November 1, 2023 - No. 045 In This Issue : Pratt Confirms Minimal Impact To A220, E2 Fleets As PW1000G Checks Expand : Opinion: Why A New Jetliner Is A Great Idea : Boeing demonstrates 777-9 folding wingtip at Seattle-Tacoma airport gate : Lockheed drops US Air Force tanker bid; partner Airbus to go it alone : West Star Aviation Developing Fast-Track AMT Program : Boeing’s electric flying taxi company Wisk takes flight in LA [Video] : Airbus advances A350 freighter production : Archaeologists Unearth World War II-Era Air Catapult System In UK : How Lockheed Martin designed the X-59, the world’s weirdest, quietest supersonic jet : HONEYWELL ENGINE USING 100% SUSTAINABLE AVIATION FUEL SUCCESSFULLY TESTED ON EMBRAER BUSINESS JET : Sergey Brin’s New Airship Cleared For Flight Testing Pratt Confirms Minimal Impact To A220, E2 Fleets As PW1000G Checks Expand Sean Broderick October 24, 2023 Credit: Pratt & Whitney Pratt and Whitney’s PW1000G-family inspection program is stabilizing and will soon include engines that power the Airbus A220 and Embraer E2, but the company’s analysis confirms that the number of unscheduled shop visits on these variants will be low. “For the PW1500 and the PW1900, we will institute a fleet management plan that will largely fit inside the shop visit plans that are already in place for these fleets,” Chris Calio, chief operating officer of Pratt parent RTX, formerly Raytheon Technologies, told investors during a third-quarter (Q3) earnings call. “We believe the financial impact won’t be significant and is contemplated in our current contract estimates and the financial outlook for Pratt.” Pratt recorded a $2.9 billion charge in Q3 related to the inspection program that targets parts containing contaminated material, in line with expectations set last month when the company detailed its “fleet management plan.” The plan’s first step targeted about 140 PW1100G engines that power Airbus A320neos for removal by the end of September. With that set of engines now undergoing inspections, attention shifts the next batch within the expected total of 600-700 engines that face unscheduled removals by 2027. Another 500 or so will be pulled as scheduled for routine overhauls, creating more shop-capacity pressure. RTX executives confirmed that a new set of engines will be flagged by serial number in the coming weeks via service bulletins and other operator communications, with inspections expected to start in early 2024. “Regulators and air framers are aligned with this recommendation. We expect the service bulletin implementing these actions will be released beginning in November, followed by airworthiness directives,” Calio said. “So, those communications are happening, but you’re going to see that impact early in 2024.” Aviation Week previously reported that Pratt is targeting late 2023 for issuing the next round of service bulletins with recommended inspection deadlines for certain engines and confirmed check intervals and reduced parts life limits. This round of checks is expected to trigger the peak of Pratt-powered A320neo groundings as engine-shop capacity is filled, unscheduled removals peak, and needed parts production is still ramping up. “The lion’s share of these incremental shop visits that we’re going to have, the 600 to 700 in that 2023 to 2026 time frame, two-thirds of those are in 2023 and relatively early 2024,” Calio said. “That’s what causes that ... peak of 650” aircraft on the ground, he added. Groundings of Pratt-powered A320neos steadily rose throughout September as deadlines for the first tranche of engine removals recommended by Pratt and mandated by regulators passed. The figure appears to have stabilized at around 330, or about 25% of the delivered fleet, Aviation Week Fleet Discovery data show. While not all of them are grounded for unscheduled engine checks, the figure of inactive aircraft has nearly doubled since the end of August, pointing to the ramifications of the first batch of removals and inspections. The engine inspections target parts made from 2015-2021 and identified as having contaminated powder metal (PM) that may cause cracks. Affected parts are high pressure turbine (HPT) stage 1 and 2 disks, high-pressure compressor stage 7 and 8 integrated blade rotors, and aft hubs. Pratt’s plan includes reducing life limits on the parts to a level that could require repetitive inspections with a year for the most active aircraft. It also is ramping up production of the affected parts so it can replace as many problematic ones as possible with new, full-life components so operators do not face frequent repetitive inspections. But hitting the required production levels will take time. “Our baseline plan today forecasts second quarter (Q2) 2024 to get to run rate capacity for disk production,” Calio said. “We are working to accelerate this timeline, which will allow us to replace an even larger portion of the fleet with full-life parts.” Engines coming in are getting either hospital-type “project” visits or full overhauls, depending on several factors. Turn times on the shorter, restorative visits are running at about 35 days, Calio said—far below the 250-300-day projections for the more expansive, materials-intensive full overhauls. “While project visits will be a smaller portion of the overall shop visits, the turnaround time is encouraging, and our teams are continuing to identify further process improvements,” Calio said. The company also is ramping up MRO capacity to help handle the overhaul crunch. Pratt’s network of partner shops