressed by Collins, for example, GKN chief executive David Paja challenged the notion that the situation has begun to improve.

“There are still significant problems throughout the supply chain and it is a daily fight for many companies that really is not improving in general,” he told AIN. “All OEMs are struggling to get different components and sometimes these issues surprise them [and cause disruption to the manufacturing process]. A lot of the issues are around castings and forgings. The fundamental problem is that the time it takes to get parts can be months in complex supply chains, and we have to sort this.”

Nevertheless, GKN has seen an improvement in its own labor shortage problem after last year struggling with “rehiring struggles,” Paja noted. “We are coping at our [tier one] level but smaller companies are still struggling,” he explained. “Today it is more a case of needing to do more training than on actual shortages of staff. But, overall, we have the scale and the processes we need so that it’s not putting our customers at risk; the impact is mainly in terms of internal disruptions.”

At Safran, people, equipment, and raw materials are its supply chain’s main roadblocks.

MRO outlook sanguine despite big constraints

by Peter Shaw-Smith

While it is facing acute manpower shortages and supply chain constraints, the maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) segment is looking ahead to a brisk decade to compensate for shortfalls caused by Covid-19, according to leading forecasters.

In a 10-year forecast published in February, consulting firm Oliver Wyman estimates the world’s commercial fleet will expand by 33 percent to more than 36,000 aircraft. “Aviation’s global aftermarket, which provides the MRO to keep the fleet flying, expanded 18 percent in 2022 and is expected to grow another 22 percent this year, topping $94 billion—a mere 2 percent below its 2019 peak,” the report said. “By 2033, it will reach $125 billion—a compound annual growth rate of 2.9 percent.”

Mike Stengel, principal of AeroDynamic Advisory, also expressed a bullish outlook for the MRO business. “Despite all the macro challenges faced in 2022—omicron, RussiaUkraine, rolling lockdowns in China—demand in the commercial MRO segment started to hit its stride in 2022 as the ‘hangover’ effects of green-time engines [with little remaining

time to overhaul] and inventory burn-down started to subside,” he told AIN

However, the industry quickly ran into several challenges, including tight labor availability, constraints across the supply chain, record price increases, and teething problems on new-generation engines that resulted in lowerthan-expected reliability or time on-wing.

“Slower-than-expected deliveries prevented older aircraft from being retired; instead, they continued to operate longer and demand more maintenance,” he said. “The delay in retirements has in turn delayed the supply of costeffective used or serviceable material.”

Looking to 2023, he said the industry continued to cope with the same challenges, although some signs of improvement have appeared lately. “Inflation appears to have peaked, actions are being taken to address labor and supply chain bottlenecks, and aircraft deliveries continue to—slowly— improve,” he said. “No one is expecting all of these problems to be solved this year.”

Third-party MRO providers, such as Lufthansa Technik and counterparts in China and Singapore, have all kept busy carving niches and finding ways to serve

international markets, noted Stengel.

“It’s hard to compare all of the major MRO providers on a like-for-like basis because they’ve all defined a focus area for themselves,” he explained. “Lufthansa Technik is perhaps the most ‘global’ MRO integrator in terms of geographic exposure and breadth of services, Singapore continues to be the destination of choice to serve customers outside of China, and Chinese MROs of course focus primarily on serving Chinese customers.”

Stuart Hatcher, chief economist at the UK’s IBA consultancy, cited evidence showing that the success of MRO, and even more pointedly, cargo, offset Lufthansa Group’s dismal airline division performance, which saw an operating loss of €300 million ($322 million) in 2022.

In general, a concentration of services to fewer vendors has left the remaining incumbents stronger. “An example of this was SR Technics exiting the component power-bythe-hour market,” Stengel continued. “Moreover, with airlines so thinly resourced, they will likely rely more heavily on their MRO vendors, which may mean more outsourcing.”

While supply chain constraints in the aftermarket relate mainly to engines, the segment is coping with several inter-connected challenges—including the aforementioned new engine teething problems, lower reliability/ time on-wing for new engines, and strong demand for overhauls on mature engines— that all soak up shop visit capacity and demand for new material, Stengel concluded. z

A Lufthansa Technik mechanic inspects fan blades on a CFM Leap-1A turbofan.

Embraer Defense eyes European expansion

by Reuben F. Johnson

Embraer enters the Paris Airshow following several important achievements this year, but the expansion of the company’s footprint in Europe ranks among the most significant for its defense and security division.

Receipt of the final type certificate for the C-390 Millennium multi-mission jet transport program in April marked perhaps the most noteworthy step toward its European market expansion. The approval o ffi cially confirms the aircraft’s full operational capability (FOC) to perform all the missions specified in its design requirements, lending further credibility to a program that has already borne the fruits of intensive sales efforts on the continent.

“The C-390 has already started a successful international career, with orders from Portugal and Hungary, and more recently the selection by the Netherlands, and we are sure that obtaining the FOC certificate will be another differential for the success of our marketing campaigns,” proclaimed Embraer Defense & Security CEO Bosco da Costa Junior during April’s Latin American Aerospace and Defense exposition (LAAD).

Embraer’s development as a major defense player in the world market received a major boost with the 2014 selection by the Brazilian air force (Força Aérea Brasileira, FAB) of the Swedish Saab FAS-39E/F Gripen for the FX-2/FX-BR program. The contract called for the establishment of a production line in Brazil, which the company inaugurated on May 9 at its manufacturing site at Gavião Peixoto in São Paulo state. This facility also houses the Gripen Design and Development Network (GDDN) and the Gripen Flight Test Center (GFTC) and is the only production site for the Gripen E outside of Sweden.

The original 2014 agreement called for the supply of 36 F-39E/F aircraft (the

designation of the type in FAB service), 28 single-seat E models and eight two-seat F versions. Four of the F-39E models already operate with the FAB.

Saab officials describe the Gripen license-production program as the largest ongoing technology transfer project in the country. The companies now expect to expand their cooperation with an April signing at LAAD of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate on some new business opportunities. Those enhanced engagements include the integration of Saab equipment on-board the KC-390.

“Our two companies have worked together to deliver an outstanding capability for Brazil that will last for decades,” said Saab president and CEO Micael Johansson. “This MoU is an important and gratifying step toward growing that cooperation into new areas between Saab and Embraer that goes beyond Brazil, while maximizing our existing achievements.”

