Newbiepilot wrote:

That looks like horrendous analysis of data to me, a clear block of data with an outlier in the top right. This chart shows how much of an anomaly the 737 is with its weight growth. Even if the 737 was left in i doubt the data shows anything g statistically significant.

Fred

The A340 saw around a 50% increase with the early A340 at 254t to 380 t in less than 15 years.

And the 777 family has seen a similar ~50% increase between the 230,000kg of the 777-200 and 352,000kg of the 777-300ER. There was a 25% increase just between the 777-200 and 777-200ER.

A340 to A340NG, 777-200 to 777-300ER (over various stations), 737-100 to 797-900 or MAX10.

All shew massive revamps of the design. "Not a single fastener stayed unchanged"

compare to a basically unchanged frames like the A330-2/300 or A340-2/300
or weight growth in A320 series for esentially the same frame with very minor adaptions.

Not meaningfully comparable.

http://www.aircraft.airbus.com/fileadmi ... _Aug17.pdf

Date of update: Today 01/08/2017

I have not gone through it yet so i don't know what has been added/removed/changed.

MoKa777 wrote:

I have not gone through it yet so i don't know what has been added/removed/changed.

A quick look reveals Airbus re-added the 311t model, but left out the 316t option.

Flighty wrote:

luv2cattlecall wrote:

Flighty wrote:

Turns it into a true, TRUE longhauler. And a true 77W owner.

I'm not fully up to speed on the 350, but how will this beefed up version compare to the 77L?

The manufacturers do not quote range in a way that is easy to compare. AFAIK this appears to show that A350-10 has longer legs than both 77E and 77W, both considered true longhaulers. It will not beat the 77L, which is a ULH machine. The A359 might match r beat the 77L for range now.

The manufacturers definitely do not quote range in a comparable way. But Delta does. Now that Delta has an A359, it is possible to do apples to apples comparisons. While DL has neither the A3510 or 77W, the A and B tables and charts can be used to build from the DL A359 / 77E / 77L numbers.

If another airline has A350 and B777, and publishes range numbers, it can reinforce the DL data

jagraham wrote:

Flighty wrote:

luv2cattlecall wrote:

I'm not fully up to speed on the 350, but how will this beefed up version compare to the 77L?

The manufacturers do not quote range in a way that is easy to compare. AFAIK this appears to show that A350-10 has longer legs than both 77E and 77W, both considered true longhaulers. It will not beat the 77L, which is a ULH machine. The A359 might match r beat the 77L for range now.

The manufacturers definitely do not quote range in a comparable way. But Delta does. Now that Delta has an A359, it is possible to do apples to apples comparisons. While DL has neither the A3510 or 77W, the A and B tables and charts can be used to build from the DL A359 / 77E / 77L numbers.

If another airline has A350 and B777, and publishes range numbers, it can reinforce the DL data

I think LH is another one that quotes realistic range for their aircraft.

Flighty wrote:

luv2cattlecall wrote:

Flighty wrote:

Turns it into a true, TRUE longhauler. And a true 77W owner.

I'm not fully up to speed on the 350, but how will this beefed up version compare to the 77L?

The manufacturers do not quote range in a way that is easy to compare. AFAIK this appears to show that A350-10 has longer legs than both 77E and 77W, both considered true longhaulers. It will not beat the 77L, which is a ULH machine. The A359 might match r beat the 77L for range now.

With specific reference to the A359LR vs 772LR, there's a couple of ways to compare, I guess.

Typically, 772LR's have been purchased without the additional aux tanks necessary to maximise its range, leaving it with the basic 145.5t fuel available.
At the MTOW of 348t, it will fly max payload about 7 600Nm
With max fuel (145.5t) at MTOW it will fly about 8 200Nm with what looks to me like a 52t payload (assuming you can get 52t in a 772LR)
"Nominal" range is c. 8 600nm but with a TOW some 20t off MTOW (i.e. the plane is fuel volume limited)
Ferry range with an empty plane is about 9 700Nm

A base A350-900 will fly its max payload about 5 900Nm
With max fuel load, (108t) it will fly about 8 800Nm with a 25t payload, (i.e. the plane is weight limited)
Nominal range is c. 8 100Nm at MTOW (some 500Nm short ofthe 772LR)
Ferry range with an empty plane is again 9 700Nm

Note that the ferry ranges are the same, whilst the fuel load has dropped from 145.5t in the 772LR to 108t in the A350, 35% less fuel.

The 280t A350LR will fly its max payload about 6 250Nm, still well short of the 772LR
With max fuel load, (with I assume the same 123t capacity as the A350-1000) it will fly (by my calculations) a whopping 9 900Nm with a 15t payload, which is clearly too small to be meaningful
Nominal range is c. 8 500Nm at MTOW, just short of the 772LR
Ferry range with an empty plane is (by my calculation) c.10 700Nm

This is the plane which will be flying SIN-JFK and vice versa. As can be seen, the base A350 doesn't have the fuel capacity to operate the c. 9 000Nm+ still air that I believe the 8 350Nm sector requires, hence the additional fuel capacity.
With the extra fuel, and extra MTOW though, it can fly (again by my calculations) 9 000Nm still air with a c. 26t payload and 115t fuel, and/or, a 17t payload with 115t fuel, plus 8t "spare" fuel capacity.

Should Airbus ever build the original A350-1000 shrink A350ULR, then, at an MTOW of 308t, and the 123t fuel capacity, I calculate:-

The 308t A350ULR fly its max payload about 7 700Nm - a shade further than the 772LR
With max fuel load, (123t) it will fly (by my calculations) about 9 200Nm but with a 39t payload - this is 700Nm less than the 280t version because of the much higher ZFW, but beats a 772LR with no aux tanks by a large margin, as the plane is not fuel limited.
nominal range is c. 9 400Nm
Ferry range about 10 600Nm

If you now stick the full suite of aux tanks in the 772LR, fuel capacity jumps to 163t.
Based on the above, the R/P charts for the 308t A350 and 772LR with full fuel look remarkably similar.
7 700Nm vs 7 600Nm full payload
9 200nm with 39t vs 9 350nm with 33t at max fuel
Nominal ranges of c. 9 400Nm
ferry ranges of c. 10 600Nm

Note though that the A350 is tanking 123t fuel where the 772LR is tanking 163t fuel, some 32% less fuel.