is on track to grow to 16 by year-end and 19 by 2025, Calio said. “This will enable the network to be able to conduct more than 2,000 annual shop visits in 2025 to support the global [PW1000G] fleet, a roughly fivefold increase from 2019,” he added. Pratt’s fleet plan outlined in September focused on PW1100Gs that are an option on A320neos. Recently completed analysis on the A220’s PW1500s and E2 family’s PW1900s projects a far less disruptive scenario than A320neo operators are facing. Reduced inspection intervals and life limits are part of the plan, and they will drive “some” unscheduled inspections and likely extended aircraft groundings starting the first half of 2024, Calio said. “But we believe these will be largely mitigated by the end of the year,” he added. He did not provide details on how many of the 290s A220s and 80 E2s in service may be affected. Pratt also revised its V2500 fleet management plan in place for two years. It will add about 100 unscheduled overhauls over the next four years, Calio said. Most will undergo “project work scope” checks. Details will be released in a November service bulletin, he said. The contaminated PM issue was discovered following a 2020 Vietnam Airlines engine failure traced to a cracked V2500 HPT stage 1 disk. Pratt’s analysis confirmed that PW1000G-family engines and F135s that power the Lockheed Martin F-35 had contaminated parts as well. Another in-service incident late last year led Pratt to re-examine its data and assumptions. The findings prompted a revamp of its commercial engine inspection recommendations, triggering the new fleet management plans, reduced inspection intervals and life limits, and waves of unscheduled engine removals. The F-35’s lower usage rates mean the issue is expected to have little or no effect on that fleet. Opinion: Why A New Jetliner Is A Great Idea Richard Aboulafia October 20, 2023 Credit: JetZero These are exciting times for new jetliner concepts. JetZero’s blended wing body, Ron Epstein’s high-wing/propfan jetliner and others offer hope to airlines struggling with high fuel prices. The prospect of a new jetliner also offers hope to Boeing, which is losing market share to Airbus’ conventional, last-generation A321neo and, as Epstein points out, badly needs to revive its engineering core. Despite this, Boeing CEO David Calhoun, among others, continues to deny that there is a business case for a new jet. One reason he cites is that there are game-changing new technologies coming that could make a jet launched today obsolete after a few years. History, however, shows us four principles indicating why that is unlikely: 1. Aviation technology is seldom game-changing. This is an industry based on incrementalism. Consider the high-bypass turbofan, debuting as the Pratt & Whitney JT9D on Boeing’s 747 in 1969. It offered impressive efficiency improvements, and all commercial engines today are high-bypass, but it took decades to extinguish lower-bypass types. The last low-bypass JT8D was delivered in 1999 on an MD-80. And the last Boeing 707, which the new widebodies and their high-bypass engines should have made obsolete, was delivered 13 years after the 747 entered service. 2. Exciting new technologies take longer to arrive than expected. The idea of a commercial geared turbofan was mooted in the 1970s or before. International Aero Engines proposed its SuperFan in the mid-1980s, but a geared commercial fan didn’t enter service until 2016, as Pratt & Whitney’s PurePower PW1000 series. Similarly, the propfans on Epstein’s jetliner are based on technologies envisioned over 50 years ago and first flown (as the GE36 and Pratt/Allison 578-DX) 35 years ago. 3. Some regard hydrogen and other alternative propulsion as promising, but many experts point to serious technical challenges. These enormous challenges may or may not be surmountable, but to regard a hydrogen-powered jetliner as a disruptive possibility for another 20-30 years completely ignores the history of technology maturation. 4. There is very little record of new product failure due to disruption by novel technology. Failures such as the Bristol Brabazon, Concorde or Airbus A380 resulted from misunderstandings of market requirements, a kind of magical thinking about what airlines and the public want, not new technology. 5. It is true that in the 1950s, numerous piston and turboprop airliners were launched, and some failed due to the advent of jets. But this was the result of cheap fuel enabling a more expensive path (jets). Today, it is a reasonable bet that fuel will not be cheap, and passengers will stay cost-sensitive. 6. The most promising new technologies on the drawing board—such as autonomy and sustainable aviation fuel—are retrofittable or applicable to current platforms. A new jetliner designed today can easily anticipate any requirements these technologies might have. 7. The military side of the industry illustrates these principles well. The U.S. Air Force has been buying fifth-generation fighters since the Lockheed Martin F-22, but per Principle 1, it is also procuring upgraded fourth-generation aircraft such as the Boeing F-15EX because they are still effective for certain missions. Meanwhile, per Principle 2, concepts such as directed-energy weapons or hypersonic propulsion have been around for decades but are unlikely to revolutionize combat aircraft any time soon. Per Principle 4, many technologies on the drawing board can be spiraled in or retrofitted to modern combat aircraft. Most of all, militaries know that forgoing the