UPS is supposedly set to announce cancellation of its order for 10 380
freighters. Not a surprise.

And in recent days, news that Emirates' negotiation with Airbus on his huge
order for A380 may result in Airbus having to write off hundreds of
millions of dollars.

Malaysian is also rumoured to be driving a hard bargain.

5.5 tonnes overweight is the number made public by Emirates. Obviously,
since they are negotiating for deep discounts, it is to their advantage to
make the beast look as bad as possible. And every time they mention this,
it makes very bad publicity for the 380.

And since the 380 won't be in commercial service until the end of the year
(and I wouldn't be surprised to see it delayed some more), it means that
orders will also wait until then since anyone who hasn't ordered the beast
yet is waiting to see it in commercial service before committing to buying
some.

Is it possible that the A380 will end up with just a few customers and once
initial deliveries are made, they won't be any more orders for it , like
the Concorde ? Or will Airbus be able to make additional sales ?

Okay guys.., those A/C haven't been around since the 1930's, and are in
museums or historical websites.., so if we could, I'd like to keep this
tread to the "current" status of the remaining US repair stations, and their
"survival." Basically, let's keep to the current MRO activities, and their
work on Boeing, and Airbus equipment such as B727, B737, B747, DC-10, MD-11,
L-1011, and some MD-80 series / DC-9's. These are still the mainstay of the
MRO business, and apparently still the making money..(smile)..!! MRO
facilities these days do very little STC work as referred to above.., but
James' comments were great, and added a little insight for the non-contract
A&P's out there..!! Thanks.., Mike Harding.., Evergreen, Timco, Gulfstream,
Raytheon, Victorville Aerospace, Santa Barbara...

Tom Sanderson wrote:

Are DC-2, Boeing 80, Boeing 247 and 307 still supported likewise?

What about Convair 880 and 990 jets?

Will the 787's gear be able to cope with an increase in weight to allow
a replacement for the 777-300\ER? I would think a 787-11 or 787-10\ER
would have a max takeoff in excess of 650,000 lbs. If you extrapolate
on todays most heavily loaded gear (77W at 64,583 lbs per wheel or A346
at 69,833 lbs\wheel) you can see that the 8-wheel 787 gear will be
insufficient for anything over about 560,000 lbs MTOW. The logical
thing would be to replace the two 4-wheel bogies with two 6-wheel ones
as on the 777.

Hey Gang.., is this the right NG for questions regarding repairs and
maintenance on older equipment.., RJ's, 727's, 737, 747's, etc..?

Contractors have already begun to build parts for the 787 test aircraft.

Last rumours I heard, the 787 was still 5000 pounds overweight.

Lets assume for a minute that the rumour is true. At this point in time, is
there really any hope of cutting that much weight off an airplane ?

I take it Boeing would be putting pressure on manufacturers of repeating
items in an aircraft (such as seats) to cut as much off as possible ?

At this point in time, is it still possible to chop some weight off the
structural parts ? Or would those have already been fixed in the design,
fully optimised and no real chance (nor time) to re-open their design ?

With the test flights starting "soon", is there a point to still tweak the
designs knowing that it is likely that during the test flights, they may
have to re-open the designs to tweak them (at which point they could add
some extra weight saving measures) ?

Or does the design remain "fluid" throughout the development and testing
process ?
.

They finally recahed a deal today.

German banks will loan a big wad of cash to Daimler Chrysler. Until the
loans are repaid, Daimler will give the banks shares in EADS (7.5%%) which
will be returned to Daimler once the loans are repaid. During this period,
Daimler retains voting rights on those shares.

So basically Daimler is getting a sweet deal of a loan in exchange for
giving some non-voting shares in EADS as collateral.

What surprises me is that Daimler would be so intent on retaining voting
rights. I would have thought that the german government would have needed
only the shares to remain under german control, as opposed to a single
german corporation's control.

On the other hand, if this 22.5%% ends up as wildely held stock, it would
end up unable to exercise any control to ensure Germany gets its share of
the business/jobs.
.

Hmmn. United flights 851 and 889 take off every day from ORD and SFO,
allegedly heading for Beijing. I wonder where they really go? Ditto
Continental 89 from Newark and Air China 984, 982, and 986, from LAX,
JFK, and SFO. Also UA, AA, and MU flights to Shanghai.

This route would be the first non-stop from Washington. Big whoop.

R's,
John

On 5 Jan 2007 16:36:36 -0500, Ken Rose nc-sys.com> wrote:

"Ken Rose" nc-sys.com> wrote:

Something's wrong here...you shouldn't be able to get a TSFC for a propeller
engine, only an SFC. At least, not at TSFC that you can directly compare
against a turbofan.

You can directly compare pistons with turboprops on a per HP basis, but not
with turbofans/jets.

A gasoline piston engine is fundamentally less efficient than a large gas
turbine because it has a much lower compression ratio. Down in the lower
power ranges they probably get close.