Clearly taking MTOW up to the 316t just announced by Airbus for the A350-1000 will increase the MZFW max payload range considerably (it would make an outstanding freighter).
Ironically though, it won't change the nominal range, as this is limited by fuel.

That no 772LR is in service with aux tanks (certainly not all 3), implies to me that the "A350-1000 shrink" A350ULR is an unnecessary extravagance, as the 280t standard A350 variant with the 123t fuel capacity will have a nominal range close to the "base" (i.e. no aux tanks) 772LR (8 500Nm vs 8 600Nm) with a similar payload, and a much higher ferry range

Rgds

^^great post. Seems in line, IIRC, with Leeham's unlocked private analysis of these planes (~35% delta 77L/A359).

Agreed that A350R won't happen. Whichever small sliver is left for that range probably goes to 778. In a decade or so a reengine will get A359 past that range.

astuteman wrote:

With specific reference to the A359LR vs 772LR, there's a couple of ways to compare, I guess.

...

The 280t A350LR will fly its max payload about 6 250Nm, still well short of the 772LR
With max fuel load, (with I assume the same 123t capacity as the A350-1000) it will fly (by my calculations) a whopping 9 900Nm with a 15t payload, which is clearly too small to be meaningful
Nominal range is c. 8 500Nm at MTOW, just short of the 772LR
Ferry range with an empty plane is (by my calculation) c.10 700Nm

Very informative post! Just a small nitpick, the A359LR has a 165L fuel capacity (130t) vs. the A3510 156L capacity (123t). I'm sure it won't change the figures much, but it will be closer to the 772LR (very slightly) than these figures.

(edited to include fuel by weight)

350helmi

350helmi wrote:

Very informative post! Just a small nitpick, the A359LR has a 165L fuel capacity (130t) vs. the A3510 156L capacity (123t). I'm sure it won't change the figures much, but it will be closer to the 772LR (very slightly) than these figures.
(edited to include fuel by weight)

If you can pimp the ULR tankage to 165kl you can do the same to the -1000

I'd be interesting to know if the 165kl ( as offered currently on the ULR ) is the final word on volume available in this wing?

WIederling wrote:

I'd be interesting to know if the 165kl ( as offered currently on the ULR ) is the final word on volume available in this wing?

Indeed, but since the A359 is already heavily weight restricted I doubt we'll see if there are any more reserves in the wings any time soon. Raising the -1000 tankage to the 165kl would put it into a similar position as the A359 is in now wit it being heavily weight restricted, though I think there are more margins left on the -1000 than there is on the -900. 7t of weight is no small amount to exchange for fuel.

350helmi

350helmi wrote:

astuteman wrote:

With specific reference to the A359LR vs 772LR, there's a couple of ways to compare, I guess.

...

The 280t A350LR will fly its max payload about 6 250Nm, still well short of the 772LR
With max fuel load, (with I assume the same 123t capacity as the A350-1000) it will fly (by my calculations) a whopping 9 900Nm with a 15t payload, which is clearly too small to be meaningful
Nominal range is c. 8 500Nm at MTOW, just short of the 772LR
Ferry range with an empty plane is (by my calculation) c.10 700Nm

Very informative post! Just a small nitpick, the A359LR has a 165L fuel capacity (130t) vs. the A3510 156L capacity (123t). I'm sure it won't change the figures much, but it will be closer to the 772LR (very slightly) than these figures.

(edited to include fuel by weight)

350helmi

In response, I am aware of the variation, but am unclear as to whether the question of "is the 165kl fuel capacity of the A359LR a typo and should read 156kl" has actually been resolved yet.
Hence my quite specific wording regarding "I assume the same 123t as the A350-1000".
That is my assumption for the purposes of calculation, not a fact.

It changes very little for the A350LR as it stands today - the payloads are already so small at those volumes.
However, it would change a full-blown 308t-316t A350-1000 shrink considerably, adding nearly 500Nm to the range at given payloads.

That would bring these versions pretty close to the "holy grail" mission - SYD-LHR with nominal payload

Rgds

350helmi wrote:

WIederling wrote:

I'd be interesting to know if the 165kl ( as offered currently on the ULR ) is the final word on volume available in this wing?

Indeed, but since the A359 is already heavily weight restricted I doubt we'll see if there are any more reserves in the wings any time soon. Raising the -1000 tankage to the 165kl would put it into a similar position as the A359 is in now wit it being heavily weight restricted, though I think there are more margins left on the -1000 than there is on the -900. 7t of weight is no small amount to exchange for fuel.

You artificially limit the answer. ( not relevant due to weight limits.)

I was asking because today's weight limits may well be transient and a past thing in the future.

What turned the A330 into a wonder child was the tankage available via the A340
required capabilities interlinked with that massively oversized wing
( at least for the original use case :: a dorky medium range Twin.)

350helmi wrote:

WIederling wrote:

I'd be interesting to know if the 165kl ( as offered currently on the ULR ) is the final word on volume available in this wing?

Indeed, but since the A359 is already heavily weight restricted I doubt we'll see if there are any more reserves in the wings any time soon.i

The difference between the A359 and A35K wing isn´t that big, just about 4% in area. The wing should be good for 300t TOW, the current thrust may be a little low to push that off a runway, but the wing should be fine.

best regards
Thomas

astuteman wrote:

350helmi wrote:

astuteman wrote:

With specific reference to the A359LR vs 772LR, there's a couple of ways to compare, I guess.

...

The 280t A350LR will fly its max payload about 6 250Nm, still well short of the 772LR
With max fuel load, (with I assume the same 123t capacity as the A350-1000) it will fly (by my calculations) a whopping 9 900Nm with a 15t payload, which is clearly too small to be meaningful
Nominal range is c. 8 500Nm at MTOW, just short of the 772LR
Ferry range with an empty plane is (by my calculation) c.10 700Nm

Very informative post! Just a small nitpick, the A359LR has a 165L fuel capacity (130t) vs. the A3510 156L capacity (123t). I'm sure it won't change the figures much, but it will be closer to the 772LR (very slightly) than these figures.

