The RAeS Publications team report from #Farn10
Perhaps it was the sunshine that put optimism in the air. Perhaps it was yesterday’s arrival of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, or the flying display that including the Avro Vulcan, Red Arrows, A400M and F-22. Whatever the reason, there were a good few many aerospace executives feeling a lot more positive after this first day than at last year’s Paris airshow.
Numbers-wise the first day of the show clocked up over $20bn in orders – nearly half from leasing companies. The return of leasing giants like Steven Udvar-Hazy and GECAS to the airliner market is a welcome sign that they are confident about rising demand.
Boeing won orders worth some $13bn on the first day, with orders from Emirates for 30 Boeing 777-300ERs worth $9.1bn, an order for 15 737-800s value around $1.15bn from Norwegian Air Shuttle, and finally leasing company GECAS, which ordered $3bn worth of 737-800s.
Airbus, too, benefited from GECAS’s buying power – with a $4.9bn order for 60 A320 family airliners. Steven Udvar-Hazy’ Air Lease Corp also ordered A320s, with a $4.4bn order for 51 of the type. Finally Aeroflot ordered 11 A330-300 from Airbus at a list price of $2.3bn.
However not all were as happy as Airbus and Boeing after Day 1. Bombardier’s CSeries failed to gain a customer on the first day, which had been rumoured to be Qatar. And, while a Sukhoi Superjet press announcement was widely tipped to be the hotly denied Alitalia order, the actual press conference turned out to be a firming up of 30 Superjets for Indonesian carrier Kartika Airlines in a $951m deal. The aircraft will be delivered between 2012 and 2015 and Kartika plans to grow its fleet by another 130 aircraft.
Also from Russia a look inside the new cabin mock-up of Irkut’s MS-21 single-aisle airliner showed a clean, bright and extremely modern cabin. Russia’s UAC says it expects an order for 50 of these aircraft, powered by P&W PW1000Gs to be signed at the show. With Russia’s prime minister Vladmir Putin publically telling flag carrier Aeroflot it needs to buy more Russian aircraft – no prizes for guessing which customer this might be.
On the military side of aviation, a briefing on the UK’s Taranis UCAV demonstrator revealed that BAE Systems could share little detail due to the type’s ‘UK-Secret’ security classification. Informed speculation suggests that BAE will test the demonstrator in Australia, well away from prying eyes. But with defence budgets under pressure, can Europe really afford two UCAV demonstrators? Whatever the outcome, BAE thinks that Taranis gives the UK unique leverage in partnering with any future European or US UCAV programmes. Furthermore, Taranis has protected the important UK indigenous capability to produce entire combat aircraft – an industrial strength that post-Typhoon, and post-JSF could have easily been lost.
A briefing by Boeing on its KC-X tanker bid revealed that the $32bn contest –( now a three way fight between Boeing with its NextGen tanker, EADS with the KC-45 and US Aerospace, with the Ukrainian An-112) could be decided by a single point in the 93 non-mandatory requirements that kicks in if the bidders tie on the main requirements. The defence procurement equivalent of the World Cup penalty shoot-out?
In rotorcraft, AgustaWestland unveiled a new helicopter, resplendent in black and yellow UK police colours, the AW169. This helicopter, seen in mock-up form, is a twin engine, light multirole transport in the 4.5tonne class.
The flying display was an enthusiast’s dream – with an appearance from the Avro Vulcan, escorted by the RAF’s Red Arrows, the A400M, C-27J and C-130J all determined to outdo each other in the ‘throwing a military transporter’ as well as appearances by the Eurofighter Typhoon, Boeing F/A-18F SuperHornet and the Lockheed Martin F-22. Other flying debuts included the Sukhoi Superjet and An-158. In fact, perhaps the only minor disappointment was the fact the 787 did not take part in the display – (but understandable given Boeing’s tight schedule) as well as the pair of Pakistan Air Force JF-17 fighters that had made the epic trip to the UK but stayed on the ground.
And finally…
Finally there were congratulations due for Aerospace International’s Bill Read, who, is a ceremony on Sunday night, had picked up the Aerospace Journalist of the Year Award (AJOYA) award for ‘Best Propulsion Submission’ for his article ‘Power plants’ on the progress that the aerospace industry is making on biofuels. Well done Bill!
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