A famous WWII aircraft designer once said “If it looks right, it will fly right” and this certainly applies as much to his Hawker Hurricane, the iconic Mustang (P51) and Spitfire as it does to today’s latest passenger aircraft, writes John Barrington-Carver.
The elegant Concorde certainly looked good and did what it was designed to do – get you across the Atlantic in time for tea at supersonic speeds – but at the cost of passenger environment (like sitting in an aluminium cigar tube some said) and heavy fuel consumption. From the latter points of view the Concorde was certainly not “good”; in fact today it would be commercially and environmentally unacceptable.
Helping to meet that challenge are two new passenger aircraft that “look right” and that will form part of the industry’s new generation fleets in future. The huge Airbus 380 first flew commercially in 2007 and with three cabin classes can be configured to take 525 passengers or up to 853 Economy only passengers. Last month the long awaited Boeing 787 Dreamliner with up to 290 seats, depending on the variant, made its first commercial flight under the All Nippon Airways flag.
It’s important to understand that these two aircraft do not compete directly but are representative of the new generation aircraft coming into service now. With them a step change in efficiency has occurred. They are certainly very beautiful looking aircraft, despite deriving from totally different design concepts – the 380 is an efficient long-range super-jumbo with a wingspan approaching 262 feet and a range of up to 9,500 miles; the 787 is a long-range, mid-size wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner seating 210 to 290 passengers, and with a range of up to 8,500 miles.
However, they share several important characteristics apart from similar ranges – both manufacturers claim the aircraft use less than three litres of fuel per passenger 100 kms and have cut their CO2 emissions by 20 per cent compared to similar sized current aircraft. Also, the airport take-off noise footprint of the 787 is more than 60 per cent smaller than those of today’s similarly sized airplanes – the A380 is also able to claim being one of the quietest passenger aircraft in service today thanks to innovative engine design.
So what new flight experiences do the Airbus 380 and the Dreamliner hold in store for today’s passengers? Well, much of both aircrafts’ technical and performance improvements are derived from design changes on or within their elegant carbon fibre and composite material fuselages as well as packed into their new generation jet engines. Apart from the size, what you will certainly notice is that the wings are incredibly flexible. The 380 wingtips flexing as much as 12 feet on take-off so if you are the type that likes to look out when the plane is taking off, don’t worry! The Dreamliner also boasts similar flexible wings and during certification tests they were pushed to 25-feet deflection. Hopefully, passengers will never see this amount of flex as this represents the most extreme forces the airplane is ever expected to encounter.
Size does matter (quoting an auto-industry advert) and in an industry where economy seats range in width from just over 16 inches to 20.5 inches both new aircraft will please passengers. Clearly with the A380 the impression you will get is the size both exterior and interior. The A380 interior has two decks both approximately 169 feet by 20 feet with a cabin height in proportion – the upper cabin is slightly narrower but is still comparable to a modern wide body jet. This width advantage allows for a 3-4-3 layout across the lower (Economy) cabin and a 2-4-2 in the upper one. The cabin windows are also much bigger than other Airbus aircraft. Depending on the airline, economy seat pitch and width are close to 31 inches/20 inches.
The A380 is obviously a much bigger plane than the 787. One of the most noticeable features of the 787 is that the windows are even larger that the super-jumbo’s and in fact are the largest yet deployed in a passenger aircraft. Using “smart glass” they can “auto-dim” and are able to change colour and opaqueness. Thus window blinds are eliminated. The 787-seat configuration either has a typical wide body 2-4-2 economy seat layout, or could be increased to a 3-3-3 layout for maximum passenger density. In the 2-4-2 layout the cabin looks bigger because the two aisles are several inches wider than in earlier wide body aircraft. It’s up to the airline to decide on the layout but its likely 787 economy seats will be 17 inches and 18.5 inches wide respectively in nine and eight-abreast arrangements, with a decent pitch of between 33 inches and 34 inches. But like all good things you may have to wait a while to fly in a 787. Development delays have meant that the production line is not expected to start delivering a planned ten planes a month until 2013. Meantime it’s only around two to three a month.
Ventilation is much better in this generation of aircraft, the A380 cabin has four main vents instead of the usual two and air is recycled every three minutes, which together with hi-tech filtration helps keep the cabin atmosphere fresh. The 787 also boasts cleaner air with a revolutionary filter which is claimed to remove bacteria and viruses – something that should be adopted industry wide! Ask yourself why it is you always seem to get a cold after a holiday four hour mid-haul flight?
Another development is using a higher cabin pressure (equivalent to 6,000 ft altitude instead of the usual 8,000 ft) which is said to improve passengers’ absorption of oxygen and overall wellbeing. Interestingly, the 787’s high use of composites also means that the high humidity of external feed air does not need to be radically dried out avoid condensation within the hull as in current generation aircraft. Hence passengers should notice less dehydration on a long flight.
A further plus feature is the use of LEDs instead of fluorescent lights. This will enable 128 different lighting colour options which will provide a number of softer lighting options for improved cabin ambience … Enjoy.
(Images: Boeing, Airbus)