(edited to include fuel by weight)

350helmi

In response, I am aware of the variation, but am unclear as to whether the question of "is the 165kl fuel capacity of the A359LR a typo and should read 156kl" has actually been resolved yet.
Hence my quite specific wording regarding "I assume the same 123t as the A350-1000".
That is my assumption for the purposes of calculation, not a fact.

It changes very little for the A350LR as it stands today - the payloads are already so small at those volumes.
However, it would change a full-blown 308t-316t A350-1000 shrink considerably, adding nearly 500Nm to the range at given payloads.

That would bring these versions pretty close to the "holy grail" mission - SYD-LHR with nominal payload

Rgds

As it has been confirmed by I believe Leahy that the additional 9kl of fuel on top of the 156kl of the -1000 is achieved with changes to the software and pumps, instead of physically a new tank design, I tend to think it is what is actually happening rather than being a typo on a publication.

And this from the Airbus website "As part of its philosophy of continuous innovation, Airbus has launched the Ultra-Long Range version of the A350-900. Designated as the A350-900ULR, the jetliner offers increased fuel-carrying capacity of up to 165,000 litresand a higher 280-tonne maximum takeoff weight, enabling service on non-stop flights of up to 19 hours."

http://www.aircraft.airbus.com/aircraft ... /a350-900/

Highly doubtful Airbus would make a typo on the available tankage volume of the new variant.

I know for the current variant the change in range would be minimal, as you pointed out, but what would the new numbers be for both variant, the currently offered and the hypothetical 308t version?

350helmi

WIederling wrote:

350helmi wrote:

WIederling wrote:

I'd be interesting to know if the 165kl ( as offered currently on the ULR ) is the final word on volume available in this wing?

Indeed, but since the A359 is already heavily weight restricted I doubt we'll see if there are any more reserves in the wings any time soon. Raising the -1000 tankage to the 165kl would put it into a similar position as the A359 is in now wit it being heavily weight restricted, though I think there are more margins left on the -1000 than there is on the -900. 7t of weight is no small amount to exchange for fuel.

You artificially limit the answer. ( not relevant due to weight limits.)

I was asking because today's weight limits may well be transient and a past thing in the future.

What turned the A330 into a wonder child was the tankage available via the A340
required capabilities interlinked with that massively oversized wing
( at least for the original use case :: a dorky medium range Twin.)

Well yes and no. Since the aircraft is weight limited right now, it will only make sense to add to the available fuel volume once it becomes fuel limited, and for that to happen there needs to be new weight variants introduced. To make the 165kl tankage on par with the A359 that is on offer today (280t version with the 141kl tankage) at least another 15-20t of additional MTOW will have to be found. As of right now, I don't think it is very high on Airbus' agenda to increase the MTOW drasticly. Sure it might happen in the future, may even be likely to happen, but as of right now, increasing the tankage won't bring anything new to the table in terms of additional value to the airlines or Airbus, hence it wont happen and we won't know if the 165kl is the maximum possible until such a time that the aircraft is fuel limited and the following solution to that from Airbus. Note that the 'normal' 280t A359 is still weight limited I believe, but not by much.

350helmi

350helmi wrote:

Well yes and no. Since the aircraft is weight limited right now, it will only make sense to add to the available fuel volume once it becomes fuel limited, ..

you misunderstood my reservation.
the outer question ( A350-* performance ) already contains the MTOW limits.
If you drop the inner question ( what is the absolute max of physical tankage volume available on this wing ) on MTOW grounds
you drop the question without an answer.

We do know that you can fill 165kl into this wing. Is that the final volume limit?
( Or maybe there is room for 180kl even? .. but currently unused?)

On the A330 the max design volume was known from the getgo via what the A340 could tanker.
( though some posters never seem to have understood that logical interconnection.)

350helmi wrote:

astuteman wrote:

350helmi wrote:

Very informative post! Just a small nitpick, the A359LR has a 165L fuel capacity (130t) vs. the A3510 156L capacity (123t). I'm sure it won't change the figures much, but it will be closer to the 772LR (very slightly) than these figures.

(edited to include fuel by weight)

350helmi

In response, I am aware of the variation, but am unclear as to whether the question of "is the 165kl fuel capacity of the A359LR a typo and should read 156kl" has actually been resolved yet.
Hence my quite specific wording regarding "I assume the same 123t as the A350-1000".
That is my assumption for the purposes of calculation, not a fact.

It changes very little for the A350LR as it stands today - the payloads are already so small at those volumes.
However, it would change a full-blown 308t-316t A350-1000 shrink considerably, adding nearly 500Nm to the range at given payloads.

That would bring these versions pretty close to the "holy grail" mission - SYD-LHR with nominal payload

Rgds

As it has been confirmed by I believe Leahy that the additional 9kl of fuel on top of the 156kl of the -1000 is achieved with changes to the software and pumps, instead of physically a new tank design, I tend to think it is what is actually happening rather than being a typo on a publication.

And this from the Airbus website "As part of its philosophy of continuous innovation, Airbus has launched the Ultra-Long Range version of the A350-900. Designated as the A350-900ULR, the jetliner offers increased fuel-carrying capacity of up to 165,000 litresand a higher 280-tonne maximum takeoff weight, enabling service on non-stop flights of up to 19 hours."

http://www.aircraft.airbus.com/aircraft ... /a350-900/

Highly doubtful Airbus would make a typo on the available tankage volume of the new variant.

I know for the current variant the change in range would be minimal, as you pointed out, but what would the new numbers be for both variant, the currently offered and the hypothetical 308t version?