Separately, Embraer has proposed its Super Tucano turboprop attack aircraft for several mission profiles, one to replace aging Russian helicopters in use by armed services of

former Warsaw Pact nations that are now NATO members.

Before Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv’s procurement o ffi cials had evaluated the Embraer platform in place of the NATO aspirant’s Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopters and as a supplement to its close-air support platform.

Unfortunately for Embraer, the effort came to a halt with the beginning of the war. “Embraer conducted a demonstration to the Ukrainian Air Force with the A-29 Super Tucano, as happens with many countries in the world all the time, but currently we don’t have any negotiations to supply the aircraft to Ukraine,” da Costa told AIN

The Embraer official also noted that the company recently launched the A-29N variant. “As we see many application possibilities for the aircraft, several European countries have shown interest in specific aircraft capabilities that we have now introduced with this version, which will include equipment and features to fulfill NATO’s operational requirements,” he explained.

That equipment includes “a new datalink and single-pilot operation” on certain missions, allowing, for example, its use in joint terminal attack controller training missions. “Training devices will also be upgraded to the world’s most demanding standards, including virtual, augmented, and mixed reality,” concluded da Costa. z

Brazil’s Força Aérea Brasileira already operates four Saab Gripen F-39E fighters, part of an agreement for 36 Gripens under a license-production program. The air force also flies the C-390 Millennium.

IAI to launch 777 P2F mods in Abu Dhabi

by Peter Shaw-Smith

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) expects to open its new Abu Dhabi passenger-to-freighter conversion (P2F) facility in the second half of this year. The facility could convert up to 100 Boeing 777-300ERSFs, IAI Aviation Group v-p and general manager Shmuel Kuzi said on the eve of the Paris Airshow.

“We’re going to get the supplemental type certificate [STC] in the third quarter,” he told AIN. “They will start work around June or the beginning of July.”

Etihad Engineering’s site at Abu Dhabi International Airport will serve as the first conversion center IAI opens outside Israel for Boeing 777s. Meanwhile, as of 2024 at the earliest, it expects to perform conversions in Singapore with ST Aero and Sharp Technics in Korea. It also has its sights set on the U.S.

Starting with two lines, and growing to three or even more, Kuzi said Abu Dhabi could one day serve as a center of excellence for conversion. “As of now there are two lines but it will grow and the number will depend on a few factors—such as hangar and facility availability,” he said. “As it grows, we are hoping to convert other aircraft types.”

Kuzi claims customers have placed tens of orders for Boeing 777s. In 2021, Emirates ordered four B777-300ERSFs from IAI. They’ll likely undergo conversion in Abu Dhabi, as will feedstock from the 2019 agreement between IAI

and GE Capital Aviation Services (Gecas) for the conversion of the so-called “Big Twin,” a program to which the lessor originally committed a firm order for 15 and options on another 15.

IAI declined to clarify whether the first B777ERSF handed over for conversion in Abu Dhabi would come from Emirates, the Big Twin program, or from another source, citing the matter’s sensitivity.

“In about two years from now, we will start on the [Airbus] A330,” added Kuzi. “We are already working on the narrowbodies and will begin working on the widebodies which, will likely lead to us opening more facilities. But, for now, we are focused on the four or five that I mentioned.”

IAI will obtain STC approval to convert the A330 from the Civil Aviation Authority of Israel and, through bilateral agreement, the FAA. “We will expand it to EASA and other authorities around the world,” he said.

Work has already begun on a Boeing 767 conversion at a site at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport. “Serbia is the site for B767s and as of now; there is one aircraft in the advanced stages and there is already another one waiting on the line,” Kuzi said.

Chris Seymour, head of market analysis at Ascend by Cirium in London, said freight traffic has slowed recently as economic headwinds had hit trade. However, he noted 2023 would be a record year for conversions as e-commerce and replacement needs

generated a demand for about 200.

“Orders for conversions have been slowing— we saw some 270 announced in 2022, down 100 over a year earlier, and 30 announced to date in 2023,” he told AIN. “Backlog is around 520. There are some customers now deciding to defer conversions, and 2023 could well be the peak for conversions in the current cycle.”

Top converters, based on the announced backlog, include Elbe Flugzeugwerke at 26 percent, IAI at 24 percent, Boeing at 18 percent, Aeronautical Engineers at 12 percent, and Precision Conversions at 9 percent. New players developing STCs included Fort Worth, Texas-based Mammoth and Kansas Modification Center on the 777, Embraer on E-Jets, Nanchang, China-headquartered Sine Draco and San Diego’s C Cubed on A320s/A321s, and the UK’s Avensis on A330s.

“Of the 146 jets converted in 2022, 81 were done in Asia—63 in China and 18 in Singapore,” said Seymour. “It is expected that close to 200 conversions will be done in 2023—60 were already done by early May—as extra lines are being opened. For example, we recently saw the first A330 conversions at Starco in Shanghai and Boeing is adding a 737-800 BCF line at GMR in Hyderabad.”

Seymour believes the 737-800 will lead all conversions again in 2023, at a projected 80 aircraft, as more airlines look to add the type. He said the convertible feedstock of 767 and 757 models has begun drying up, leading to an inevitable market shift to the 777 and A330.

“The 757 is winding down in the next two years, with the market shifting to the A321; the 767 still has a good backlog in 2023 and 2024 but the focus is now shifting to the A330, which has two more programs [IAI and Avensis] in development to join EFW,” he said. z

The first IAI cargo-converted B777-300ER takes off from Tel Aviv in June.

Adaptive-cycle engine battle powering up

by Reuben F. Johnson

A repeat of one of the historical moments in the competition between the two major U.S. aero-engine firms—Pratt & Whitney and GE Aviation—is shaping up. This time the battle is over which company will build the U.S. Air Force (USAF) adaptive-cycle engine.

GE designed, built, and tested the XA100 under the Adaptive Engine Transition Program. As one GE representative explained, it represents the basis for the sixth generation of propulsion systems for the U.S. military. The resulting production standard model derived from the XA100 would be the company’s bid for the USAF project.

