July 18, 2006
Airbus versus Boeing
Michael Jennings has an interesting post up at Samizdata, talking about the ongoing duel between Airbus and Boeing:
The Farnborough Air Show is on near London this week. In the commercial jet market, things have changed dramatically since the Paris Air show last year. A year ago Airbus had their first flying displays of their very large new A380 airliner, and for the fifth year in a row Airbus received more orders for airliners than did Boeing. Through a combination of more modern aircraft, more modern production lines and (perhaps) state subsidies, Airbus has come from a distant position in the market to market leadership.
However, this year Airbus fallen to a distant second in the market, having received only 117 orders this year to Boeing's 480. The A380 is behind schedule, the first airlines to receive it will be getting it six months late, and Airbus has scarcely recieved an order for it in the last couple of years. (Total orders are presently for 159). Boeong has received orders for 400 of its new mid-market 787 aircraft (and orders for Airbus' A330 and smaller A340 variants have dried up completely) and is also significantly ahead of Airbus in the upper mid-market segment containing Airbus' A340-600 aircraft and Boeing's 777-300.
A very interesting view of the whole major aircraft market, and the potential changes for the two major players.
Posted by Nicholas at July 18, 2006 02:48 PM
I'm not sure I agree with the contention that the A380 will be a loser. It's certainly not a *short-term* winner, but the long-term calculus of the A380 is still favourable for the reasons that made the 747 a big seller. Large capacity, long range, high oil prices. And just as Boeing upgraded the 747 into the 747-200, -300 and best-selling, glass-cockpit -400, Airbus will continue to revise and improve the A380.
That said it's probably the last we'll see of the giant pencil-with-wings widebodies. You can cram a lot more people and cargo into a blended wing body aircraft, and that's probably how they'll end up increasing capacity. I can't wait to see how they handle the cabin roll angle problem though.
When a standard-configuration plane banks there's only a foot and a half, maybe two to three foot difference between the lower side and higher side of the temporarily-angled cabin. When a BWB plane banks, because the cargo/passenger area extends way out onto the wings themselves, there can be a tens of feet of difference. And most of the passengers will be stuck in very wide seating rows (like a movie theatre), without any windows. Heavy roll angle + no windows = lots of barfing pax.
As I know little about aircraft design, I yield to your greater knowledge. I would have to assume that this:
Heavy roll angle + no windows = lots of barfing pax.
Would be considered a drawback to any sort of conveyance not intended for amusement park use (although cruise ships may straddle that artificial line, based on the news yesterday).
Heck it's even easy to get sick on small airplanes. The visibility in the back of a Cessna 172 is pretty poor. You have these tiny windows out the side and you can't see over the glare shield up front, so you're not seeing any horizon line. When you have no visual fixed point on which to base your bearings and your body is registering big changes in center-of-gravity and balance, then you start to get disoriented and that's when barf bags come in handy. Happens to lots of astronauts apparently.
Hell unless I am careful to keep an eye on the horizon *I* get a little queasy in the back of a 172.