350helmi

If fuel capacity goes up from 123t to 130t (I'll stick to tons, if that's ok), all that happens is the "MTOW limited" portion of the R/P chart gets extended to the right by 7t.
So for the 280t LR
Max payload range remains 6 250Nm
Nominal range remains 8 500Nm @ 31t
Payload at 9 000Nm remains c. 25t
But the max fuel point will move from 9 900 - 10 000Nm with 15t payload, to 10 600 - 10 700Nm with only 8t payload.
Which means the additional area under the R/P curve is not really in a useable range.
But boy, would this plane have a long ferry range - easily over 11 000Nm

For 308t ULR
Max payload range remains 7 700Nm
Max fuel point will move from c. 9 200nm with 39t payload to c. 9 900Nm with 32t payload
nominal range would grow to c.10 000Nm with 31t payload, which as I said earlier, has to be close to providing SYD-LHR with 31t payload
ferry range again over 11 000nm.
So in this case, the additional area under the R/P curve IS in a useable range, as it starts with the payload at 39t

I sincerely believe though that Airbus are absolutely right to pursue expanding the capability of the basic A359.
Adopting the A350-1000 shrink baseline, whilst increasing capability considerably, adds how many tons of bigger wing, stronger, and much heavier 3 axle MLG, and additional strengthening?
OEW must go up by a good 4-5 tonnes, and probably more (guessing here, no analysis).
And who actually really needs that extra capability? (SIN-LHR excepted)
Enough to warrant the variant?

Sticking with the basic airframe provides commonality, lowest weight for capability, and a plane that is actually more capable of covering SIN-JFK than the 365t A340-500 it replaces
From about 8 600Nm onwards it has better payload capability than an A345.
It will do SIN-LAX on (I believe) less than 115t fuel (assuming 9 000Nm ESAD), where the A345 had to tank 175t.

Never mind the 35% comparison to the 77L. That comparison to the A345 is an eye-watering 55% difference.
Small wonder SQ think the A359 makes SIN-JFK economically viable again.

It is some plane, this 280t A350-900

Rgds

WIederling wrote:

350helmi wrote:

Well yes and no. Since the aircraft is weight limited right now, it will only make sense to add to the available fuel volume once it becomes fuel limited, ..

you misunderstood my reservation.
the outer question ( A350-* performance ) already contains the MTOW limits.
If you drop the inner question ( what is the absolute max of physical tankage volume available on this wing ) on MTOW grounds
you drop the question without an answer.

We do know that you can fill 165kl into this wing. Is that the final volume limit?
( Or maybe there is room for 180kl even? .. but currently unused?)

On the A330 the max design volume was known from the getgo via what the A340 could tanker.
( though some posters never seem to have understood that logical interconnection.)

Like I said, it's an interesting question and one that I'd like to know the answer to, but realistically we won't get an answer due to the limitations of the frame I have outlined above.

350helmi

astuteman wrote:

If fuel capacity goes up from 123t to 130t (I'll stick to tons, if that's ok), all that happens is the "MTOW limited" portion of the R/P chart gets extended to the right by 7t.
So for the 280t LR
Max payload range remains 6 250Nm
Nominal range remains 8 500Nm @ 31t
Payload at 9 000Nm remains c. 25t
But the max fuel point will move from 9 900 - 10 000Nm with 15t payload, to 10 600 - 10 700Nm with only 8t payload.
Which means the additional area under the R/P curve is not really in a useable range.
But boy, would this plane have a long ferry range - easily over 11 000Nm

For 308t ULR
Max payload range remains 7 700Nm
Max fuel point will move from c. 9 200nm with 39t payload to c. 9 900Nm with 32t payload
nominal range would grow to c.10 000Nm with 31t payload, which as I said earlier, has to be close to providing SYD-LHR with 31t payload
ferry range again over 11 000nm.
So in this case, the additional area under the R/P curve IS in a useable range, as it starts with the payload at 39t

I sincerely believe though that Airbus are absolutely right to pursue expanding the capability of the basic A359.
Adopting the A350-1000 shrink baseline, whilst increasing capability considerably, adds how many tons of bigger wing, stronger, and much heavier 3 axle MLG, and additional strengthening?
OEW must go up by a good 4-5 tonnes, and probably more (guessing here, no analysis).
And who actually really needs that extra capability? (SIN-LHR excepted)
Enough to warrant the variant?

Sticking with the basic airframe provides commonality, lowest weight for capability, and a plane that is actually more capable of covering SIN-JFK than the 365t A340-500 it replaces
From about 8 600Nm onwards it has better payload capability than an A345.
It will do SIN-LAX on (I believe) less than 115t fuel (assuming 9 000Nm ESAD), where the A345 had to tank 175t.

Never mind the 35% comparison to the 77L. That comparison to the A345 is an eye-watering 55% difference.
Small wonder SQ think the A359 makes SIN-JFK economically viable again.

It is some plane, this 280t A350-900

Rgds

Thank you for the numbers! I agree that sticking with the LR version is absolutely the right thing to do. And in light of these numbers, which Airbus must know, I think it's only logical to think that Airbus are planning to increase the MTOW of the A359 further to make better use of the available tankage. How much they can increase that I have no idea.

350helmi

350helmi wrote:

And in light of these numbers, which Airbus must know, I think it's only logical to think that Airbus are planning to increase the MTOW of the A359 further to make better use of the available tankage. How much they can increase that I have no idea.

We may be close to that limit at 280,000kg considering the original base MTOW for the A350-1000 was 295,000kg with the six-wheel truck. And really, it's not like the A350-900 needs more TOW as her payload-range is already exceptional with the current weight variants on offer.

Stitch wrote:

350helmi wrote:

And in light of these numbers, which Airbus must know, I think it's only logical to think that Airbus are planning to increase the MTOW of the A359 further to make better use of the available tankage. How much they can increase that I have no idea.

We may be close to that limit at 280,000kg considering the original base MTOW for the A350-1000 was 295,000kg with the six-wheel truck. And really, it's not like the A350-900 needs more TOW as her payload-range is already exceptional with the current weight variants on offer.

I agree it doen't necessarily need more. But if they can achievemore with slight reinforcement of the gear and weight reductions in the fuse leading to a weight neutral solution, why would they not give that extra flexibility for the airframe. Even if "only" 10t more could be achieved (290t TOW) it would extend the usable max payload range considerably I would have thought, though I suspect it would only be useful for the LR version and not necessarily for the standard -900. Only reason to think that they would try to increase the weights is that the -900 is so heavily weight limited.
With regards to the original -1000 needing the six-wheel truck, I think Airbus planned ahead to allow heavier weights to be implemented more easily in the future and not come up against a hard barrier, as is believed to be the case with the 789. Would have been a smart move by them.

