ON THE BOEING FRONT

Boeing Business Jets Reveals New President and Announces New BBJ MAX Orders

Boeing Business Jets(BBJ) has a new chief, with newly appointed president Erika Pearson making her EBACE show debut just two days into the role.  Pearson, who moved over from Boeing’s airliner business, says she is delighted by her new post.  “I am really looking forward to taking my experience from commercial aviation and translating it to this unique market segment.  This my first time at EBACE and I am really looking forward to the experience.”

Meanwhile, the company unveiled orders for four new BBJ Max aircraft which were booked in the first quarter on the back of “very strong demand”,  says Alex Fecteau, director of marketing.

“We had a good 2021 coming out of the pandemic and had four new orders at the start of this year and are looking forward to finishing up the last half of 2022 even more strongly.”

To aid future sale campaigns, the manufacturer has built a BBJ Max 7 demonstrator that will arrive in 2023, following certification of the baseline aircraft and installation long range fuel tanks and its interior.

At present, the BBJ family comprises the Max 7, 8 and 9, with no plans and present to extend that to the Max 10.

With more than 260 Boeing Business Jets sold since the group was founded in 1996, BBJs are supported by Boeing’s global service network—the largest OEM provided network of service, parts, and maintenance.

Source: Boeing, picture Boeing

Boeing Orders & Deliveries in May

Boeing delivered 35 planes in May was more than double the 17 jets it handed over the same month a year ago.  The delivery total for the first five months of the year is 165 aircraft, according to the data released on Tuesday, June 14.

The orders for the month included 23 gross orders, 17 of which were for widebody aircraft.  Among those, German carrier Lufthansa ordered seven 787 Dreamliners and seven 777-8F freighters.

Aircraft leasing tie-up Bain Capital ordered five 737 Max jets for Indian carrier Akasa Air in a sale-leaseback deal that saw Akasa cancel the same number of planes from its initial order, and sold American Airlines another 737 Max.

Source: Boeing.

                     

ON THE AIRBUS FRONT

                        Airbus Embarks on A321XLR Flight-Test Campaign

Airbus has commenced the flight-test campaign for its long-range A321X.   The aircraft, MSN11000, took off from Hamburg-Finkenwerder Airport at 11:05 for a test flight that lasted approximately 4 hours and 35 minutes.  And it has successfully accomplished its first flight.

Airbus intends the aircraft to enter service in early 2024, offering carriers a range of up to 4,700nm.  While Airbus has already developed a long-range variant of the A321neo, known as the A321LR, the XLR will further enhance range capability.  It will feature a substantial modification of its fuel system with the inclusion of a large aft center tank.

Airbus initially unveiled the XLR at the Paris air show in June 2019, and structural assembly of the jet began last year.

Source: Airbus, picture Airbus

Airbus Orders & Deliveries in May

Airbus deliveries in May were 47 aircraft for 27 customers and took orders for 13 aircraft.  The net year to date delivery number of 235 reflects a reduction of 2 deliveries to Aeroflot for which a transfer was not possible due to international sanctions.

Source: Airbus         

        

REGIONAL/BUSINESS JETS

             Gulfstream Plans $55M Appleton Expansion, 200 New Jobs

Gulfstream Aerospace plans to hire more than 200 positions and invest $55 million in expanding its Appleton, Wisconsin site because of increased customer demand and its growing fleet of super-midsize and large-cabin jets.  The Appleton expansion involves the construction of a 73,000-sq-ft (6,782-sq-m) paint facility using a paint booth design developed by the airframer and Wisconsin-based paint booth manufacturer Global Finishing Solutions.  When operational, the facility will have the capability to paint up to 48 aircraft a year and enable the Appleton site to offer entire aircraft completions.  It is expected to open in the third quarter of 2023.

Additionally, Gulfstream has made several enhancements to its Appleton site, an office area for completions customers and pilots, wood finishing area, upgraded shipping and receiving area, and completions hanger with an employee break room and lockers.

The Appleton expansion follows Gulfstream’s expansion in St. Louis completions, as well as new facilities in Fort Worth, Texas and Mesa, Arizona, and expansion of its customer support call center in Farnborough, England.

“Gulfstream continues to make significant investments across the company to address both current demand and future growth in our completions and Customer Support operations,” said Gulfstream president Mark Burns.