Both the GE XA100 and Pratt’s analogous program, the XA101, serve as prototypes for the variable-cycle engine to power the USAF Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter. The two firms developed the design under the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) engine program. At the same time Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman are carrying out propulsion integration contracts.

One of the two engine models will power the NGAD. The sixth-generation fighter aircraft will replace the F-22A, expected to begin its sunset years at the end of the decade. The aircraft, however, will likely set records in terms of the price per unit due to the multitude of complex technologies integral to its design.

That fact might mean the aircraft does not get built in very large numbers and, like the F-22, it might not be sold to any export customers either. However, the engine needs to be built in far greater quantity than the NGAD program will require to “adequately amortize the immense investment in the development of this engine,” said one long-time defense analyst specializing in low-observable aircraft who spoke to AIN on the condition of anonymity.

“What the engine needs is to be utilized in a secondary application on a fighter that is to be built over a far longer production run,” he added. “This means it needs to become the second—or rather the ‘new’ engine for F-35.” A decision to integrate a new engine into the F-35 would make it part of the aircraft’s configuration from the Block IV variants and beyond.

non-afterburning version of the engine designated F118 powered the B-2 Stealth Bomber.)

The production configuration engine developed from the XA100 or XA101 program, therefore, was proposed as a replacement for the Pratt F135 that powers the F-35 today. The issue—as with almost every major configuration change made in the history of an aircraft—centers on money. Current Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has stated that developing and installing a new adaptivecycle engine could cost as much as $6 billion to the F-35 program.

Outside of the economies of scale created by a much larger production run, two lines of argument dictate an engine change for the F-35.

One involves the performance enhancements for the F-35 created by a next- generation-technology engine. An adaptive-cycle engine can reconfigure itself midflight, which can improve specific fuel consumption by 25 percent and increase thrust by up to 20 percent as well. The F-35’s growth weight, which designers expect with any aircraft program over time, will require some increase in performance to retain the current thrust-to-weigh t ratio.

In the 1980s, the two jet engine houses fought the “Great Engine War,” which was a battle by GE to get their design on board the F-16. Until the C/D series of the famous U.S. fighter, Pratt’s F100 engine enjoyed a monopoly on the aircraft. GE proposed a fighter engine-compatible version of the engine it had designed for the B-1 bomber, originally called the F101 Derivative Fighter Engine (DFE) and later re-designated the F110.

GE then saw decades of orders for the F110, which became the engine of choice for the USAF F-16s and numerous export customer nations. The latest versions of the engine produce 32,500 pounds of thrust. (A

The other train of thought centers on finding a solution to problems with the F-135 engine. Deliveries halted in December 2022 due to the crash of an F-35B. Pratt isolated the problem as one of vibration, o ffi cially labeled “harmonic resonance,” as the cause. A modification to reduce the problem has gained approval to resume production, but a plan to retrofit the engines already in service remains a requirement.

There are those, however, who discount the need for a new engine. Pratt’s own F135 program director, Jennifer Latka, has argued that adaptive-cycle engines are not compatible with the F-35 and should be reserved for the NGAD. Pratt, instead, has proposed a design change in the form of an engine core upgrade for the F135.

But GE insists that the F-135 engine, which is itself an adaptation of the F-22’s F119 engine, is not adequate, and the adaptive-cycle engine should become the new propulsion system solution in its place. The Great Engine War might resume before we know it. z

GE built the XA100 engine under the Adaptive Engine Transition Program, and this engine would form the basis for U.S. military sixth-generation propulsion systems.

ATR touts strong growth prospects

by Cathy Buyck

ATR plans to announce several orders at the Paris Air Show, marking a return of growth for the airframer after a couple of difficult years caused by the pandemic and a slowerthan-anticipated production ramp-up due to post-Covid supply chain and staffing bottlenecks. The European turboprop manufacturer expressed confidence it can deliver at least 40 new aircraft and sell more than 40 aircraft this year. Those figures represent a sizable increase in its performance in 2022, when it shipped 25 new and 11 used aircraft and inked orders for just 26 new aircraft.

“We never doubted the market for and the fundamentals of the ATR turboprop, not even on the darkest days of Covid,” noted ATR senior v-p of commercial Fabrice Vautier. “Now we have to provide proof of our belief.”

Customers in Asia and South America account for most of the orders secured this year, said Vautier. This year’s orders also reflect an evolution of the market, he added. While most of the customers signed in 2021 aimed to replace aging fleets, orders placed in recent months support growth, especially in Asia. “What we see is that there are very limited replacement orders so far this year,” he remarked.

This year’s order intake includes purchases of the ATR 42-600S, the short take-off and landing (STOL) variant of the ATR 42-600 regional turboprop capable of operating from runways as short as 800 meters (2,600 feet). ATR expects entry into service of the ATR 42-600S at the end of 2024 or early 2025.

The STOL variant marks part of ATR’s strategy of continuous incremental product development—which resulted in the launch of the purpose-built ATR 72-600F freighter and the introduction of the new Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127XT engine series—aimed at maintaining its leadership position in the market segment that covers up to 90 seats.

In the 30- to 70-seat segment, ATR is the only OEM producing new passenger aircraft.

ATR’s main turboprop competitor, De Havilland of Canada, halted production of the

Dash 8-400 during the Covid pandemic and in September last year said it was working toward reintroducing the aircraft into production at its new facility in Wheatland County, Alberta.

Deutsche Aircraft continues the development of the 40-seat D328eco airliner, which will feature new PW127XT-S engines. However, the company expects certification of the aircraft only in the second half of 2026.

Data points to a strong recovery of the global ATR in-service passenger fleet. Globally, ATR aircraft fly 97 percent of pre-Covid available seat kilometers (ASKs), according to Vautier. The pace of recovery differs by region. Europe leads the recovery, and ASKs aboard ATR aircraft have reached 107 percent of June 2019 levels. Africa, which is a small market for ATR, stands at 95 percent of pre-Covid ASKs, and Asia, which was slow to lift travel restrictions, has reached 98 percent. Within Asia, however, the pace of recovery remains uneven. Capacity flown with ATR aircraft continues to grow quickly in South Asia, particularly in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, and ASKs have exceeded pre-Covid levels by 78 percent. Other parts of Asia show much slower recovery patterns.