350helmi

I have no idea whether Airbus feel they can nudge MTOW on the A359 up beyond 280t. But they may have a strong incentive to make the effort. Going by Leeham's numbers in their series on the Qantas SYD-LHR requirement the A359ULR at 9500nm is a bit too far down the payload/range curve to be fully competitive with the 778 – the Boeing should carry 75 more pax at that range. So even a 2-3t lift in payload would do a lot to make the 359 competitive for the Qantas contract. And presumably QF will be looking not only at a new ULH fleet but also potential 778/779 or 359/35K combinations for longer-term fleet replacement.

tealnz wrote:

I have no idea whether Airbus feel they can nudge MTOW on the A359 up beyond 280t. But they may have a strong incentive to make the effort. Going by Leeham's numbers in their series on the Qantas SYD-LHR requirement the A359ULR at 9500nm is a bit too far down the payload/range curve to be fully competitive with the 778 – the Boeing should carry 75 more pax at that range. So even a 2-3t lift in payload would do a lot to make the 359 competitive for the Qantas contract. And presumably QF will be looking not only at a new ULH fleet but also potential 778/779 or 359/35K combinations for longer-term fleet replacement.

For what it's worth, I don't think a 280t 359LR is in that game at all. Given it's tankage it might make the distance, but with very little payload.

I think SYD-LHR is the domain of the A350-1000 derived A359 ULR, and in this instance, if the increase in MTOW that this thread describes for the A350-1000 from 308t to 311t to 316t can be carried over to the A359ULR, that could make a significant difference to that plane's capability on SYD-LHR.
An extra 8t should just and so cover 75 pax

Rgds

astuteman wrote:

I think SYD-LHR is the domain of the A350-1000 derived A359 ULR, and in this instance, if the increase in MTOW that this thread describes for the A350-1000 from 308t to 311t to 316t can be carried over to the A359ULR, that could make a significant difference to that plane's capability on SYD-LHR.
An extra 8t should just and so cover 75 pax

Anything you can achieve with the 359ULR is much more efficient than going over the brute force 359-1000shrinkLR version, isn*t it?

What is in the chute for slimming down the 359 airframe with -1000 advances like lighter doorframes ...
TXWB upgrades? anything in that domain coming up?

Astuteman wrote:

Never mind the 35% comparison to the 77L. That comparison to the A345 is an eye-watering 55% difference.

Absolutely right. This is also why I'm now advocating a clean-sheet A380 replacement: A380 is a lot like a big A340NG and we'd see similar fuel burn improvement. Both A345 and A388 are suboptimal shrinks of baseline models (A346 and A389) that were themselves deeply flawed.

The Airbus of A380/A340NG era was a nationally-inflected enterprise that built prestige products in part simply to show what it could do. [that's different, btw, from saying all their products were flawed- A320 and A330 are obviously great. The cost of a public-minded business is you sometimes fire off blanks, not that all your products are bad. I'm also not saying this was a bad route for Europe/Airbus. They now have a lucrative national/regional champion that adds wealth and jobs, in no small part due to A340NG and A380]

Today's Airbus would build an A380 successor the way it built its A340 successor: with a focus on smart efficiency/capacity/capability/comfort tradeoffs.

Matt6461 wrote:

A340NG era was a nationally-inflected enterprise that built prestige products in part simply to show what it could do.

Nope, the A340NG was a highly competitive plane, they did neither plan to screw it up that badly, nor did they expect the 77W would be executed as well as it was and exceed spec performance the way it ended up doing. If both planes would have been to plan, or very close to, Airbus costumers would have gotten significant better payload, better range, far better hot and high performance and that would have been easily made up the 20% fuel burn difference. If the only other plane that can lift your payload where you want to go is a 747, 20% more fuel than a 77W is a bargain.

Also no one seriously expected fuel prices in excess of 100 USD/barrel, which made those 20% sort of pricey. No need to revise history, the NG program was a good idea, terribly executed and not a pride project. Airbus had identified a market, the 742 replacement market, that Boeing couldn´t Adresse with the 77W as originally offered, and without 9/11 would have seen replacements instead of dessert parking and downsizing. If circumstances where comparable right now, the 777x would probably suffer the same fate vs. the the A35J and to lesser extend 789 and A359.

Today's Airbus would build an A380 successor the way it built its A340 successor:

In which way is stretching an aircraft to a length it was never intended to have even remotely comparable to removing a stretch that wasn´t a good idea? This is more like hanging advanced engines under the wing of an A343.

best regards
Thomas

There has never been a 20% fuel burn difference between the A346 and 77W. Even on a 7000 nm sector the 77W would burn 120 tonnes, and the A346 130 tonnes (8% more). However the A346 physically can lift more payload over that distance, and the 77W has more floor area. Both of these are rather moot points as aircraft normally never average full payload of passenger loads.

Now compare the 77W to A350-1000, the A350-1000 burns 25% less fuel, evidence of that was made available with the cockpit photos of the first long range passenger test flights.

tommy1808 wrote:

the A340NG was a highly competitive plane

By any commercial definition of "competitive" this is a facially absurd statement. The A340NG was plainly a commercial failure.

Now, if you want to argue that the A340NG was "close" to the 777 Classic or something - closer than typically represented - that's fine, but it's a totally different conception of competitive and is totally unresponsive to the point that it was a bad investment and that its narrow business case was a terrible one.

To see why that's so, you have to exercise a bit more strategic thinking than looking at what's "close" to the competition. You have to put yourself in late-90's Airbus' shoes and ask, "If we launch the A340NG, is there a foreseeable competitive response that makes our investment worthless?"

You do half that process by saying the following:

tommy1808 wrote:

nor did they expect the 77W would be executed as well as it was and exceed spec performance the way it ended up doing.

