In 1989, Airbus started the first studies on a Very Large Commercial Transport for 550 to 800 passengers. For two reasons, such a large aircraft was a technological challenge. In the first place Airbus faced a commercial challenge: the A3XX would have to compete with the Boeing 747, an aircraft that was initially designed in the 1960s and therefore had a relatively cheap price tag. The second challenge lay in technology: In theory, when the size of an aircraft is expanded by a certain factor, its volume (and therefore its weight) increases with the factor to the third power. But the area of the wing, the lifting surface, increases only with the square of the factor. In other words: if one doubles the size of an aircraft, it will have eight times the weight but needs only four times the wing area in order to balance the weight to provide the lift necessary to keep the aircraft in the air. This
‘square-cube law’ means that the weight problems of a large aircraft are
enormous. By manipulating the aircraft’s configuration, clever designers can successfully fight this law, but new technologies and therefore also new materials play a key role for very large aircraft. However, the first studies showed that the development costs of the Very Large Commercial Transport would be very high. It seemed likely that the market might therefore be too small to be worth competing for.
Therefore, in 1993 the two rivals, Boeing and the Airbus partners Aérospatiale, British Aerospace, CASA and DASA signed a Memorandum of Understanding agreeing to perform a joint study. The second phase of this study was completed in July 1995. Although technically feasible, the market studies did not lead to a common view. According to the Airbus partners, 1200 very large aircraft would be needed over the next 20 years, while Boeing estimated a much smaller market and considered that the Very Large Commercial Transport was not a viable aircraft at that moment. These divergent views were the reason for the ‘divorce’ between the U.S. and Europe.
However, Airbus still had to close the gap with Boeing. In order to leapfrog Boeing, an aircraft had to be designed that would be bigger than the 747 but that could be shortened to the size of a 747. Several possible concepts had been considered, including combining two A340 fuselages into one big aircraft with the fuselages next to each other, forming a sort of gigantic aerial catamaran. In the period 1994-1996 a dedicated ‘Core team A3XX’ led by Jean-Jacques Huber further studied the possibilities of the A3XX. For example, early in 1996 a study of the ideal shape of the cross-section of the aircraft fuselage led to 30 possible geometries. Bernd Trahmer, Hans Fischer and Ali Cabac must be regarded as the fathers of the fuselage definition. In the summer of 1996, Airbus Industrie briefed fourteen airlines on the specification of a very large aircraft, designated as A3XX. The company had created a Large Aircraft Division in Toulouse, headed by Jürgen Thomas. At the end of 1997, a preliminary design was selected that was already very similar to the current configuration, and the predevelopment phase started. Airbus had chosen a double-deck fuselage configuration over the full length of the aircraft. Boeing’s 747 also has an upper deck, but only for approximately a quarter of its length. The main target was to reduce the direct operating costs of the A3XX by 15 to 20%
compared to its rival, the Boeing 747 jumbo jet. Part of the answer to this challenge lay in economies of scale, part in a significant reduction of fuel consumption. Right from the start, Boeing spread doubts about the viability
of the A3XX, predicting a much smaller market for aircraft in the category of the A3XX than Airbus had. This was in part caused by the fact that Boeing expected a change in the structure of air transportation: fragmentation of traffic flows. In the previous decade, air transport had developed hub-and-spoke systems in which small aircraft first transported passengers along a
‘spoke’ to a central airport, the ‘hub’, and combining traffic flows there to be able to use larger aircraft for the final destination. While offering substantial cost savings to the airlines, and enabling a reduction of air fares, this form of operating was less convenient for the passenger because it involved at least one transfer in a typical journey. Boeing therefore expected that route fragmentation would occur with more direct point-to-point flights. Airbus, by contrast, was convinced that abandoning the hub-and-spoke system would increase ticket prices, which would be unacceptable for most customers. It proposed the A3XX as the next logical step in aircraft development. In the 1970s, the Boeing 747 had doubled the productivity of aircraft, but after the initial rapid growth of air transport that it caused further developments in economies of scale had ceased.
The change to modern aircraft in the 1930s, then to jet aircraft in the 1960s and to wide-body aircraft like the 747 in the 1970s had caused revolutionary changes in the scale of aviation. Airbus expected the A3XX would pick up this line of improvement in productivity, facilitating the expected growth in air transport of five percent per year that would double the traffic in fifteen years. In the face of this development, airports were expecting serious congestion problems. Using larger aircraft would mean that airports could be used more efficiently with less take-off and landing
‘slots’. Airbus predicted a need for more than 1300 aircraft in the A3XX category in a total market of 14,000 new aircraft. Although the share of the very large aircraft would be only ten percent, it represented a quarter of the value of the potential business. Therefore this market could not be left to Boeing. Airbus expected the main demand for such a machine to be in the Asia-Pacific region.