In Indonesia, for example, only half of the 120 ATRs that flew in the country before Covid have re-entered service. According to Vautier, supply chain disruptions at maintenance providers have slowed the large Indonesian ATR fleet’s pace of return to service.

ATR continues working on its hybridelectric ATR Evo and the OEM expects to have a clearer view of the engine application by the end of the year. “We still target a launch in 2025 and entry into service in 2030,” Vautier said. “Our objective for the Evo is twofold: lowering the ATR platform’s operating costs and improving its environmental credentials.”

Vautier acknowledged that several startups already have started working on new ways to power regional turboprops, including hydrogen-fuel cells, electric, or hybridelectric. “It is comforting us that turboprops are considered a technology of the future,” he said. “We see no impact on our sales. Unlike the big blue-chip airlines, our customers do not plan their fleets five, six, or seven years ahead. They buy for delivery in the next two years. It will take more than two years to have a hydrogen-powered aircraft certified.” z

An ATR 72-600 powered by Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127 turboprops flew on 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel during a demonstration last June. The company expects to further boost its environmental credentials with the launch of the hybrid-electric Evo in 2025.

GKN spends big to chase net zero technology leadership role

by Charles Alcock

Pressure for the aviation industry to achieve net zero carbon goals represent a huge business opportunity for major tier-one manufacturers like GKN Aerospace. The group says that green technology will increasingly dominate its product portfolio and the focus of its many partnerships.

In a press briefing ahead of this year’s Paris Air Show, GKN’s CEO David Paja told reporters that already 90 percent of its approximately $3 billion in annual revenues relates to the decarbonization of the industry. “ICAO’s commitment to achieving net zero by 2050 [at its 41st assembly in October 2022] gave us a detailed path to how to get there in terms of technologies,” he said.

In April, GKN resolved to practice what it preaches by committing to achieving reductions in emissions across its business as defined and verified by the independent Science Based Targets organization. “Previously we have set our own [emissions reduction] targets within the global agreement to stay within the 1.5-degree increase [in the earth’s temperature] but now we will achieve this with external validation,” explained chief technology officer Rus s Dunn.

Five years after GKN’s acquisition by investment group Melrose Industries, the company continues to make big investments in both new technologies and the skills base needed to bring them to market. At the time of the March 2018 deal, critics predicted Melrose would pursue an asset-stripping strategy and push for a quick return on its £8 billion ($10.1 billion) spend. This outlook could not have taken account of the Covid pandemic’s profound effect on the aerospace sector, but Paja pointed out that under Melrose’s ownership research and development investments have actually increased by between 25 and 30 percent.

The imminent opening of GKN’s fourth Global Technical Center (GTC) in Dallas lends evidence of that commitment. A partnership with Oak Ridge Lab and Northrop Grumman will focus mainly on new additive manufacturing techniques for large military aircraft parts, and, Paja predicted, will give the UK-based company improved access to U.S. defense contracts.

The GTCs concentrate GKN’s technological expertise around centers of excellence based in various regions. The other facilities are located in Trollhättan, Sweden (specializing in additive manufacturing), Bristol, UK (next-generation wing technology and hydrogen propulsion systems), and Hoogeveen, The Netherlands (advanced thermoplastics and high-voltage electrification).

The fruits of the investments appear increasingly ready for harvest. For instance, later this year, GKN’s facility in Sweden will start production of a new fan case mount ring for Pratt & Whitney’s PW1500 geared

turbofan engine using new laser metal deposition techniques that significantly reduce waste. Until now, producing this load-carrying part has involved a 440-kg (968-pound) titanium forging from which around 90 percent of the materials were machined out. Now the process will begin with a slim forged ring with flanges created using additive manufacturing techniques.

The laser metal deposition process involves a robot arm depositing titanium wire with a laser used to ensure greater precision. When serial production starts in the fourth quarter of 2023, the process would reduce the number of materials used by 72 percent and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the manufacturing process by 6.5 tonnes.

According to Dunn, GKN’s strategy will see it expand the use of additive manufacturing, for which the acquisition in 2022 of Permanova significantly enhances its capabilities. GKN will use it to make cases, structures, and ducts. Environmental sustainability apart,

GKN’s fiber-placement machine is just one of the tools it views as key to reducing waste and emissions in aircraft manufacturing and reducing weight in structural applications.

the company expects its use will improve the efficiency and robustness of an aerospace supply chain that remains constrained in the post-Covid environment.

GKN expects to continue supporting key client and partner Airbus in its e ff orts to define the scope for a next-generation narrowbody airliner to build on its ubiquitous A320 family. It has now delivered all three shipsets of the Wing of Tomorrow technology demonstrator units, which feature a fully-integrated trailing edge that Dunn said is the industry’s largest resin transfer mold unit. Under the European Union-backed CleanSky2 project, it has also delivered the so-called Stunning Fuselage concept to Airbus, which it says represents a one-tonne weight savings in materials.

Seeking to become a key player in efforts to bring new propulsion technologies to market, GKN believes that they could remove 60 percent of CO2 emissions and increase the range and payload of electric aircraft. Dunn mapped out a progression that he expected to see start

with the entry into service of the first eVTOL and eSTOL aircraft in 2025, followed by the eventual application of liquid hydrogen for single-aisle airliners by 2040.

This week, eVTOL aircraft developer Supernal, which is part of South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group, is appointing GKN as a key partner to design and build the wings, booms, and empennage for a four-passenger vehicle it aims to bring to market in 2026, as well as supplying the electrical wiring system and transparencies.

GKN is involved in several other programs in the fast-emerging advanced air mobility sector, including Vertical Aerospace’s VX-4 eVTOL model and Eviation’s Alice fixed-wing aircraft, for which it provides fully integrated wings, empennage, and electrical wiring.

Through the H2Gear program now running through 2026, GKN’s Bristol GTC leads a collaboration to demonstrate a system that could deliver 1 MW of power for a 40-seat regional airliner starting in the

New Hall Three delivers more space, less CO2

In the four years since the Paris Air Show was last staged at the Le Bourget site in June 2019, the most visible change by far is the exhibition center’s new Hall 3. The eye-catching structure has taken seven years to build and was completed on January 31.