IIRC the 77W's "surprise factor" was no more than 3% fuel burn and range. Yet as even our biggest A340 partisans will admit, the A346 burns at least 8% more per trip than 77W while offering slightly less pax capacity.

So even absent the 77W's surprise factor, Airbus should have foreseen a Boeing response to A340NG that would destroy its investment.

The crucial point here is that it's very nearly a "winner take all" market: being close matters as much in this game as it does in sports. If your competitor's product is simply better, nearly all orders will go to your competitor, regardless of how small the relative advantage.

You are seeing the correct strategic approach being employed by Boeing in its current MoM deliberations: Boeing foresees that if it launches a product that competes in the A321LR's capacity space, Airbus has an easy response (rewing) that would render its investment unrecoverable. Boeing is, therefore, looking at the higher end of the MoM spectrum to ensure product differentiation from an Airbus response.

tommy1808 wrote:

Also no one seriously expected fuel prices in excess of 100 USD/barrel, which made those 20% sort of pricey.

You make the same mistake again here. It's not a matter of the size of the advantage; the fact of an advantage means nearly winner take all. Just look at the market values of used A340NG's versus 77L/W. Even with today's cheap fuel, the advantage remains.

tommy1808 wrote:

In which way is stretching an aircraft to a length it was never intended to have even remotely comparable to removing a stretch that wasn´t a good idea? This is more like hanging advanced engines under the wing of an A343.

What do you mean here? I don't understand this point... What is "this"?

tommy1808 wrote:

Airbus costumers would have gotten significant better payload, better range, far better hot and high performance and that would have been easily made up the 20% fuel burn difference

Has launching a multi-billion dollar program to target a small niche of hot/high requirements ever worked?
Answer seems pretty clear. Everything you say about A340NG vs. 77W is also true of A340NG versus A350. It's ludicrous to believe that the capability/efficiency tradeoff in the latter case is ever worth it; the market's answer in the former case seems equally clear.

Matt6461 wrote:

You make the same mistake again here. It's not a matter of the size of the advantage; the fact of an advantage means nearly winner take all. Just look at the market values of used A340NG's versus 77L/W. Even with today's cheap fuel, the advantage remains.

Nah, there is no mistake on my side, you are simply wrong in that assumption. Fuel getting more expensive changes the share of fuel costs in operating an aircraft. Getting 5% more performance for 20% more fuel burn, rest the same, is just peachy if fuel is just 20% of your cost. If it is 40% of your cost that is different. And of course the advantage remains, the aircraft didn´t change after all.
You also repeat the mistake of looking at the A340NG/77W story with what we know now. Take that 3% surprise out of the 77W and 6 tons overweight out of the A340NG, and you have two highly competitive planes, with the 77W probably still better for more than 50% of the customers, but that would be it.
Iirc Flightglobal (?, can´t fine the .pdf at the moment) made a 77W/A340-600 comparison with authorized to offer specs and that didn´t look even remotely as bad as it later was, there where plenty of city pairs where the A340 lifted more than enough extra payload to justify the extra fuel, and hot and high wasn´t just better, it blew the 77W flat out of the water, with the 77W barely being able to do CPT-NYC as a ferry flight and the A340-600 doing it with every seat occupied. .

tommy1808 wrote:

In which way is stretching an aircraft to a length it was never intended to have even remotely comparable to removing a stretch that wasn´t a good idea? This is more like hanging advanced engines under the wing of an A343.

What do you mean here? I don't understand this point... What is "this"?

the A380 revamp.

tommy1808 wrote:

Airbus costumers would have gotten significant better payload, better range, far better hot and high performance and that would have been easily made up the 20% fuel burn difference

Has launching a multi-billion dollar program to target a small niche of hot/high requirements ever worked?

Nope, and i never said it did. You repeat the same mistake and go from the relative competitiveness we know today and not from the specs back then.

It's ludicrous to believe that the capability/efficiency tradeoff in the latter case is ever worth it; the market's answer in the former case seems equally clear.

Same mistake again.

And Zeke´s posting says it all.

best regards
Thomas

Matt6461 wrote:

The crucial point here is that it's very nearly a "winner take all" market: being close matters as much in this game as it does in sports. If your competitor's product is simply better, nearly all orders will go to your competitor, regardless of how small the relative advantage.

I also wonder how much ETOPS has contributed to the end of the quad jet? Could it have been foreseen in the 90s?

zeke wrote:

There has never been a 20% fuel burn difference between the A346 and 77W.

A lot of carefully pandered "Twin is intrinsically better" Meme also moved market forces to the 77W away from any 4 holer.
.. and also hampers the A388. Extremely effective work. ( another drive by shooting victim : 747-8.)

zeke wrote:

There has never been a 20% fuel burn difference between the A346 and 77W. Even on a 7000 nm sector the 77W would burn 120 tonnes, and the A346 130 tonnes (8% more). However the A346 physically can lift more payload over that distance, and the 77W has more floor area. Both of these are rather moot points as aircraft normally never average full payload of passenger loads.

Now compare the 77W to A350-1000, the A350-1000 burns 25% less fuel, evidence of that was made available with the cockpit photos of the first long range passenger test flights.

Interesting post but 8% burn (or say 3% of trip cost) is probably enough for one product line to lunch the other in the newbuild market, regardless of sales initiatives, which is what happened.

These 25% improvements of A350 vs 77W might, I think, not only lunch Boeing's new build market, but pull relatively good new 77Ws out of service within 10 or so years. The A345 got pulled down by such margins. Although that isn't a perfect analogy.

KarelXWB wrote:

Matt6461 wrote:

The crucial point here is that it's very nearly a "winner take all" market: being close matters as much in this game as it does in sports. If your competitor's product is simply better, nearly all orders will go to your competitor, regardless of how small the relative advantage.

I also wonder how much ETOPS has contributed to the end of the quad jet? Could it have been foreseen in the 90s?

With no contender from home turf ETOPS and any later extension there off would have been blocked/hindered by the US FAA.
That would have made things much more difficult for Airbus.

WIederling wrote:

KarelXWB wrote:

I also wonder how much ETOPS has contributed to the end of the quad jet? Could it have been foreseen in the 90s?