fielding new weapons and technologies today in favor of waiting for some future “game-changing” weapon can lead to disaster. Imagine if the UK or U.S. had decided in the 1930s to skip the development of high-performance fighters like the Spitfire because jet engines were coming and were likely to make propeller planes obsolete. Airlines often think the same way as militaries. Not having technology that is equal to their competitors’ means those competitors can outprice and out-profit them on a given route. This is why Calhoun’s insistence that a new jetliner needs to be 20-30% better than current equipment is false. Airline profit margins are tiny, and a 10-15% performance improvement can make all the difference, as with the Boeing 777-200 versus the Airbus A340-300 or McDonnell Douglas MD-11, for example. Also, the new jetliner concepts promise much better improvements than that. Militaries that ignore these principles risk defeat. A jetliner prime that ignores them can expect defeat, too. For Boeing, being stuck in permanent second place puts it on the path to commercial irrelevance. Boeing demonstrates 777-9 folding wingtip at Seattle-Tacoma airport gate Ricardo Meier October 16, 2023 Note: See photos and videos in the original article. Feature that allows shortening the wingspan of the widebody was put to the test in the airport terminal Boeing decided to test the functionality of the 777-9’s folding wingtips in practice by parking the huge widebody at one of the gates at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The aircraft with a wingspan of 235 feet (about 72 meters) with wings extended can ‘shrink’ to 213 feet (almost 65 meters), thanks to the possibility of folding the tips on the ground. Because of this, the 777X can use any parking position intended for widebodies at airports around the world. The solution came about after the bad experience caused by the Airbus A380, the largest passenger plane ever built. Follow ADN: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook The two-deck aircraft, with its large dimensions, required changes at airports, both in the runways, taxiways and in the gates and parking positions. Only its wingspan, 80 meters, made the use of some gates unfeasible, due to the proximity to other aircraft. Seattle-Tacoma Airport S12 gate at S Concourse (GE) The solution found by Boeing was to replicate the same concept used in military aircraft on board aircraft carriers, which have articulated wings to allow them to be retracted and thus adapt to the tight deck space. The test with the 777-9 registration number N779XW was carried out at gate S12, in Concourse S at Seattle-Tacoma, an airport approximately 32 miles (50 km) from Everett, where Boeing produces the aircraft. The 777-9 is expected to enter service in 2025 and currently has 363 firm orders from more than 12 customers. Lockheed drops US Air Force tanker bid; partner Airbus to go it alone By Stephen Losey Monday, Oct 23 Concept art released by Lockheed Martin shows its proposed LMXT refueling tanker, based on Airbus' Multi Role Tanker Transport, refueling an F-35. (Lockheed Martin) WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin has ended its effort to compete for a U.S. Air Force contract to build the service’s next wave of 75 refueling tankers. But Airbus, with whom Lockheed Martin had planned to build the proposed LMXT strategic tanker, will still compete for the KC-135 recapitalization. LMXT would have been based on Airbus’s A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport. “Airbus remains committed to providing the U.S. Air Force and our warfighters with the most modern and capable tanker on the market and will formally respond to the United States Air Force KC-135 recapitalization” request for information, an Airbus spokesperson said in a Monday statement to Defense News. “The A330 U.S.-MRTT is a reliable choice for the U.S. Air Force; one that will deliver affordability, proven performance and unmatched capabilities.” Lockheed spokeswoman Stephanie Stinn said in an earlier statement the company had decided not to respond to the Air Force’s RFI. The news was first reported by Reuters. Stinn said Lockheed plans to transition the team and resources working on the proposed LMXT strategic tanker to other programs, including the next-generation aerial refueling system, or NGAS, program. In a follow-up email, Stinn said the Air Force’s decision earlier this year to accelerate NGAS was one of several factors that led it to drop its pursuit of LMXT and focus on the next-generation tanker, along with other elements in the recent RFI. Lockheed declined to say how much it and Airbus spent to develop LMXT. Lockheed’s choice to drop out of the tanker competition could increase competitor Boeing’s chances of selling more KC-46 Pegasus tankers to the Air Force for the next phase of the service’s multibillion-dollar effort to replace its legacy KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft. The Air Force has established a three-stage process for recapitalizing the KC-135, with the now in-process acquisition of 179 KC-46s representing its first phase. But the service this year reshuffled its acquisition plans for the second and third phases of the tanker recapitalization. Originally, the Air Force planned to buy about 150 tankers in the second phase, and Lockheed teamed up with Airbus to pitch LMXT for this procurement. But for at least a year and a half, top Air Force officials, including Secretary Frank Kendall, have strongly suggested they were