The ambitious expansion has boosted the available space for exhibiting companies by 60 percent from 12,040 sq m to 19,260 sq m (207,319 sq ft), which covers more than the area of three soccer pitches. To give more scope for much larger exhibits, the height of the ceiling has increased from five to nine meters.

Given higher expectations for major events like international air shows to have a much lower carbon footprint, environmental sustainability has been a major guiding principle

for the Hall 3 project. The new structure is built around a 20,000-sq-m wood framework that used 2,400 cubic meters of wood.

According to show organizers SIAE, all aspects of construction were conducted in accordance with the latest High Quality Environmental and Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology certification requirements.

Over the 200,000 person-hours worked on the project, around 20,000 focused on what the company calls “social and professional” integration.

As much as 94 percent of materials cleared during the demolition of the former Hall 3 structure were reused, and 65 percent exclusively on the Le Bourget construction site. The new building’s carbon footprint has been

late 2020s. The powertrain would consist of a cryogenic drive, fuel cells, and energy storage systems for both hydrogen and the electricity produced to power new turboprop engines.

GKN also participates in related technology programs including H2Jet (hydrogen combustion architecture), Ascend (enabling materials and manufacturing), and HyFive (liquid hydrogen fuel systems). It aims to have a flight test proposal for a liquid hydrogen-powered regional aircraft under development by 2029 as the basis for scaling the technology to larger aircraft in the 2030s.

In the meantime, GKN continues preparations to increase its production footprint in China with the opening in the next few months of a new aerostructures factory under a joint venture with the country’s aerospace groups Comac and Avic. Plans call for the 861,000-sq-ft facility, located in Jingjiang, to employ around 1,000 people, and in the same city, GKN also makes aircraft transparencies at a new site. z

assessed at less than 16 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, which factors in the amount of CO2 produced from the consumption of fossil fuels during the building effort and also the environmental impact of producing cement for construction.

The new Hall 3 is making its public debut for the Paris Air Show. The building is set to star on an even bigger stage next year when, along with the whole Paris-Le Bourget Exhibition Center, it hosts the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. Hall 3 will house the main media center for the games. C.A.

The new Hall 3 at the Paris Air Show features a frame made with 2,400 cubic meters of wood.

AI drives technology for Raytheon sensor

by Reuben F. Johnson

Raytheon vice president for surveillance and targeting systems Torrey Cady opened a briefing held before the Paris Airshow with a summation of the environment in which today’s warfighters find themselves. “The threat drives capability requirements, and we need new solutions to support multi-domain operations,” he declared.

Cady was speaking about the company’s launch of Raiven, described by the defense conglomerate as a revolutionary electrooptical intelligent-sensing capability that gives pilots faster and more precise threat identification. Designed to identify objects in real-time, Raiven combines both optical and spectral data with artificial intelligence (AI), a new capability for these types of systems.

Raytheon coined the name for the system, as one of the designers said, as a play on words. “We wanted the system to have a name of something that is normally airborne, but we also wanted to use the initials ‘AI’ to symbolize how the data is processed,” h e noted.

Explaining the design drivers, Cady pointed out that conflicts have shifted from low intensity to the current day. “That tells us the ‘who’ we might have to fight,” he said. “The capabilities they might have and what we will require changes the ‘how.’ In the next fight, we expect the air domain to be highly contested with multiple e ffectors and platforms. We will be dealing with hundreds of threats at once and will need to ID those threats faster than our adversaries.”

Raiven’s “intelligent-sensing” capability uses a synthesis of artificial intelligence, hyperspectral imaging, and light detection and ranging, or lidar, which enables operators to see up to five times farther and clearer than traditional EO packages, according to the system’s design team. The capability enhances platform survivability and gives warfighters a

time-to-decision advantage over peer threats.

One member of the design team also explained the battlefield multiplier effect inherent in the Raiven design. Integrated processing technology combines multiple streams of data in a manner previousgeneration sensors couldn’t.

Integrating advanced imaging of a special chemical signature or the material makeup of an object is a key feature. Raiven then analyses the object in pixel form and at stand-off range provides an identification and resolution in seconds rather than minutes.

the warfighter safe by providing accurate, persistent target observation coupled with accelerated information sharing. This enables a decision-making process that simultaneously reduces pilot workload while accelerating engagement decisions to prosecute targets much faster than adversaries.”

Using AI, Raiven synthesizes reams of data into a detailed battlespace picture. The technology automatically detects and identifies threats, providing a level of automation for the operator to choose what decisions he or she needs to make, which offers a critical tactical advantage and dramatically reduces operator workload.

The Raiven design is a modular, openarchitecture system and is a new-generation evolution of RTX’s previous design and combat-proven multi-spectral targeting system product line. But engineers accomplished it all without an increase in dimensions, weight, or power requirements.

The first major product line from the Raiven project, RT-1000, supports a broad spectrum of missions that includes the U.S. Army’s Future Vertical Lift modernization program. Plans call for the first flight in support of that effort to occur in 2024.

Intelligent sensing allows Raytheon’s artificialintelligence-driven Raiven to detect a variety of threats based on the smallest pieces of data then share that information with pilots to help speed up engagement decision-making.

“Traditional EO systems would not see behind foliage,” he explained. “But what if an armored vehicle is hiding behind foliage, but a small corner of the vehicle is protruding out from behind this cover? The Raiven can detect that single spectral piece of metal and ID the target from extrapolating off that small visible edge of the vehicle.”

“The future battlespace will consist of a myriad of threats evolving at an unprecedented pace,” added Cady. “Raiven keeps

Jake Ullrich, RTX director and chief engineer of surveillance and targeting systems, called Raiven’s design a “truly nextgeneration” architecture. “In designing the system we started with the customer’s mission in mind, but with the overriding concept this would be more than just a single system,” he explained. “In developing the concept for Raiven our goals were a system architecture that we could use on any platform. It was not intended to be just a single subsystem—not just one piece of kit, but the intention was for the Raiven to be platform agnostic, scalable, and adaptable to multiple mission applications.”

