Jetrader - July/August 2012 - 10

Boeing’s new 737 MAX 9 is seen in this latest artist’s rendering with new Advanced Technology winglets that the company announced in early May 2012 would be added to the aircraft. (Boeing image)

currently made to the airplane and add to our engine change, you come out around 19 percent. The technology improvements we’ve made or are making from Boeing’s standpoint are larger and, in the end, we’ll end up in a better competitive position. Q: Airbus is using a CFM engine for the NEO. Boeing is also using a CFM for the MAX. Are they the same engines? A: Airbus is offering a CFM LEAP-1A. The Boeing engine is the LEAP-1B. The LEAP-1A has a slightly larger fan, but it also has a larger core. Boeing’s fan will be smaller as well as the core, so it’s an engine unique to the Boeing application. There’s been a lot of discussion about the fan sizes and whether or not that results in a better fuel efﬁciency. It’s important to note that today’s Boeing airplane is a 61-inch fan when compared to an Airbus A320 with a 68-inch fan and there’s still a Boeing fuel efﬁciency advantage of 6 percent per seat. Even though Airbus will have a larger fan

than ours, with a similar relationship of them having an 78-inch fan and us about a 69-inch fan, the end result is that the MAX will have about 9 percent better efﬁciency compared to the NEO. Q: Boeing has made some new MAX design decisions of late. What were they and how do they ﬁt in? A: This is a simple engine change; we’re not doing a lot of airframe or systems changes. We’re raising the nose gear about 8 inches. The plane used to sit nose down on the tarmac with the tail about 16 inches above the nose. By raising the nose gear, the plane will now sit level, and we’ll be able to insert somewhere between a 68- and 70-inch fan under the wing. Some say we’d want to have a much larger fan. Even if we were unconstrained as to room underneath the plane, we’d still choose an engine of that size because that’s the appropriate and proper fan for the thrust we need to generate and the fuel burn efﬁciency we need from the engine.

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We don’t need an 80-inch fan like Airbus, which requires it not for fuel efﬁciency but to generate 33-thousand pounds of thrust to get their airplane off the ground. They have less wing area than we do, and a much heavier airplane. The second major design decision is that our aft body will be new. When the current aft body was designed, we had to go to the wind tunnel for that design, and getting it right was tough because of boundary layer effects. Now, with computational ﬂuid dynamics, engineers can do a lot better job of designing conﬁguration changes. That allows us to come up with a new and more efﬁcient aft body closure and get a 1 percent drag reduction, which results in 1 percent fuel burn improvement. Elsewhere, we will be adding ﬂy-by-wire spoilers on the airplane. The latest major change we’ll do is adding the new Advanced Technology winglet that will improve fuel-burn by an additional 1.5 percent over today’s winglet technology. Q: From a schedule standpoint, where is the program sitting? A: Very much where it should be. We’re not making major systems changes, like extending body length. We’re taking off the current power plant and adding a newer and even more fuel-efﬁcient one. In that respect, it’s a simple undertaking compared to developing an all-new airplane. We have many senior people on the program who have a lot of program experience. Bob Feldmann, vice president and general manager 737 MAX, comes from the military airplane side, but he was responsible for the new 737-based P8-A and integrating those mission electronics into the 737 airframe. Mike Teal is our chief project engineer, and his previous assignment was to make sure the 747-8 was properly put together and delivered. Both of them have current experience on new airplane programs, and the program is very organized. Q: How are customers reacting to what you’re proposing and where the market’s heading? A: We have more than 1,000 orders and commitments for the new airplane, and we’re out talking to customers about ﬁnalizing their commitments. As far as the airplane, we’re in a good position. We have a total of 451 ﬁrm orders. The customers like what they see in the airplane, and we’re in negotiations to close the sales. Thanks to Boeing for supplying editorial content for this article.

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Jetrader - July/August 2012

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