Aircraft Makers Shy Away From Risky Bets in Building New Planes

Boeing’s announcement last week that it had begun pitching airlines on an enhanced version of its 777 jet, rather than a whole new plane, underscores how the aerospace industry is pulling back from the risky bets that have led to costly, and humbling, delays on other planes, like Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.

Instead of following the Dreamliner template, in which it sought to create a revolutionary plane brimming with new technology, Boeing is now seeking a safer, more incremental path. It plans to add the most crucial new technologies, like lightweight plastic composite wings and more fuel-efficient engines, to the 777, while avoiding the time and expense of designing a replacement from scratch.

Airbus, too, has expressed concern about the “go for broke” mentality that prompted Boeing to fill the Dreamliner with novel features, including a greater use of composites and a more advanced electrical system to increase the fuel savings.

After smoke and fire erupted from the new lithium-ion batteries on two 787s in January, forcing the grounding of the entire fleet, Airbus dropped its plans to use the volatile batteries on its new A350 jets and went back to more tried-and-true ones.

“Risk, risk, risk,” Tom Enders, the chief of Airbus’s parent company, European Aeronautic Defense and Space, said of Boeing’s approach to the Dreamliner.

Mr. Enders said Airbus had made similar mistakes in designing some of the components on its latest planes. “It’s pushing the technology envelope and not always taking enough care that the technologies were mature when we put them on an aircraft,” he said. “And that doesn’t benefit the customer, obviously.”

Aviation analysts said Boeing had to make a technological leap with the Dreamliner over the last decade to again surpass Airbus in total plane sales, just as it now has to upgrade the 777, its long-range workhorse, to counter a new challenge from the A350.

But while Boeing needed to take radical steps, like molding the entire fuselage of the Dreamliner out of the plastic composites to cut fuel costs by 20 percent, it can achieve similar fuel savings on the 777 by using advanced engines and adding huge composite wings to a metal frame.

The prospect of gaining such savings with a more cautious approach delights both the airlines and Boeing’s investors, who would love to see it complete the development process without the kind of white-knuckle ride — or the extra billions in cash — that the Dreamliner required.

W. James McNerney Jr., Boeing’s chief executive, said recently that “we all remember the times of fighting through the 787 development where the technologies weren’t quite as mature as we hoped they’d be.” He said the company’s strategy in updating the larger 777, and creating two additional versions of the 787, was to “harvest some hard-fought gains” in that technology without taking such big risks.

Mr. McNerney said the new version of the 777, which is still subject to final approval by Boeing’s board, would include much more substantial improvements than most planes derived from existing ones and could be ready by the end of the decade. “So I think we may be in an era where we can absorb somewhat less risk and still deliver a lot of performance,” he added.

The company’s plans for the updated 777, known as the 777X, are also significant because it could be the last new model that Boeing builds before the 2030s. And the updating is not risk-free: advances in engine technology can prove difficult, and the composite wings on the new 777 will be wider and more complicated to fabricate than those on the 787.

Boeing’s efforts to seek advance orders for the plane will also set off an intense new phase in its rivalry with Airbus, one determined more by how efficiently each company can produce the planes than their visions.

“Airbus squandered a decade on the A380,” a gigantic jet that has had disappointing sales, said Richard L. Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va. Boeing, he added, lost the advantage with its troubles on the 787. With the A350, which also has a composite body and wings, he said, “what’s important is that Airbus is catching up.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/business/aircraft-makers-shy-away-from-risky-bets-in-building-new-planes.html?partner=rss&emc=rss