The designs released by Airbus showed that passengers in the A3XX would be accommodated on two decks that would be connected by a large staircase. The A3XX is being promoted as a spacious aircraft that could even be fitted with a bar, a fitness centre and sleeping cabins with showers.
In an advertisement it is characterised as a flying hotel and in a video clip as a kind of love boat. The sheer size of the A3XX stimulates the imagination.
The A3XX was designed as a family of aircraft from the start, with shorter and longer versions and also a freighter aircraft. The freighter version appeared to be very attractive for transport companies like Fedex because of the rapid growth of parcel transport and mainly because the long range of the A3XX offered the possibility of direct flights and therefore the introduction of new routing systems that could save precious time. The introduction of the freighter version of the A3XX therefore soon got a high priority, which is unusual for a new aircraft. The first version of the A3XX, the A3XX-100 would have an empty weight of 250 tons, a maximum take-off weight of 560 tons (compared to the 747-400s maximum of 397 tons) and can carry 550 passengers. This giant would also have engines that are quieter and produce fewer emissions than today’s aircraft. The growing environmental concerns for the growth of aviation in the media were certainly treated seriously. The concept of the A3XX is such that no airport modifications will be needed. The new giant will not require the large investments in infrastructure that were necessary with the introduction of jet aircraft in the 1960s. As a result of this decision, the dimensions of the aircraft had to stay within a box of 80 by 80 metres. The A3XX-100 will be 71 metres long and
will have a wingspan of 79 metres. These boundary conditions impose even more stringent technological demands since a smaller wingspan tends to jeopardise efficiency as it has a negative effect on the lift-to-drag ratio of the wing. The development costs of the A3XX were estimated in 1996 to be in the order of $8-10 billion.
From the start, Boeing had plans to offer a stretched version of its 747, the 747-X, as a competitor. It would have the advantage of lower development costs and an earlier entry into service than the A3XX. However, uncertain about the course of developments, Boeing stopped and restarted the stretched 747 project several times. In discussions with airlines, competition was tough and the stretched 747 never found a customer. On the other hand, the A3XX did not have plain sailing either. The aircraft was originally planned for an entry into service in 2003, but in 1998 this was postponed to 2004, in 1999 to 2005, and in 2000 to 2006. The reason given was that Airbus had not yet achieved the targeted 15 to 20 percent reduction
in operating costs relative to the 747. The economic crisis in Asia, which was an important market for the A3XX, probably also had a lot to do with this. A further problem is that Airbus was simultaneously working on the development of another aircraft, the A340-500/600, which absorbed a lot of its engineering capacity. To complicate things even more, Airbus also started the development of the A318, a 100-seater, and the European partners were also working on the A400M, a military transport aircraft. Airbus engineers were indeed facing stressful times. In fact this delay was essential to the potential for applying Glare, since it created the time needed to close the technology gaps and to strengthen the necessary support throughout the company.
Because no customers were found for the stretched 747, this project was finally cancelled in March 2001. At the same time, Boeing introduced its design for the ‘Sonic Cruiser’ – an aircraft for 250-300 passengers which has to be able to cruise close to the speed of sound: at Mach 0.98. This is 15-20% faster than the 747, which is the fastest subsonic transport in service today. Like size, speed has not lost its appeal in aviation. Boeing had been considering faster supersonic aircraft for a long time, re-visiting the traditional controversy in aviation of speed against size. The Sonic Cruiser is a manifestation of Boeing’s belief in fragmentation. Many observers feel that this idea was proposed to divert attention away from Airbus’ very large aircraft – and from Boeing’s failure to launch the stretched 747. Others think that the increased speed can in many cases lead to a higher number of round trips for each aircraft in a day and therefore to higher productivity.
Boeing estimates the potential market to be 5,000 aircraft. Entry into service may be between 2006 and 2008, depending on the new technologies that the airlines require. The magazine Flight International says about the Sonic Cruiser:
“Material choices range from current technology, 777-style, composites to the widespread adoption of non-metallics and advance materials. This includes high-performance composites such as Glare...”1
The difference between the A3XX and the Sonic Cruiser reflected the difference in opinion that grew in this period between Europe and the U.S.,
1 Flight International, 12-18 June 2001, p. 103.
not only regarding the development of air transport, but also the seriousness of environmental issues. The fuel burned by the Sonic Cruiser during sustained high-speed flight is about 20% higher than conventional aircraft. It was probably more than a slip of the tongue when Boeing’s vice chairman Harry Stonecipher defended the Sonic Cruiser with the remarks “plenty of fuel still around” and the “environmental bandwagon”. European environment commissioner Marget Wallstrom responded furiously and sent Stonecipher a letter in which she asks: “...whether a one-hour time saving on a transatlantic flight is worth a significant increase in carbon dioxide emissions contributing to climate change. In my view, this environmental price is simply not worth paying.”1
1 Flight International, 3-9 July, 2001, p.6.