Aviation | Passenger aircraft need innovation, not foie gras technology

Back until the early 1990s, airlines and travellers had a choice of flying the most suited aircraft for its region, route, and service category. Types of aircraft were diverse too; we had small, medium, large, regional, short haul, long haul, and transcontinental aircraft that offered improved revenue dynamics with the most suited capability deployment.

Around the cusp of the ’90s, established aircraft makers such as SAAB with the SAAB340, CASA Spain with the 212 and the 235; Fokker with the Fokker 50 and Fokker 100; Dornier with the outstanding 328 and 328Jet, McDonnell Douglas with the proven MD90 and the ‘ahead of its time’ MD11, were the aircraft that offered unparalleled reliability, efficiency, performance, and an elevated travel experience.

The reason for that was aircraft makers had their ear to the ground, listened to what airlines and travellers wanted, and innovated with newer technologies, radical new components centred on safety, lower carbon emissions, operating economics, and aircraft that seldom broke.

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Foie gras technology

Sadly, this no longer exists today. Innovation with aircraft and engine technology pretty much seized to exist the moment United States Aircraft maker Boeing acquired Mc Donnell Douglas, and Aerospatiale France consolidated with Deutsch Aerospace, CASA Spain, and Alenia Aerospazia Italy. As for Fokker, Bombardier, and SAAB — they ran aground amidst tighter lending control and world leasing and banking influence by the same banks that funded Aircraft Maker Acquisitions, as it is widely known by now.

That brings us to today, a world where aircraft are tweaked and tinkered into a ‘newer product’ to take on competition, updated, and refurbished; and ‘foie gras’ technology that the aircraft never really needed. In aerospace aircraft manufacturing, like the automotive sector, there is a distinctive difference between an update, upgrade, and a whole new model design. After Mc Donnell Douglas was acquired, Boeing put an end to any and all innovation in the passenger aircraft category, and as history records, three outstanding aircraft families — the MD 88 and the MD 90, and the MD11 — were shut down; and the best of the Boeing family, the single aisle 757 was terminated to reinforce a baseline 1970s design called the Model 737 — what we know today as the ‘MAX’.

Unfortunately, engine makers too have followed a very similar path with not really coming out with newer, clean sheet design engines with improved metal technologies. Instead, they constantly keep updating, upgrading, and tinkering old engines to suit the market and aircraft makers who don’t want to break out of their complacency. For engine-makers that did finally come out with ‘new’ engines, the metal and metallurgy technology weren’t innovated with newer materials or better alloys. Instead, they were CAD/CAM’ed with the same carbon steel, steel alloys, and titanium of the 1970s and 1980s — just tooled, drop forged, and machined differently.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

The Boeing 737NG never needed the MAX and the MAX didn’t really need ‘fly-by-wire’ technology. It also did not need newer engines. The 737NG was so well designed that the flight controls and the push-pull rods with counterweights and servo’s worked perfectly, and already functioned in the best way possible. Ideally, if the Boeing 737NG did need a much-needed update and new version, it should have been the proven and over reliable Boeing 757 platform, an aircraft that offered the world a whole new cabin class and level of comfort. Similarly, Airbus too didn’t really need the ‘New-Engine-Option’, because the existing V2500 and CFM 56-6C engines were efficient enough to suit the world till 2030; and deal with future carbon emission and noise pollution legislation.

Use the styling gel, stupid!

The onset of low-cost airlines fuelled by globalisation created the need to fly more passengers to more destinations while playing on volumes and seat inventory to keep the net cost of travel at its lowest. With the newer, agile, and more market-turned airlines taking wings, the demand for single aisle and twin aisle passenger jets surged to the point that it became a dead-heat by aircraft-makers to offer the most suited, newest and ‘better’ aircraft, even it meant doing absolutely, nothing.

That’s where things went wrong, because ‘Better’ didn’t necessarily have to mean ‘New’. Instead, at best, it meant cosmetic changes and a little make up on a trustworthy old lady. Boeing and Airbus focused their energies on making their aircraft look ‘new’ with mere packaging — cabin plastics, seats, lighting, and entertainment systems; and not with an entire new product design with no major upgrades or total replacement or design improvements with the landing, air conditioning packs, hydraulics, electricals, pneumatics, avionics systems, or improve the way the aircraft should fly. Operating costs took centre stage; lowest meant best, and best didn’t really mean ‘newest’.

We need five strong airframers to sustain world air transport

World air travel grows typically twice of GDP, and its anywhere between nine and 15 percent per year. To sustain that level of growth, airlines and travellers need aircraft that work right with newer improved technologies. Not just LED lights.

Clearly, the world of commercial airliner transport can’t be dominated by a duopoly, because that would lead to zilch addition of newer aircraft families as we’ve seen so far. With aviation, the first step to finding a solution, is to admit to the problem. Its high time engine-makers admitted that its newer engine series are not delivering up to the mark, and get back to the drawing board to improve the quality of metal so that it does not crack the next time.

Subliminal changes are in the works at the moment that aim to take on the duopoly, as long as India, the US, and EU foreign policies don’t wreak havoc with geopolitics. Brazilian aircraft Embraer, for starters, plans on introducing a whole new clean sheet design regional turboprop which should see its first flight by 2026, and be in revenue commercial service by 2030. Despite all the fierce lobbying, trade embargos, and stern foreign policies, the Chinese COMAC ARJ 21, 919, and 929, are very good, reliable, and efficient aircraft; and so is the Russian Sukhoi Jet 100.

It takes no great rocket science to do it right. All that COMAC and Sukhoi did was to learn from Boeing and Airbus’ mistakes, and come up with radically improved components, parts and materials, and innovate on how aircraft systems need to operate in wider environment conditions, not just in the US or ‘pristine’ Europe; and, of course, be inspired by tried and tested designs of Mc Donnell Douglas (ARJ21) and the Dreamliner 787.

Airlines, travellers, and the aircraft and engine leasing business won’t be able to sustain future market and growth demands with aircraft, aircraft components, and engines that constantly break, because that infringes on its ability and propensity to drive its ‘term/tenure’ financial model. So, unless the US kisses and makes up with China and Russia, we’re still going to see the ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude from Boeing and Airbus.

Let’s hope they’re listening!

(Mark D Martin is CEO of Martin Consulting, and is member of the Royal Aeronautical Society United Kingdom.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.