Boeing 747-8F et I

“The 14 freighters now in service with 5 customers are performing extremely well. Progress on the production side is steady, too, as we continued to transition to reach a production rate of 2 airplanes per month this summer,” Boeing president and chief executive Jim Albaugh said.
“The 777 was kind of our benchmark programme so everybody internally compares themselves to the 777 because it was such a great introduction. We’re not at that point, but we’re very close,” Boeing director of 747-8 support and services Leslie Lauer told flightglobal.
In the meantime, Boeing says the 747-8, of which its General Electric (GE) GEnx-2B engine missed its engine specific fuel consumption (SFC) by 2.7%, along with the 2.3-2.7 tonnes (5,000-6,000 lbs) overweight on initial airframe since the revised wing design after 2005, or 8-9 tonnes overweight when compared to the original wing design in 2005, will meet specifications from 2014 onwards.
“The planes delivered so far have been performing very well in service, about 1% better than we thought. They are giving double-digit gains in fuel burn (compared with the models they replace) and are on a path to getting back to catalogue commitments in 2014,” Boeing spokesman Jim Proulx said.

Boeing is confident it will convert the 30 commitments it has for the 747-8I passenger variant into firm orders, and also expects to secure near-term incremental sales for the stretched Jumbo.

The orderbook for the 747-8 stands at 106 aircraft, the bulk of which (70) are for the -8F freighter variant. Airline sales of the 747-8I have been sluggish, with only three firm customers secured to date - Lufthansa (20), Korean Air (five) and Arik Air (two). Boeing also holds memorandums of understanding (MoUs) for some 30 747-8Is from a mix of announced and undisclosed customers which include Air China (five), Transaero (four) and an undisclosed customer (15).

Speaking on board the 747-8I's first passenger service, flown by Lufthansa between Frankfurt and Washington Dulles on 1 June, 747 programme manager Elizabeth Lund was upbeat about the near-term order prospects for the aircraft: "I think we'll see more sales in 2012. It will come in two versions: we hope to get confirmation of some of the MoUs that are not in our firm backlog and I believe we will see additional 747-8 sales as well.

"We're in active sales campaigns for the passenger variant. I would like to announce some orders this summer, but I don't know if it will be before or after Farnborough."

Lund expects that in the longer term, the sales lead that the freighter variant has enjoyed will be redressed and the order book will eventually become a 50/50 split between the passenger and freighter.

The next 747-8I airline delivery is still being finalised, says Lund, but is likely to be either Korean Air or Air China - the latter customer was announced in March last year but the deal awaits government approval. "We're operating on the premise that approval will come," says Lund, adding that delivery is likely in 2014.

Another significant yet-to-be-confirmed order was the deal for 15 aircraft from an undisclosed customer announced at the 2011 Paris air show. This MoU, which is understood to have been placed by China' HNA Group (which is parent of Hainan Airlines and Hong Kong Airlines), still stands, says Lund: "This is still going through the formalisation and approval process."

Boeing has not ruled out a further stretch of the 747 but any "-9" development will have to wait its turn in the product development cycle behind higher priority projects.

"The 747 could [be stretched], some day," says 747 programme manager Elizabeth Lund.

Speaking on board the 747-8I's first passenger service, flown by Lufthansa between Frankfurt and Washington Dulles on 1 June, Lund added: "Once in a while on the drawing board we toy with a few things, but it is not imminent. Boeing's product development priorities are to finish the 787-9, look at a 787-10X, the 737 Max and what to do with the 777.

"So the 747 [has to wait its] turn on the product development board - we need to wrap up and fly for a little while, while the other models are developed."

Compared with the 747-400, the General Electric GEnx-powered 747-8I incorporates a 5.6m (18.3ft) stretch and modified wing, and an approximately 50-seat capacity increase to 467 passengers. The -8 also offers around 330nm (610km) more range than the 747-400ER.

Back in 1996, Boeing came close to launching a 550-seat "747-600" derivative which featured a stretch of around 14m over the -400, a larger wing and was powered by either Rolls-Royce Trent or Engine Alliance GP7000 engines. The project foundered after it was unable to secure launch orders.

Boeing is confident that improvements it is implementing on the 747-8 will recover performance to beyond customer guarantees and bring it "very close" to the original brochure claims made at the time of launch.

The airframer is introducing a block change in 2014 that will incorporate a combination of improvements including upgraded General Electric GEnx-2B engines, updated flight management computer capabilities and modifications to allow the tailplane fuel tank to be reactivated. This was locked out after a flutter condition was discovered during flight-testing.

These various upgrades will be flight-tested next year.

"At this point, the committed block point improvements get us very, very close to where we committed to be at the start [of the programme], but not beyond it. But it's beyond guarantees back to where the original 2006 brochure fuel burn and operating cost levels were," says 747 programme manager Elizabeth Lund.

Speaking on board the 747-8I's first passenger service, flown by Lufthansa between Frankfurt and Washington Dulles on 1 June, Lund outlined the key product developments that will come together on 747-8s being delivered from 2014: "The GEnx PIP [performance improvement package] will be big. We're upgrading the FMC and some of the other flight control software systems and we are continuing to take weight out of the airplane, so we're looking at the latest generation structural designs that will continue to improve the performance. We're also looking at new IFE [in-flight entertainment] systems and other new interior features."

A new FMC was developed for the 747-8, which was introduced when -8F deliveries began last year, and a major revision was made on the first 747-8I for Lufthansa, says Lund. "This was the second generation of the FMC, and we're going to introduce a third - block point three - which will add more functionality.

"The first generation could do virtually everything the 747-400s could do and a little more, and we keep adding steps."

Lund says that the changes are all software rather than hardware driven. "The block point three will have the latest RNP [required navigation performance] capability, some climb and direct route capability that allow you to maximise efficiency."

The key packages such as the FMC upgrade and GEnx PIP, along with tailplane fuel tank modifications, will be introduced in "one big block change" in 2014 after flight-testing is completed next year, says Lund. Other upgrades will be incremental.

"With these improvements, the 747-8's seat/mile costs are on the same horizon line as the 777-300ER," Lund says.

She adds that while the seat/mile performance may be no better than its smaller sister, the 747-8 comes into its own on dense routes with high traffic volumes: "We're 75-100 passengers more than the -300ER and it's about the revenue from the delta passengers, so if you can fill it, the 747-8 can make you a ton more money. So if you have route structures that can fill it which absolutely exist or, if like Lufthansa, you can fill a very large business class, then the 747-8I is a fabulous aircraft."