The Raiven team members have several near-term “targets” in mind, such as the Army’s Future Vertical Lift mission. The technology is a “perfect fit, as it is replacing federated systems into an integrated package, and we were able to package optics that have a 40 percent greater resolution in the same-sized space of previous systems,” said Ullrich. z

French design on display at Dassault

by Cathy Buyck

Dassault Aviation is displaying its Falcon 8X, 6X, and 2000LXS as well as full-scale models of the Next-Generation Fighter and the Falcon 10X cabin mock-up at this year’s Paris Airshow. The 6X will take to the skies during the show— flown by Dassault test pilots—using a blend of 30 percent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as part of Dassault’s commitment to reach netzero carbon emissions in 2050. The 10X will become the first 100 percent SAF-compatible Falcon when it enters service, likely in 2026 due to supply chain strains.

The Dassault static display will also feature a building dedicated to its collaborative air combat solutions and customer support services. On the military side, the Armée de l’Air et de l’Espace (French air and space force) will demonstrate the Rafale in flight.

“This 54th Paris Air Show will illustrate how

we are looking to the future of our two main activities: military aviation, which defends our country and its allies and contributes to France’s sovereignty and Europe’s strategic autonomy, and business aviation, which connects companies with ever-greater efficiency, safety, and control of its environmental footprint, thanks in particular to SAF,” commented Eric Trappier, chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation.

Dassault Aviation also will appear at the Paris Air Lab, an exploration area dedicated to innovation, where company experts will exhibit work on decarbonized air transport and 4.0 production methods.

The company also will participate in the

“L’Avion des Métiers” (professional careers airplane) and in the “L’Aéro Recrute” recruitment operation as the industry struggles to hire sufficient talent. The Dassault stand will feature a human resources section where people interested in aeronautical professions can consider career opportunities. Dassault Aviation this year plans to recruit 1,000 employees in all fields, including design, production, support, and digital.

Dassault is collaborating with partners that help it advance the sector’s commitment to promoting diversity, encouraging women to take up technical and scientific careers, and supporting the retraining of disabled people in the aeronautical sector. z

More support needed for net-zero goal

by Peter Shaw-Smith

A global survey commissioned by GE Aerospace reveals broad industry alignment on sustainability but underscores the need for accelerated support to meet 2050 net-zero goals.

Survey findings showed that a large majority of companies have implemented sustainability policies. Seventy-six percent of respondents said that sustainability had changed how the industry works and 74 percent of those with such strategies in place said their sustainability

investments would grow or remain the same, even in the face of inflation or recession.

Some 30 percent of respondents said that meeting decarbonization goals ranks as a top industry challenge, with supply chain issues at 19 percent and labor issues at 11 percent.

Global market research company Ipsos carried out the research in May involving 325 middle or higher senior managers running aviation, aerospace, transport, logistics, or travel companies with more than 100 employees and annual revenues of $5 million.

GE said it is meeting sustainability challenges by collaborating with customers to accelerate near-term uptake of alternative fuels and “looking ahead to identify long-term opportunities for the future of flight.”

“These results show that the aviation industry is focused on the goal of achieving net zero CO2 emissions by 2050, while also recognizing the need to accelerate efforts and ensure all key stakeholders are on the playing field,” said Allen Paxson, GE Aerospace v-p and general manager of commercial programs strategy. z

A trio of currentproduction Dassault Falcon jets graces the company’s Paris Airshow static display, which also features a cabin mock-up of the ultra-longrange 10X.

DAVID M c INTOSH

P&W measures engine emissions

Pratt & Whitney has teamed with scientists at Virginia Tech University to develop a tool for measuring thrust and emissions from gas turbine engines using lasers. The new technique, known as “filtered Rayleigh scattering for thrust measurement” (FRST), enables high-fidelity measurements of key parameters such as velocity, temperature, and density.

New Diamond trainer sparkles in Paris

by David Donald

Diamond Aircraft’s new Dart-750 turboprop trainer is making its public debut at the Paris Airshow just days after completing its first flight. The aircraft took off from the company’s Wiener Neustadt headquarters for its inaugural sortie on June 12. Head of flight test Sören Pedersen and senior test pilot Niko Daroussis flew the aircraft for 30 minutes and performed basic maneuvers and handling checks.

“This flight marks another major milestone in the Dart-750 program and demonstrates the entire team’s hard and excellent work in getting it achieved,” said Robert Kremnitzer, head of Diamond’s design organization. “The positive results make us confident in moving forward with the program as intended.”

The Dart-750 is the latest and most powerful iteration of the Austrian trainer evolution that began with the Dart-450, which first flew in 2016 powered by a Ukrainian Ivchenko-Progress AI-450S engine. The Dart-550 followed in 2018 with a 550-shp

General Electric H75-100. In January 2022 Diamond announced a strategic decision to switch to the 750-shp Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-25C turboprop, resulting in the Dart-750.

In addition to the new engine, which drives a five-blade composite MT propeller, the latest Dart trainer comes with Garmin G3000 avionics. The cockpit features dual 14.1-inch high-resolution displays, a 5.7-inch high-resolution GTC 575 touchscreen controller, and synthetic vision technology. The aerobatic all-composite airframe is rated for +6/-4 g loads. It can fly for 3.5 hours and reach a top speed of 265 knots. The aircraft can include Martin-Baker ejection seats as a n option.

Diamond is offering the Dart-750 as part of a basic training platform that also includes a proprietary Dart FNPT II simulator and computer-based training systems. The aircraft is one of the types under consideration for Belgium’s requirement to replace the SIAI-Marchetti SF.260. The company expects EASA certification in 2024. z

According to Raytheon subsidiary Pratt & Whitney, the FRST technique o ers several advantages over traditional sensors and probes, which can cause blockages in airflow and are often di cult to install, especially on smaller engine cores with limited space.

“The ability to use lasers and optical sensors represents a major step forward in engine instrumentation technology,” said Geo Hunt, Pratt & Whitney senior v-p of engineering and technology.

FRST relies on a basic physics principle called Rayleigh scattering, which refers to the way light interacts with particles in the atmosphere. To apply that to the measurement of thrust, the researchers illuminated the gas flow field of a turbine engine with a laser beam of ultraviolet light to observe how the light interacts with the flow of particles. Researchers measure the results using a high-performance camera.

Pratt & Whitney and Virginia Tech have already tested their patent-pending FRST technology using a research engine on a test stand, and the team is now working toward a flight-test campaign. The researchers say FRST could facilitate the development of more e cient engines that produce fewer emissions. It could also enable precise measurement of non-CO 2 emissions, including nitrogen oxides, ozone, and contrail clouds—pollutants that also contribute to climate change. H.W.