Source: Gulfstream, Image Gulfstream Aerospace       

                                                                  

OTHER AVIATION NEWS

             Eviation Readies for Alice Maiden Flight as Ground Tests Wrap Up

Eviation is gearing up for the first flight of its all-electric Alice prototype in the coming month having completed ground testing earlier in May.  However, the clean-sheet aircraft developer is staying tight-lipped on precisely when the proof-of- concept Alice prototype will take to the skies, simply saying it will occur “this summer”.

“We have a well-constructed program schedule we are working towards now”, interim chief executive Gregory Davis told FlightGlobal at EBACE business aviation show on May 24.  Davis declines to provide detail but says the results of ground tests convinced it to slow the push towards first flight.

“When we completed the ground-test program we found some things that we needed to tweak and that’s what we are working on as we prepare the aircraft for first flight,” he says.

Low-speed ground testing was wrapped on 2 May, says Davis, with the aircraft having been taken to a maximum speed of 86kt(160km/h). High-speed taxi trials, including the crucial take-off test, will only be performed once the aircraft has secured its experimental permit to fly.

Davis says flights of the first of three certification aircraft will begin in 2024.  This should lead to type approval for the pressurized version from the US Federal Aviation Administration under Part 23 regulations in 2025.  Eviation anticipates cargo operations beginning that same year and passenger flights using the pressurized model starting in 2026.

Eviation continues to develop the supply chain for the Alice, with several key partners already identified; for example, sister company Magnix is providing twin Magni650 electric motors and GKN Aerospace is to build the wing.  However, the manufacturer of the fuselage and T-tail has yet to be disclosed.

Final assembly of the Alice will take place in Arlington, Washington.  Sales efforts for the Alice are meanwhile gathering momentum as Aviation looks to add to its current 87-unit backlog: 12 in a cargo configuration for DHL and 75 of the nine seat commuter variant for US regional airline Cape Air.  More to come on the Alice.

Source: Eviation Aircraft,Picture Eviation

                                 Rolls-Royce Pearl 700 Engine On Home Stretch

Rolls-Royce is wrapping up testing on its Pearl 700 engine for the ultra-long-range Gulfstream G700 and shifting to “production mode” said Colm Golden, Rolls-Royce’s senior v-p for the Pearl program.  The Company has delivered several engine chipsets to the OEM and already has issued two-thirds of the necessary certification reports.

Meanwhile, Golden reports that the test campaign on the Pearl 10X for Dassault’s large cabin flagship is also proceeding well.  Both the Pearl 700 and 10X are rated to produce more than 18,000 pounds of thrust and deliver significant increases in efficiency.

Compared to the Rolls-Royce RB725 that powers the GulfStream G^50 series, the Pearl 700 delivers an 8 percent increase in takeoff thrust, a 12 percent better thrust-to-ratio, and a 5 percent higher efficiency.  Rolls-Royce has achieved these gains by mating advanced materials and manufacturing techniques, including the use of 3D-printed combustor tiles.

Golden stressed that the Pearl’s highly-efficient core is really its secret sauce and that by optimizing it and the parts around it, Rolls-Royce has developed “the most efficient core in business aviation.  Our technology provides new tools to our designers that can really take us to the next level, enabling smaller cores that provide better performance.  With bigger aircraft, cores really need to get smaller,”

Golden said, The “Advance2” core on the Pearl features a 10-stage, high-pressure compressor with six titanium blinks and a 41:1 pressure ratio.

Source: Rolls-Royce, picture Rolls-Royce

IcelandAir Signs Preliminary Deal to Buy Four 737 Max Jets From Boeing’s Built Backlog

IcelandAir has signed a letter of intent to acquire four Boeing 737 Max aircraft from the manufacturer’s backlog of built aircraft.

The aircraft were built in 2018 and are scheduled for delivery in the autumn of this year.  They will take IcelandAir’s fleet of jets to 18.Cirium fleets data shows it has eight Max 8s and four Max 9s in service and a further two Max8s on order that are due for delivery in late June.  Icelandair does not specify the variant of the four jets covered by the Lol.

Iceland Air chief executive Bogi Nils Bogason says: We are pleased to announce a further expansion to our fleet of Boeing 737 Max aircraft on favorable terms.  The Max has proven to be a good fit to our route network and its fuel efficiency contributes positively to our efforts of reducing the carbon emissions from our operations.