With no contender from home turf ETOPS and any later extension there off would have been blocked/hindered by the US FAA. That would have made things much more difficult for Airbus.

Well the European JAA made things more difficult for Boeing by restricting the 777 to ETOPS-120 at EIS for European operators compared to the ETOPS-180 the FAA granted. Of course, Airbus' direct competitor using four engines probably had nothing to do with the decision.

tommy1808 wrote:

Getting 5% more performance for 20% more fuel burn, rest the same, is just peachy if fuel is just 20% of your cost. If it is 40% of your cost that is different. And of course the advantage remains, the aircraft didn´t change after all.

No, its not "peachy" no matter the price of fuel. You ideally want the gain in performance to be greater than the gain in fuel burn. You are arguing that airlines would be happy seeing a fuel burn 4x greater than the gain they get in performance which is inane. They would prefer giving up that performance gain to spend less money on fuel (no matter the price) as they want a gain in performance 4x greater than the gain in fuel burn. That is actually why some airlines were upset when Airbus later made the HGW package standard on the A340NG (hey, they got better performance! Too bad their fuel economy on the HGW plane was worse for 99% of their needs).

The A340NG could lift more, but as noted by Zeke had less floor area and (not mentioned by him) could not hold as many LD3s. Which mean the payload advantage of the A340 was all but meaningless for most operations unless you are constantly flying extremely dense cargo/passengers or operating at extreme conditions (i.e. hot and/or high or at extreme end of range).

tommy1808 wrote:

Iirc Flightglobal (?, can´t fine the .pdf at the moment) made a 77W/A340-600 comparison with authorized to offer specs and that didn´t look even remotely as bad as it later was, there where plenty of city pairs where the A340 lifted more than enough extra payload to justify the extra fuel, and hot and high wasn´t just better, it blew the 77W flat out of the water, with the 77W barely being able to do CPT-NYC as a ferry flight and the A340-600 doing it with every seat occupied. .

Hot and high is a incredibly niche market. The A346 blew the 77W's H&H performance out of the park. That gained Airbus what, 9 sales? (SA). Even the ME3, located in incredibly hot conditions, rejected the A346 for the 77W (EK without even taking delivery of their A346 order).

tommy1808 wrote:

Iirc Flightglobal (?, can´t fine the .pdf at the moment) made a 77W/A340-600 comparison with authorized to offer specs and that didn´t look even remotely as bad as it later was, there where plenty of city pairs where the A340 lifted more than enough extra payload to justify the extra fuel, and hot and high wasn´t just better, it blew the 77W flat out of the water, with the 77W barely being able to do CPT-NYC as a ferry flight and the A340-600 doing it with every seat occupied.

Aircraft Commerce did a comparison of the two in their Feb/Mar 2001 issue. They compared 14 routes (flying both directions) between 5275nm and 7139nm and included fields with high ambient temps (DXB) and elevations (JNB). The A340-600 was configured with 380 seats (12 | 54 | 314) and the 777-300ER with (22 | 70 | 273). On all 28 city-pairs, the A346 could carry all 380 passengers and on 24 of them, the 77W could carry all 365. The four exceptions were HKG-JFK (359), JFK-HKG (353), JNB-PEK (260) and JNB-JFK (109) with JNB's issues being due to tire speed restricting TOW. The A340-600 could also carry between 15-65% more freight and burned 17-21% more fuel than the 777-300ER. With fuel calculated at USD 0.65 per gallon and belly yields calculated at USD 0.50 per pound, the A340-600 had a freight revenue advantage of between USD 4000-10,000 per flight. The 777-300ER would have better fare revenue due to it's higher premium cabin configuration.

tommy1808 wrote:

the A380 revamp.

I specifically said:

matt6461 wrote:

clean-sheet A380 replacement

You appear not to be reading very closely.
Others have more than adequately pointed out why your opinions on the capability/efficiency tradeoff are flawed.
It's a little ridiculous, tbh, that such points need be made given the market response to these planes. But that's a.net... I'm sure we'd have had Dassault Mercure evangelists had this site been around back then.

Polot wrote:

The A340NG could lift more, but as noted by Zeke had less floor area and (not mentioned by him) could not hold as many LD3s. Which mean the payload advantage of the A340 was all but meaningless for most operations unless you are constantly flying extremely dense cargo/passengers or operating at extreme conditions (i.e. hot and/or high or at extreme end of range).

Yes, floor space is more important because passenger tickets generate more revenue than cargo. So the 77W offers lower seat mile costs as it can hold more seats.

Matt6461 wrote:

Others have more than adequately pointed out why your opinions on the capability/efficiency tradeoff are flawed.

Actually none did, all those arguments are based on the aircraft as they exist, not as the aircraft where planned. After all it seems with the planned numbers Aircraft Commerce had to exaggerate the Airbus fuel burn quite a bit to make the 77W look good.

Stitch wrote:

Aircraft Commerce did a comparison of the two in their Feb/Mar 2001 issue.

That sounds a lot like the one i was thinking about, including the city pairs.Thank you.

The A340-600 could also carry between 15-65% more freight and burned 17-21% more fuel than the 777-300ER.

65% more Cargo is quite a bit and has Zeke has pointed out, they seem to have overestimated the fuel burn by a non-neglectable margin, since his real world number is just 8%.

With fuel calculated at USD 0.65 per gallon and belly yields calculated at USD 0.50 per pound, the A340-600 had a freight revenue advantage of between USD 4000-10,000 per flight. The 777-300ER would have better fare revenue due to it's higher premium cabin configuration.

Which is why LH for example put the lavs in the basement, giving the bird virtually the same cabin for the long haul, where cargo capacity can´t be filled anyways, even less on the 77W.

Polot wrote:

No, its not "peachy" no matter the price of fuel. You ideally want the gain in performance to be greater than the gain in fuel burn.

Ideally, really. Wow, what an insight. In the real world decisions are driven by "does it make enough money to justify the risk". If you think you make a couple of bucks more lifting 65% more cargo on top of the same passenger number due to underfloor lavs, 8% fuel burn are a ridiculous low price to pay for it. I work in sales and gladly trade margin relative for margin absolute.