leaning toward buying modified KC-46s for the next phase. In March, the Air Force announced it was revamping its tanker plans and would cut the planned purchase of second phase tankers in half, to about 75. As part of its new tanker strategy, the Air Force also sped up plans to acquire NGAS. The Air Force’s surprise slash of the tanker buy was a blow to LMXT. But Lockheed continued to push forward, and in June the company announced it chose a General Electric Aerospace engine for LMXT. A Lockheed official told reporters at the time the company hoped the engine choice would show the Air Force that LMXT would be a viable solution for its tanker needs. The Air Force’s deputy program executive officer for mobility aircraft, Scott Boyd, told reporters in Dayton, Ohio, in late July that a KC-46 purchase was not a foregone conclusion. But he said the service would have to see if its market research showed a viable alternative to the KC-46 exists. West Star Aviation Developing Fast-Track AMT Program By Mark Phelps - Published: October 25, 2023 Updated: October 26, 2023 Photo: West Star Aviation West Star Aviation is partnering with Southwestern Illinois College to launch West Star Aviation Academy (WSAA) at West Star’s East Alton, Illinois, facility. The goal is to develop an accelerated program that will incorporate an FAA-sanctioned Part 147 curriculum able to turn out certified Aircraft Maintenance Technicians (AMTs) faster than traditional programs that typically take from 18 to 30 months. According to the West Star announcement, “Our first WSAA cohort will include hiring 25 apprentices who will spend seven and a half months learning and earning wages and benefits through a full-time educational curriculum, coupled with hands-on practical training, mentoring and job shadowing in preparation for apprentices to test for their FAA license.” West Star CEO Jim Rankin said, “For apprentices, it’s an opportunity to make a living while learning a highly skilled technical trade in less than a year. For West Star Aviation, WSAA will help ensure that we continually have a strong pipeline of skilled and licensed technicians to deliver industry-leading MRO services to business aviation customers worldwide.” To be named the Choose Aviation program, the curriculum will be taught in a dedicated West Star learning hangar, along with West Star’s proprietary AMT technical training. Katie Johnson, VP of human resources at West Star Aviation, said, “WSAA ensures a complete standard of formal education, practical hands-on training, and on-the-job training to enhance the work-readiness of new technicians, while substantially increasing our access to qualified talent to meet our ongoing customer needs for service work.” Boeing’s electric flying taxi company Wisk takes flight in LA [Video] Peter Johnson Oct 23 2023 - 1:49 pm PT Wisk Aero, Boeing’s electric flying taxi company, held the first public eVTOL demonstration flights in LA this week. The company accomplished the feat at the 100th anniversary of the Long Beach Airport. A video from the event shows the record-setting flight. Wisk began as Zee Aero in 2010, later merging with Kitty Hawk Corporation. After realizing the potential behind its fifth-generation electric air taxi, the aircraft and team were spun out to form Wisk with an investment from Boeing. The aerospace giant injected several rounds of funding into the startup, and earlier this year, Wisk became a fully-owned subsidiary of Boeing. Although the company operates separately, Wisk has access to Boeing’s vast network of development, testing, and other areas of expertise. In October, Wisk became the first electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxi company to hold test flights in the greater LA area. During Long Beach’s Festival of Flight, Wisk extended its accomplishments, holding the first public electric air taxi flight demonstration. The demo (using Wisk’s 5th gen eVTOL) previewed the future of autonomous passenger flight. Wisk 5th-generation electric flying air taxi (Source: Wisk Aero LLC) This week’s event allowed the company to hold an autonomous flight alongside other passenger airlines in a complex, real-life situation. Boeing-backed Wisk electric flying taxi company takes flight in LA (source: Wisk Aero) Wisk and leadership from Boeing hosted the mayor of Long Beach and local and state officials to discuss the future of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) in the region following the event. Mayor Rex Richardson said, “I am proud to see the future of flight becoming a reality in Long Beach.” He explained the partnership with Wisk and Boeing will “create good jobs” while “integrating a safe, quiet, and environmentally responsible transportation option in Long Beach.” Top comment by Rick Kwasnicki Liked by 3 people Show me the infrastructure that will make this successful... Pilotless aircraft flying in controlled airspace? How do I get one of these to pick me up at home? Let's get past the flash and see what the Infrastructure underpinnings will be. View all comments Wisk announced a partnership with Long Beach through the city’s Long Beach Economic Partnership (LBEP) in 2022. The company also completed the first public demonstration of an autonomous eVTOL fixed-wing aircraft during EAA AirVenture in OshKosh, WI, in July 2023. Wisk 6th generation electric flying air taxi (Source: Wisk Aero LLC) Wisk is already developing its 6th-generation aircraft. The all-electric passenger aircraft is expected to have seating for four plus luggage, 90 miles of