Odds and Ends: Cybersecurity and aviation; lithium-ion batteries; WA worries about SC; Porter Airlines

Cybersecurity threat to aviation: Addison Schonland at AirInsight has been working on a project related to cybersecurity and the threat to aviation. He’s posted this article that raises serious issues.

Lithium-Ion Batteries: On the eve of the NTSB two-day forum on lithium-ion batteries, Reuters has a think-piece about these batteries in general: uses in cars and other products, for example. It’s been a 10-year research project by battery designers. Quite an interesting article.

WA worries about SC: The Seattle Times writes that Washington State officials are worried about the latest expansion by Boeing in South Carolina.

In advance of Porter CSeries order: A lot of Tweeting from an aerospace writer in Canada:

1. Scott Deveau ‏@scottdeveau 6m

   Source says Porter feels city of toronto and Feds willing to revisit tripartite agreement.

   Retweeted by Isaac Alexander

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2. Scott Deveau ‏@scottdeveau 21m

   Unclear at this point where the Porters CSeries will fly from when its delivered in 2016

   Retweeted by Isaac Alexander

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3. Scott Deveau ‏@scottdeveau 27m

   Porter Airlines adding Calgary, Vancouver. LA, Miami, and Orlando using CSeries. From where remains the question.

   Retweeted by Isaac Alexander

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4. Scott Deveau ‏@scottdeveau 10m

   @scottdeveau Porter is seeking a lift on jet aircraft bans at Billy Bishop and aims to add 180 m on either end of the runway for CSeries

Typo or Freudian slip? Brendan Kearney ‏@Kearney_Brendan 16m

Now @NikkiHaley‘s comments on #Boring SC growth plan… (1/?)

Brendan Kearney ‏@Kearney_Brendan 13m

@LeehamNews @nikkihaley ha, typo — and one that I fear making. Usually I catch myself when my thumb strays right on the keyboard.

Noise contours for the Bombardier CS100 and the Porter Airlines expected order

The news that Canada’s Porter Airlines is the Unidentified North American customer that signed a Letter of Intent for up to 30 Bombardier CSeries for use at Toronto City Airport sparked a lot of noise (pun intended).

Late yesterday The Wall Street Journal reported that Porter will announce its order tomorrow.

Key to the order is the fact that BBD and engine provider Pratt & Whitney promise a low noise footprint and just 70 decibels approaching the airport. Toronto City Airport is a highly noise-sensitive airport.

As yesterday’s post about all this noted, Porter and the OEMs will argue the CS100 is no louder than the Bombardier Q400 now serving the airport. This leads to a small noise contour, or foot print, as illustrated in this BBD chart:

Odds and Ends: 787 service return; LionAir’s A320 order; race to Paris; 777X v A350

787 to fly soon: Jim McNerney, CEO of Boeing, says the 787 will be back in service soon. Tests should be completed within days and he is confident in the fix.

LionAir’s A320 order: In case you wondered what LionAir is going to do with all those Airbus A320s now on order, this story tells you. As we suspected, LionAir will follow the AirAsia Group model of setting up airlines throughout Asia. Some will obviously compete with Tony Fernandes’ airline.

The race to Paris: AirInsight won the race by three minutes over Aviation Week. AirInsight posted at 1:24pm EDT and AvWeek at 1:27pm. That might be about the result between Bombardier and Airbus.

777X v A350: Aspire Aviation has an analysis of the forthcoming Boeing 777X and A350-1000 competition.

Odds and Ends: Bombardier lands Delta’s RJ deal; 787 events in perspective; Airbus/China; Enders victory

Delta Air Lines: Bombardier, in a welcome development, landed a major order with Delta for 40+30 CRJ900s, beating out Embraer’s E-Jet proposal. Delta has a large, installed base of CRJs and EMB wasn’t too optimistic, in management-analysts meetings last week, according to research notes. But BBD liked its odds, considering the CRJ is more fuel efficient than the E-Jet (being a small airplane), even if the E-Jet is far more comfortable.

For BBD, the order is important for two reasons. First, the CRJ backlog is shrinking. Deliveries begin 2H2013, and this illustrates the point. Second, with BBD sucking up cash in advance of CSeries first flight in 1H2013, the deposits, progress payments and delivery payments are welcome, indeed.

The next face-off between the two OEMs is American Airlines, where both have large installed RJ fleets of aging aircraft.

Boeing 787 events: Airworthiness Directive. “Emergency” landing. AirInsight puts things into perspective.

Airbus lands China orders: Hmm. EU suspends plans to impose ETS tax. Airbus lands orders for 60 A320s and 10 A330s. What do you make of that…

Enders now 1-1, sort of: Tom Enders, CEO of EADS, lost his bid to acquire BAE Systems due to German government interference. The merger would have reduced government meddling, balanced EADS commercial and military business, put EADS on a more equal footing with Boeing and positioned EADS better for US DOD contract bids. But Enders has now won a corporate governance restructuring that ends government meddling in daily operations. He still hasn’t achieved his other goals, but this one is so huge that we rate Enders’ won-lost record 1-1.

Comparing the 747-8I and the A380 after the advertising battle commenced

Notation: Aeroturbopower weighs in on the controversy with his usual data-driven analysis.

With the commencement of the advertising battle between Boeing and Airbus, it is useful to make some additional comparisons prepared by AirInsight.

Here is the offending Boeing ad that set off the ad wars. It’s a two-page spread and sorry, we couldn’t scan it into one advert. Click each image to englarge.

From AirInsight:

The 747-8I and A380 are quite different aircraft, and while some view them as direct competitors, they are more properly lone players in different segments of the VLA market. Nonetheless, an airline will likely evaluate both aircraft as it maps its growth strategy, and two carriers, Lufthansa and Korean Air, have chosen to fly both aircraft types for different route structures.  Each of those airlines have indicated that the 747-8I fills a gap between their 300 seat aircraft and 525 seat A380 aircraft, and will deploy the aircraft appropriately to traffic demand and traffic growth in different markets.

While the two aircraft are quite different, they are still compared to each other and both aircraft mile and seat mile economics.  Of course, in comparing these aircraft, seating configurations make quite a difference, and the two aircraft manufacturers utilize markedly different assumptions in that regard.  Boeing indicates that standard 3-class seating configuration for its 747-8I is 467 seats, but Lufthansa is currently using 362 in its aircraft, compared with 334 in a 747-400, and 526 for its A380.  Each of these layouts is oriented heavily towards premium class seating, an essential element for many carriers these days.