The Diamond Aircraft Dart-750 adds more power to the aerobatic trainer.

DAVID M c INTOSH

Future fliers flock to Paris, prep for Olympics

by Charles Alcock

Paris will host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in just 13 months, and many expect the spectacle to include a demonstration of the potential for new eVTOL aircraft to transform how people and things move in and around congested cities. The number of electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles in development—most of which will carry four passengers—has become almost too large to track and many of the fledgling programs will likely never make it to market.

Around 11 of the frontrunners in the so-called advanced air mobility (AAM) sector have come to the French capital this week to give many Paris Airshow visitors their first glimpse of the new eVTOLs. Most will occupy the Paris Air Mobility zone in Hall 5. The companies include Archer, Ascendance Flight Technologies, AutoFlight, EHang, Eve, Joby, Lilium, Supernal, Overair, Wisk Aero, and Volocopter.

Germany-based Volocopter is one of some 30 companies participating in the Re.Invent Air Mobility exercise for the Paris Olympic Games with its two-seat VoloCity vehicle. It aims to achieve EASA type certification in 2024 and intends to operate flights of no more than 35 km (22 miles) around urban areas. The company’s VC-200 prototype will participate in the flying display at Le Bourget.

Supernal Targets 60-mile Sectors

Supernal, the AAM division of South Korean automotive group Hyundai, plans to appoint several new partners for bringing its four-passenger SA-1 eVTOL into commercial service in 2028. Like several other of the new AAM players, the company initially plans to operate the vehicle on air taxi flights of up to 60 miles around cities such as Miami before selling it to other companies.

Ascendance Flight Technologies represents France’s main prospect in the AAM sector, and the Toulouse-based company’s hybrid-electric Atea aircraft should also

feature prominently in the Olympic Games. Atea will fly to a significantly longer range than battery-electric eVTOLs, traveling up to around 400 km (250 miles).

Eve Air Mobility brought a mock-up of its eVTOL cabin to Paris, having unveiled it at the July 2022 Farnborough International show at the start of a world tour. Visitors can put on a virtual reality headset to get a feel for the experience of riding in the new air taxis.

The public company, in which Brazilian airframer Embraer is the majority shareholder, has reported provisional sales agreements for some 2,770 aircraft, for which the company expects deliveries to start in 2026. Eve also is developing software for urban air traffic management.

Lilium also has brought a cabin mock-up to Paris, showing for the first time the standard six-passenger configuration meant for scheduled regional shuttle services of up to 155 miles.

start flight testing the prototype for its Butterfly eVTOL aircraft, using a version without tilting rotors to test its vertical flight capability, before adding the tilting mechanism on a second prototype. Chief commercial officer Valerie Manning, who joined the start-up last year from Airbus, told AIN the Butterfly will feature a larger (five-passenger) cabin and more baggage space than most eVTOL designs. The company plans to get its own air operator certificate to launch services that could include emergency medical flights and cargo deliveries.

From China but with a research and development operation in Germany, AutoFlight is showcasing the cabin interior for its Prosperity I eVTOL model. In March, the company claimed a world record for the longest eVTOL flight to date, logging a distance of 156.5 miles in its Generation 4 prototype, just beating the previous best set by Joby in a July 2021 test flight.

No Pilot On Board

In the Chinese market itself, EHang has long indicated it expects to become the first to secure domestic type certification this year. The company is displaying an example of its two-seat EH216 autonomous aerial vehicle that it says

Volocopter is one of several advanced air mobility companies that will participate in the Re.Invent Mobility demonstration during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

The all-electric Lilium Jet derives its power from 30 ducted fans installed in its wing and canard.

In May, Archer completed the assembly of the first prototype for its four-passenger Midnight eVTOL, with which the company plans to conduct its first test flight later this summer in Salinas, California. The company, which has just recruited former FAA administrator Billy Nolen as its chief safety officer, expects to start certification testing early in 2024 as it tries to ready the piloted aircraft for commercial service in 2025.

Also in California, Overair is preparing to

will soon win approval to begin pilotless flights for applications such as tourist sightseeing trips.

Wisk, which recently became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Boeing, also believes in the need for autonomous operations to make eVTOL aircraft viable. The company, which is displaying its so-called Generation 6 prototype at Le Bourget, accepts that getting an autonomous vehicle approved by key Western regulators will take more time but feels that when it does come to market, the case for its 90-milerange model will prove compelling. z

DAVID M c INTOSH

Carbon cuts

World Meteorological Organization now says the 1.5 C do-not-exceed limit will be breached, spurring demands for tougher action across all industries.

According to a report published on Friday by McKinsey, as of April just 25 airlines, mainly in the Americas and Europe, have set themselves independently verifiable goals backed by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). The SBTi program has laid out a path for aviation to make a tangible contribution to staying within the 1.5 C climate change limit by achieving a 30 percent cut in carbon dioxide (CO2) per revenue tonne-kilometer by 2030 (compared with 2019 levels). The bar then rises to a 50 percent reduction by 2035.

Aside from increased use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and modernization of air traffic management to eliminate wasteful routings, fleet replacement represents a key pathway, according to McKinsey.

In the dark depths of the Covid pandemic in September 2020, Airbus served up a ray of hope by announcing its ZeroE plan to bring hydrogen-powered airliners to market by the second half of the 2030s. More recently, the European group confirmed plans to develop a successor to its ubiquitous A320 family of single-aisle airliners that CEO Guillaume Faury has said will have to achieve a 20 to 25 percent cut in fuel burn. It is actively exploring new propulsion options for the program, which will run in tandem with ZeroE, and they notably include CFM International’s Rise open fan/rotor engine.

The JetZero blended wing body uses relatively traditional technology to build an airplane that could weigh about half of an equivalent aircraft.

Boeing has yet to deviate beyond offering incremental improvements to its current aircraft while sticking to the mantra that SAF will eventually become more readily available and usable in increasingly reduced-carbon blends. Still, the U.S. group is accelerating its work with NASA on a transonic truss-braced wing concept, now designated as the X-66A.