That is actually why some airlines were upset when Airbus later made the HGW package standard on the A340NG (hey, they got better performance! Too bad their fuel economy on the HGW plane was worse for 99% of their needs).

They where upset because those customer that liked the A346, even that overweight pig had niches where the 77W couldn´t compete after all, and Airbus made that niche worse. And of course, again, you are arguing from the real existing planes, and not the planes as planed.

The A340NG could lift more, but as noted by Zeke had less floor area and (not mentioned by him) could not hold as many LD3s

42 vs. 44 LD3, both could almost never lift when fully loaded.

Even the ME3, located in incredibly hot conditions, rejected the A346 for the 77W (EK without even taking delivery of their A346 order).

They loved the A346 until fuel prices when through the roof. Emirates was one of the airlines pushing Airbus to tweak the -600 into the 600E instead of making it a HGW. And that was when it was already crystal clear how the real flying 77W and A346 compare, so it is very obvious that even the real existing planes where close enough.
And again, that was the real existing aircraft, not the one as it was planned. All the ME3 ordered it for a reason.

The notion that AIrbus spend billions to develop an aircraft that can´t compete is simple utter nonsense. The screwed up bad enough, so it couldn´t compete, they didn´t plan it that way.

best regards
Thomas

So, we started by discussing about Airbus increasing the weight status for both the A350-900 and -1000, and now we are stuck with this discussion about the good judgment of Airbus planning the A340-600.

Guys, could you please accept gallantly and pleasantly to digress? Please remember Longhauler's signature: "Just because I stopped arguing, doesn't mean I think you are right. It just means I gave up!" Those are words of wisdom.

The base A350 at EIS had great performance and efficiency the improvements we will see over the next few decades will make the aircraft even better.

It will be very interesting to see what Airbus is proposing to QF for the SYD LHR flights, that will probably be the basis for the A350 freighter.

zeke wrote:

The base A350 at EIS had great performance and efficiency the improvements we will see over the next few decades will make the aircraft even better.

It will be very interesting to see what Airbus is proposing to QF for the SYD LHR flights, that will probably be the basis for the A350 freighter.

That is a good point! I hadn't thought of the frighter much, though I did imagine it to be at least close to the specs of the current -900LR. I'm kind of hoping they could get 290t MTOW with the current gear (possibly over optimistic) to give a meaningful payload at the extremes of range. Would probably benefit the frighter version a fair bit as well.

350helmi

It was brought up in the QF UHL thread that a A35K with 316t MTOW (has been bought up by Airbus as a possibility) and an ACT could do 9500Nm with a 24t payload. I wonder if the improvements made to the -900LR could be made to the -1000 to get a similar range plane with higher capacity?

350helmi

350helmi wrote:

I wonder if the improvements made to the -900LR could be made to the -1000 to get a similar range plane with higher capacity?

The A350-1000 has the same fuel system as the A350-900 so there are no technical reasons why the fuel capacity of the A350-1000 cannot also be increased to 165,000 liters from the current planned 156,000 liters and I would not be surprised if all A350-900 and A350-1000 are eventually delivered with the 165,000 liter capability built-in.

As astuteman noted in his initial analysis, that may still not enough fuel to fly 9500nm so they might need to add up to an additional 10,000 liters via ACTs. If we use the 777-200LR as a baseline, each ACT offers an additional ~5700 liters (for a total of 17,095 liters with three tanks). So we could presume two ACTs might be required for the fuel volume and Airbus might need to increase the MTOW to 323,000kg to account for the ACTs and their fuel to preserve the 30,000kg payload that represents 300 seats.

Right now we don't know if Airbus will certify ACTs on the A350. I'm aware QF challenged Airbus and Boeing, but it remains to be seen if Airbus would go through the effort for just two potential customers (QF and NZ). I'm skeptical.

KarelXWB wrote:

Right now we don't know if Airbus will certify ACTs on the A350. I'm aware QF challenged Airbus and Boeing, but it remains to be seen if Airbus would go through the effort for just two potential customers (QF and NZ). I'm skeptical.

True, this is all hypothetical at tho moment regarding the A35K, but personaly I find it interesting to figure out what could be, even if those hypotheticals never reach production for whatever reason. And certifying ACTs wouldn't be much of a hurdle I don't think if there is even one customer who would take that option. Getting the business for the whole aircraft versus them taking a Boeing product will be worth the effort IMO.

Stitch wrote:

350helmi wrote:

I wonder if the improvements made to the -900LR could be made to the -1000 to get a similar range plane with higher capacity?

The A350-1000 has the same fuel system as the A350-900 so there are no technical reasons why the fuel capacity of the A350-1000 cannot also be increased to 165,000 liters from the current planned 156,000 liters and I would not be surprised if all A350-900 and A350-1000 are eventually delivered with the 165,000 liter capability built-in.

As astuteman noted in his initial analysis, that may still not enough fuel to fly 9500nm so they might need to add up to an additional 10,000 liters via ACTs. If we use the 777-200LR as a baseline, each ACT offers an additional ~5700 liters (for a total of 17,095 liters with three tanks). So we could presume two ACTs might be required for the fuel volume and Airbus might need to increase the MTOW to 323,000kg to account for the ACTs and their fuel to preserve the 30,000kg payload that represents 300 seats.

Personaly I'm very sceptical of the MTOW being able to be bumped up to 323t. There is the possibility of finding some compromise that is below the 30t payload and wont require as much change for the plane, something around 320t is what I imagine being the absolute maximum that the current gear could be modified to.

350helmi

Stitch wrote:

Airbus might need to increase the MTOW to 323,000kg to account for the ACTs and their fuel to preserve the 30,000kg payload that represents 300 seats.

A350 seems to have potential but I don't think that another 7t MTOW bump beyond the "beyond" is easy.

With the "simple" bump in MOTW and the expanded tankage as on the ULR we have:

316t ( MTOW, single bump ) - 132t ( fuel 165.000l ) - 155t ( pandered OEW ) = 29t ( available payload )