“We have been ramping up our operations,” he adds. ”This summer we offer direct flights from Iceland to 44 destinations, up to five times a day.  This addition to our fleet allows us to further increase our services by adding new destinations and increasing frequency to our current destinations.”

Source: Icelandair, Picture Boeing              

LATEST NEWS

• Jin Air has resumed flying its Pratt & Whitney PW 4000-powered Boeing 777-200 ERs becoming the first and only possibly Asia-pacific operator to return the PW4000-powered 777 to service after a year-long grounding.

• Swoop On June 15-SMBC Aviation Capital has announced the delivery of one Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft Swoop airlines.

• Atlas Air took delivery of another 747-8 Freighter, leaving the airframer with just three undelivered 747-8Fs and bringing the Jet’s 50-year-plus production run one step nearer to the end.

• Indian Startup Akasa Air has taken delivery of its first aircraft, a Boeing 737 Max 8 at a ceremony in Seattle, Washington.

• AerCap the world’s top aircraft lessor said it had decided to stick to an order for up to 68 MAX jets placed by General Electric’s GECAS leasing arm, even though it had the right to cancel it after acquiring GECAs.

• Vietnam’s Vietjet Air has reaffirmed its order for 200 Boeing 737 MAX family aircraft, which it had put on hold after the grounding of the type in 2019.

• International Airlines Group(IAG) has confirmed that it has finalized negotiations with Boeing for up to 150 Boeing MAX jets.

• Turkish Airlines acquired originally destined 737 Maxs for Russia’s S7 Airlines is now going to Turkish Airlines and its leisure subsidiary Anadolujet.

• ANA Japan’s All Nippon Airways will apply new lives to a pair of Boeing 787s to highlight its sustainability efforts, and to also research ways to reduce the impact of flying on the environment.

• Norwegian has firmed its deal for 50 Boeing 737 Max 8, which are due to join the fleet between 2025 and 2028.

Sources: Turkish Airlines, IAG, ANA, SMBC, AerCap, Atlas Air,Boeing

AIR CARGO

                       CMA CGM Air Cargo has received its first 2 Boeing 777 Freighters

CMA CGM Air Cargo, a global leader in sea, land, air and logistics solutions, announced on June 9th the delivery of its two first Boeing 777 Freighters and the purchase of two more.  Four Boeing 777 Freighters will join the CMA CGM Air Cargo fleet.

At the ceremony signing held in Everett, WA, CMA CGM Air Cargo took delivery of its second Boeing 777 Freighter, after the reception of its first Freighter on May 31st. These planes both come from the order CMA CGM Air Cargo placed in the spring of 2021.  The purchase of the two Boeing 777 Freighters was the first direct order since the CMA CGM Group announced the launch of its dedicated air cargo transportation division in February, 2021.

CMA  CGM Air Cargo also officially disclosed an order for two additional Boeing 777 Freighters.  When delivered, the new planes will complete a fleet of at least 12 Boeing and Airbus aircraft by 2026.  This additional order means that CMA CGM will have a total of four Boeing 777 Freighters in its fleet.

Source: CMA CGM Air Cargo,Picture Boeing

                       Textron Delivers First Cessna SkyCourier to FedEx

Textron Aviation has delivered to FedEx the first Cessna SkyCourier turboprop, a milestone coming 4.5 years after the Wichita airframer launched the program.

FedEx is launch customer of the clean-sheet SkyCourier, which Textron Aviation markets as a cargo and special-mission aircraft, and as a 19-passenger airliner.

The company, which owns Cessna, disclosed the first delivery on May 9.  FedEx holds orders for 50 of the aircraft, which are powered by twin Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-655C turbo props.  FedEx also holds options to order another 50 of the type, according to Textron.

The freighter variant of SkyCourier has a range of 940nm(1,741km), with the ability to carry payload up to 2,722kg (6,000lb) and maximum cruise speed of 210Kt(389km/h), according to Textron Aviation.

Source: Textron Aviation,Picture Textron Aviation

                         

  Researched and Compiled by :

Ed Kaplanian    Commercial Aviation Advisor 

Contact – ekaplanian@yahoo.com

Editor:   Lee Kaplanian