Late last year, Brazil’s Embraer rejigged the priorities for its Energia future aircraft program to focus primarily on various hybrid-electric and hydrogen fuel cell-based concepts. The first fruits of the effort will likely be new regional airliners seating between 19 and 30 passengers that would start entering service in 2030.

But airlines may soon have a somewhat left-field alternative to consider in the sustainability stakes. A start-up called JetZero is pressing the case for a blended wing body (BWB) airliner that it insists offers air carriers an assured fast track to cutting fuel burn and carbon emissions in half.

The California-based company is building suppliers and funding for plans to bring a 250-passenger aircraft with over 5,000 nm range to market by the early 2030s. It says the aircraft can use existing engines and avionics and will be viable with or without SAF.

While other airframers’ plans to “go green” largely hinge on the next big advance in propulsion technology, for JetZero it’s all about the BWB’s entirely different aerodynamics, which the company says fundamentally circumvents the all-drag-no-lift characteristics of conventional tube-and-wing airframes. It claims all aspects of the BWB architecture deliver lift and result in an airframe weighing about half of equivalent aircraft (see sidebar). z

JetZero’s Concept

Though only incorporated in 2022, JetZero traces its origins to McDonnell Douglas’s work on blended wing body (BWB) concepts back in the 1990s, which was led by JetZero founder and chief technology o cer Mark Page. His company, Dzyne Technologies, continued to advance BWB technology through projects backed by NASA, and JetZero owns the intellectual property that he says will deliver an oven-ready solution to air transport’s urgent need for a quantum leap in emissions reduction.

“There are two bits of magic here,” Page told AIN . “One is the lift-to-drag ratio with much less surface area than the 1990s [BWB] aircraft, and the structure is also very light thanks to NASA research that proved it is possible to make a fail-safe structure.”

Page said Boeing, Airbus, and Embraer all declined o ers to collaborate in a BWB program, leading JetZero to forge an alliance with Northrop Grumman’s Scaled Composites unit, which will build and test a full-scale prototype expected to fly in 2027. “Each of them thought the concept was too close to them and their positions in the middle marketplace, and so we realized we would have to do this with partners who already have scale in terms of tooling and production capability,” he said.

At the Paris Air Show, JetZero is conducting a packed schedule of meetings with prospective Tier 1 suppliers that may sign up as risk-sharing partners in the program, and with airlines.

A key player in the latter discussions is Nina Jonsson, the former head of fleet strategy with Air France/KLM, who has previously held similar roles at airlines including United and Icelandair. She believes her peers are in for a very pleasant surprise.

“For the last three decades, 80 percent of the job has involved figuring out ways to make airlines more profitable and burn

continues on page 54

JetZero concept

GE/Safran joint-venture CFM sees open rotor technology as a once-ageneration leap to improve aircraft fuel efficiency by 20 percent compared with current engines.

Supercomputer helps GE evaluate engine tech

by Chad Trautvetter

When it comes to exploring whether openfan engine technology can deliver a giant leap in aircraft fuel efficiency, GE Aerospace is crunching the numbers. For the effort, the company became the first business to use the U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Frontier supercomputer, the world’s fastest such machine.

To model open-fan engine performance and noise levels, GE Aerospace created software capable of operating on Frontier. By coupling its computational fluid dynamics software with the supercomputer that can process more than a quintillion calculations per second, GE managed to simulate air movement of a full-scale open-fan design in minute detail.

“Developing game-changing aircraft engines requires game-changing technical capabilities. With supercomputing, GE Aerospace engineers are redefining the future of flight and solving problems that would have previously been impossible,” said GE Aerospace v-p and general manager of engineering Mohamed Ali. “Together with the U.S. Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, we are showing supercomputing to be a revolutionary tool for designing aircraft engines for a once-in-a-generation step change in improved

fuel efficiency—critical for helping the aviation industry toward its target of net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050.”

In 2021, GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines unveiled the CFM Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines (Rise) program. Rise includes the development of advanced engine architectures such as the open fan along with advanced thermal management, combustion, and hybrid-electric technology. Under Rise, the companies aim to develop technologies that enable a future engine to achieve at least 20 percent lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions compared with the most efficient engines available today.

CFM International continues developing open-fan engine architecture, while GE Aerospace’s use of supercomputers and software tools helps engineers understand open-fan aerodynamic and acoustic physics. According to GE, Frontier unlocks the ability to better evaluate emerging engine technologies at scale in the design phase, allowing it to improve test hardware designs and better optimize engine performance and airframe integration.

The Rise program remains on schedule for ground and flight tests in the middle of this decade to demonstrate technologies for use in future commercial aircraft engines that could enter service in about 10 years. z

continued from page 53

less fuel, and chasing half a percent of saving drives whether you are profitable or not, even though you have no control over the price of fuel,” she told AIN. “The most I ever saved was four percent when they put winglets on a [Boeing] 757, and so when they [JetZero] said they can achieve 50 percent I thought they were out of their minds.”

Now the imperative to reduce fossil fuel consumption is about more than airline balance sheets; it could potentially amount to a more existential challenge if governments decide to press for bigger and faster reductions in carbon emissions. “I don’t want to waste the next 12 years doing nothing,” said Page.

Recognizing that the task of integrating even o -the-shelf systems will require a multi-billion-dollar budget, JetZero is in the running for a $245 million U.S. Department of Defense award to develop a new tanker aircraft. In tanker configuration, the BWB aircraft would be able to carry as much fuel as the current KC-46 workhorse over twice the distance or double the fuel load at its current operating radius.

However, Page insisted that advancing work on the BWB prototype does not entirely hinge on winning that contract, predicting that once the aircraft takes to the air, “the value proposition will be so compelling that we do not anticipate problems raising these funds.”

JetZero and Scaled Composites will make a technology demonstrator first so that the chosen systems can be applied to the vehicle a full two years ahead of a conforming design being available. Page said this will save development time, while still leaving scope for the conforming aircraft to be optimized. According to JetZero, the all-composite airframe will be assembled using new construction techniques for strong, non-circular pressure vessels that have been tested by NASA. C.A.

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Thanks to our experience and R&D network, we are developing innovative technologies for the next generation of propulsion systems to support commercial and military aviation.

We are the European partner of choice for military and commercial propulsion.

We are helping shape a more sustainable future of flight.