range, autonomous capabilities, and a 15-minute charge time. Several eVTOL companies are making quick progress. Jovy Aviation held its first test flights with a pilot onboard, while Jetson’s ONE “flying car” became the first eVTOL certified for flight in Italy this month. Airbus advances A350 freighter production 23 / 10 / 2023 By Rebecca Jeffrey Airbus A350F. Copyright: Airbus S.A.S 2021 - computer rendering by FIXION - MMS - 2021 Airbus is making headway with the production of its A350 freighter. The airframer has announced the arrival of the first components from its manufacturing plants in Stade, Bremen, and Varel. Airbus Aerostructures and Premium Aerotec (PAI) teams have met for the so-called “first metal cuts”, said Airbus. Melanie Markgraf, ASA A350F project manager, witnessed the production starts at Varel and Bremen live. “In 2013, I was lucky enough to celebrate the first flight of the A350, together with many other colleagues,” said Markgraf. “Ten years later, it is vital to make one of the biggest evolutions of this fantastic aircraft a reality. Every day, a lot of our colleagues work on exciting and challenging tasks to achieve this goal. With the production start at the Bremen, Stade, and Varel sites, we have taken a major step forward together.” Technical insight At the Stade plant, introducing the A350F will have a big impact on existing fuselage shell production, said Airbus. Additional CFRP (carbon fibre reinforced plastic) bonding jigs will be procured, in particular for the upper shell which will contain a large part of the future cargo door cut-out. The freighter lower shell is, in principle, similar to the A350 passenger version. For its first flight and steep take-off tests, the first A350F will be equipped with flight test instrumentation (FTI), requiring substantial reinforcement of the lower shell’s skin laminate. The three large CFRP doublers required for this purpose were manufactured by the Stade fuselage shell production organisation using a special process. During the fuselage shell assembly, the doublers will be mounted to the normal outer skin using more than 4,000 additional rivets. “Since this process would occupy our automated riveting system for a full week and in order to minimise the impact on the series production process activities, we carried out this assembly work with a small team during the summer break,” explained Thomas Meyn, industrial project manager at the Stade site. Airbus A350F manufacturing. Photo: Airbus The first component referred to as the freighter intercostal has been industrialised at the Bremen plant and is ready for delivery. This component is essential for the frame structure of the forward cargo door, which will be subjected to high loads. It is only one of roughly 1,400 components that are industrialised at the Bremen plant. These components are the joining elements between the frames, the skin, and the system connections. Production of the thermoplastic components is one of the crucial factors for the assembly of the freighter. Premium Aerotec is also responsible for some of the A350F’s major components. With the ‘first metal cut’ (the manufacture of the first machined part) at its Varel site, Premium Aerotec has now launched production of this new aircraft type, said Airbus. “The detailed parts and subassemblies for section (S) 13/14 will now be delivered to the Nordenham plant, where they will be assembled to form a complete section. For S16/18, the individual shells originate from Augsburg and Stade and the floor structure is produced in Nordenham,” added Airbus. “After the components have been joined in Hamburg to form the complete sections, both will be transferred to the system installation stage.” In April, Airbus said the first parts for the A350F Centre Wing Box (CWB) had been produced at Airbus Atlantic in Nantes, France. But then in May, Airbus moved the entry into service date for the A350 freighter into 2026. In June this year, the livery of the very first aircraft was unveiled during the Paris Air Show. Airbus said it has received 39 firm orders for the A350F version since its launch in July 2021. Previous A350F aircraft orders include: four from CMA-CGM; seven from Air Lease Corporation; seven from Singapore Airlines; four from Air France; two from Silk Way West Airlines; seven from Etihad Airways; and four from Martinair. In March, four Airbus A350 freighters were ordered by an undisclosed customer. Archaeologists Unearth World War II-Era Air Catapult System In UK By Mark Phelps Published: October 11, 2023 Updated: October 12, 2023 3D digital model of a unique aircraft-catapult launch system in the UK. Image: Museum Of London Archaeology A construction project at a British Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) World War II-era site has unearthed an unusual find. Developed between 1938 and 1940, the RAE Mark III Catapult was designed to launch fully fueled and loaded bombers from runways as short as 270 feet long. The project never succeeded in launching an aircraft, and the site of the underground catapult system was paved over with a conventional runway in 1941. But the technology developed by the engineers at what is now the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, U.K., ultimately led to a shipboard system for launching Hawker Hurricane fighters to defend convoys from long-range Focke-Wulf Fw-200 Condor bombers. Officially called Sea Hurricanes, but nicknamed “Hurricats,” the fighters were launched from trestles mounted on catapult aircraft merchant (CAM) ships. After engaging enemy aircraft, the pilot of the Hurricat would either bail out or ditch alongside the ship. The original land-based system used a catapult powered by compressed air. A Rolls-Royce Kestrel piston engine provided up to 2,000 pounds of pressure. A round center platform would rotate to line the aircraft up with the track best aligned with the wind. A hook was to be attached to the front of the aircraft and pulled it forward when the pressure was released. According to the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA), the tracks and other remains of the catapult system are being dismantled but recovered and kept for posterity. Museum archaeologists have also created a 3D digital replica of the system. According to project officer Susan Porter, “This fascinating structure reminds us of the rapid experimentation and innovation of the interwar years and World War II. Crucially, recording the location and appearance of every inch means that the catapult is preserved by record for future generations.” How Lockheed Martin designed the X-59, the world’s weirdest, quietest supersonic jet In a feat of engineering, the X-59 travels faster than the speed of sound, while making barely any sound at all. [Image: Lockheed Martin] BY JESUS DIAZ The Lockheed Martin X-59 is probably the strangest airplane ever designed. Its razor-sharp nose takes half of the airplane’s length; there’s no cockpit in sight; the wings are tiny compared to the entire fuselage; and its oversized tail engine looks like a weird hump about to fall off. Of course, there’s a method to this madness. The design is the secret sauce that has produced a true unicorn: a supersonic jet that doesn’t boom the hell out of people and buildings on the ground. The sonic boom is a phenomenon that has long been the Achilles’ heel of supersonic flight. When an aircraft travels faster than the speed of sound, the compressed air molecules against the body of the plane produce shockwaves that merge to form a sonic boom, a loud and disruptive noise heard on the ground. This noise has historically been a significant impediment to the commercial viability of supersonic flight over land. [Photo: Lockheed Martin] The X-59, developed alongside NASA, is designed as an experimental jet that NASA will use to test just how big of a boom people on the ground are willing to accept from a supersonic aircraft. According to Dave Richardson, the program director for X-59 at Lockheed Martin, with this new design, people shouldn’t expect much of a boom at all. The X-59’s “quiet” supersonic boom isn’t made possible by expensive magical materials or exotic engines, Richardson explains. “There is no radical technology in the airplane itself. It really is just the shape of the aircraft.” And if the shape looks more like an anime alien spaceship than an actual vehicle created by human beings, that’s because it was dreamed up in another dimension—by computers and humans—through special software created by the Bethesda, Maryland, company’s engineers. [Image: Lockheed Martin] DESIGNING SUPERSONIC FLIGHT Many of the problems that plague supersonic flight can be traced back to the Concorde, the famous supersonic passenger jet that could travel from New York to London in a mere three and a half hours. When the Concorde first took flight in 1969, people were enthralled by the idea of super-fast air travel. It sounded like a technological marvel . . . until they heard the actual sound. [Photo: NCJ Archive/Mirrorpix/Getty Images] As the passenger plane zoomed overhead and broke through the sound barrier, it sent a deafening boom to the ground below. People described the sensation of a bomb dropping. Glass windows shattered and doors trembled. Unlike the X-59, the Concorde wasn’t designed to be quiet. Its delta-wing design—with two very large triangular wings along its entire fuselage that made it look like a paper airplane—and powerful engines were contributors to the sonic boom. As planes started to go supersonic over the continental U.S., the sound explosions became so much of a problem that Congress banned supersonic flight over land in 1971, a move that was later followed around the world. The Concorde continued to fly until it was decommissioned in 2003, but most airlines couldn’t justify the cost of operating the airplane if its supersonic abilities could be used only over water. “The real breakthrough for supersonic flight would be to be able to fly over land again so that you have those long routes where that supersonic flight is more advantageous,” Richardson says. So that’s exactly what Lockheed Martin set out to build. [Photo: Lockheed Martin] NEED FOR SILENT SPEED In the decades after Congress passed the legislation banning supersonic flight over land, NASA has been on a mission to muffle supersonic booms. But it wasn’t until recently that a silent supersonic jet became possible. Richardson says that’s thanks to high-speed computing and machine learning models that can accurately predict the interaction of the sonic shocks and how they propagate down to the ground from an altitude of 50,000 feet. “That’s not something that we had the ability to do some time ago,” Richardson tells me. “We could have designed this kind of airplane, yes. We could have put it in a wind tunnel, but we would have had to iterate in the wind tunnel hundreds or thousands of times at a huge expense and many more years, versus doing it in the computer today.” With this new technology in hand, NASA sensed an opportunity to repeal the federal supersonic ban. It launched a program called Quesst (Quiet Supersonic Technology) to design and build an X-59 research aircraft that reduces the explosive sonic boom to a gentle thump. In order to convince Congress to bring supersonic flight back into the mainstream, NASA knew it had to turn its low-boom research into an actual experiment that would demonstrate that an airliner could beat the speed of sound without breaking windows, annoying millions of urbanites, and giving cattle heart attacks. The initial design proposal by Lockheed Martin [Image: NASA/Lockheed Martin] The initial proposal by Boeing [Image: NASA/The Boeing Co.] In 2016, NASA asked Lockheed Martin and a host of other companies to submit a proposal for a test airplane that could demonstrate that supersonic flight over land was safe and as silent as regular subsonic airliners. The target was to make a plane with a boom of just 75 PLdB, a volume unit that measures how people perceive sound as opposed to the actual decibels produced by the sonic booms. A 75 PLdB is the equivalent of hearing a dishwasher for less than a second. For comparison, the Concorde’s PldB was 105, or as loud as listening to a chainsaw at full power. In 2018, NASA awarded Lockheed Martin a $247.5 million contract to design, build, and deliver the low-boom X-plane. The plane received its official moniker, the X-59 Quesst, from the U.S. Air Force in June 2018, but the company still had a long road ahead of it to develop a truly quiet supersonic jet. “The genesis of the X-59 low-boom flight demonstrator comes from NASA as part of the growing interest in faster international travel,” Richardson says. “My daughter used to live in Japan, and flying to Japan took forever. And all of us have all been on these long flights where we wish we could be [at our destination] and we would pay more money to get there now.” [Image: Lockheed Martin] THE LONG RUNWAY TO THE X-59 Well before Quesst, Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works—its legendary advanced aerospace design group—had already been working on what would eventually become the X-59. Back in 2013, the plane was known as C100, and it looked a little bit like a shorter version of the Concorde with the engine right on its back, splitting a V-shaped tail. Designers used software to optimize details like the shape of the wings, the configuration of the tail, and the length of the nose. “[The software] would inform us what we needed to do on the airplane,” Richardson recalls. Eventually the CAD design turned into a scale model, and the team tested it in a wind tunnel where engineers could apply their learning to the following iteration. [Image: Lockheed Martin] Next came the C435 mode, which used the V-tail design but had a much longer body with smaller wings and a sharper pointy nose. Then the C506, which got rid of the V-tail in favor of a traditional airplane tail after they realized that the V made it harder to maneuver the airplane, even though it was better at reducing the sonic boom. By 2015, the team had a design for the C603, which added a canard—those two little winglets that you can see near the cockpit—at the end of the nose in the X-59. This model also pushed the engine farther back and set the wings at two different angles, first going up and then down around their midsection. The C605 was the final prototype that informed the preliminary design of the X-59. [Photo: Lockheed Martin] Through all of these iterations, Richardson and his team learned a few important lessons about designing for supersonic boom. First, the heavy, bulky parts of the plane needed to be as far back as possible. “We really put nothing out in the front, but we want to have that long, fine ratio,” he says. This resulted in an extremely fine nose and body, with no surface interruptions that can produce noise when the plane breaks the sound barrier. “You want to be able to stretch out and manage the different shocks across the length of the airplane,” he adds. [Photo: Lockheed Martin] They also learned that anything that causes discontinuity in the airplane’s shape—for instance a windshield or canopy—can add to the boom effect. This led them to get rid of the windshield altogether. Instead, the X-59 uses an external vision system, which is the only advanced technology in the plane, according to Richardson. The pilot navigates using a camera, viewing the outside through a large display. This system had to undergo rigorous certification by the Federal Aviation Administration for use in the national airspace. Despite their best efforts to create a streamlined body, the team found that bulges were inevitable. Richardson describes how the inlet for the engine was placed on top of the plane so the shock that’s generated goes up into space rather than down to the ground. (This is what happened with the Concorde’s engines, which were under its wings.) The same thing goes for any actuators, whose position on top will send shocks up instead of down. The X-59 has been designed to manage and distribute shockwaves differently from the very start while also flying at slower speeds than the Concorde (the Concorde’s cruising speed was 1,350 mph, while the X-59 will cruise at around 925 mph). “I think most people look at the airplane and they say, ‘Wait, something’s wrong,’” Richardson says. “[They think] it’s too long. The landing gear is too far in the back. And why is the nose so long?” [Photo: Lockheed Martin] BUILDING THE X-59 By November 2018, Lockheed Martin had initiated the machining of the X-59’s first part in Palmdale, California. Major structural components were assembled by May 2019. Fast-forward to November 2022, and the General Electric F414-GE-100 engine—which powers the U.S. Navy F-18’s Super Hornet—found its place in the X-59. The aircraft has since undergone a battery of tests, from weight checks and fuel system evaluations to ground vibration assessments. Remarkably, the X-59 weighed in below the anticipated weight, a rare achievement in aircraft development that surprised the entire team. However, the journey hasn’t been without its challenges. Currently, the X-59 is in the system checkout phase, ensuring all systems are seamlessly integrated and functional. A planned maintenance and modification stand-down was needed due to parts that took five months to arrive. This delay pushed the aircraft’s inaugural flight, initially slated for December 2023, to early 2024. [Photo: Lockheed Martin] We will have to wait a little longer to see the first flight of this magnificently weird airplane. After that, there will be multiple tests in which the the X-59 will be flown over cities and rural areas, the team measuring decibels and getting feedback from people on the ground. If they achieve their objectives, there’s no reason why aircraft manufacturers can’t take the concepts they discovered and turn them into commercial airliners, Richardson says. In fact, one of NASA’s requirements for the project was that Lockheed Martin provide an airliner design. Lockheed’s vision for commercial supersonic air travel is a 200-foot-long (double the length of the X-59) twin-engine model for 44 passengers. “I think the biggest challenge that anybody who would go and develop one of these airliners would have is finding an engine that would fly at Mach 1.8 without an afterburner and be large enough for an airplane of this size,” Richardson says, but noting that it is doable. “If there are people who see the market for it and have the investments in their company to go forward and develop an aircraft, they could start right away, as soon as the supersonic ban laws are repealed,” he says. Someday, people might be able to look up and see an alien shape in the sky, with the X-59’s design transcending experimental nature and ushering in a new era for high-speed travel across the globe. HONEYWELL ENGINE USING 100% SUSTAINABLE AVIATION FUEL SUCCESSFULLY TESTED ON EMBRAER BUSINESS JET PRNewswire Oct 15, 2023 LAS VEGAS, Oct. 15, 2023 Engine's performance running on SAF matched levels seen using traditional jet fuel LAS VEGAS, Oct. 15, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Honeywell announced today that Embraer has successfully tested Honeywell's HTF7500 turbofan engine on its Praetor 600 aircraft using 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The test marks a major milestone, as this is the first time 100% SAF has been flown in Honeywell's business jet engines. The test, with one engine using 100% SAF and the other using traditional jet fuel, was performed at the Embraer campus in Melbourne, Florida, and provided new insights into how the engine performs when utilizing a 100% SAF formulation. It successfully demonstrated that the HTF7500 engine running on 100% SAF performed just as flawlessly as when running on traditional jet fuel. "We are pleased to be creating a more sustainable future for aviation with industry leaders like Embraer," said Dave Marinick, president, Engines and Power Systems, Honeywell Aerospace. "This testing milestone with our engine demonstrates the viability of SAF for Embraer and the overall aviation industry, as they work to meet carbon reduction commitments. Additionally, as we develop SAF solutions, we will be using these innovations in our own engines and APUs." Honeywell's HTF7500 engine powers both the Embraer Praetor 600 and Praetor 500 aircraft models. The engine brings a combination of best-in-class dispatch reliability and a relentless focus on reducing noise and improving fuel efficiency. Honeywell is a global leader in SAF and offers a suite of technologies to create fuels with reduced or zero emissions. More than 40 Honeywell Ecofining™ licenses have been issued to date to produce SAF, and roughly 60% of Honeywell's 2022 new product research and development investment was directed toward ESG-oriented outcomes.* Sergey Brin’s New Airship Cleared For Flight Testing By Russ Niles Published: October 30, 2023 Updated: October 31, 2023 IEEE Spectrum is reporting the FAA has issued a special airworthiness certificate to allow Google founder Sergey Brin’s LTA Research to flight test a 400-foot-long hybrid-electric airship, Pathfinder 1, at Moffett Field near San Francisco. LTA has been building the massive aircraft, the largest since the Hindenburg, since 2015. A second larger airship, which is almost 600 feet long, is also under construction. When he started the company, Brin said the plan was to use the airships for humanitarian aid to remote areas. The test airship has a welded titanium frame whose light weight allows the use of helium as the lifting gas rather than the much-more-temperamental hydrogen. It will have a gondola that can hold 14 people and it’s designed for single-pilot operations, although it has dual controls. Two 150-kilowatt generators supply power to 24 electric motors scattered over the airframe. After initial tethered tests, the airship will be flown within a restricted area no higher than 1,500 feet above San Francisco Bay. Brin bought Goodyear’s Airdock in Akron, Ohio, as the future manufacturing site for the airships. Curt Lewis