What is rather interesting is the issue concerning
1 the very low development funding in Boeing
2 the amount of government funding envisioned from Japan!
3 if Boeing is going to concentrate its limited RD resources on the 7E7 the
next four to five years they will not be able to do much about their other
models which are all - compared to Airbus' (except the 777) - rather old
designs. That means that it'll be only about 2012 at the earliest a new
single aisle airliner from Boeing (except the 717 - and it doesn't really
matter anyway) will be able to be introduced! The 747 will also at that time
be rather "vintage" leaving the entire super sized market to the A380. After
2006/7 Airbus will be able to build a replacement for the A300 or a brand
new A320 that will still be in the market well before Boeing will be able to
come up with anything new to match. Interesting situation indeed for Airbus.
Perhaps they really might be crying all the way to the bank because of
Boeing's decision to replace what in fact is one their newer designs!
Nik
"Quantum Foam Guy" wrote in message
...
The only certainty is that no one really knows how this will play out.
Anyone who claims otherwise is merely guessing. Meanwhile, this is an
interesting read:
http://www.aiaa.org/aerospace/images...ts.april04.pdf
Two points I found interesting:
- Even the Airbus view of future market conditions agrees that there's a
large market for a plane like the 7E7.
- It probably won't be as easy to incorporate unique features of the 7E7
into the A330-200 airframe as Airbus claims.
I think there's certainly a long-term market for the A380, but quite
limited
and only a fraction of the size of the future market awaiting
high-efficiency planes that carry 200-300 pax. I also think that both
companies are missing out on the other end of the spectrum. Embraer and
Bombardier are both hungry, and their planes are getting larger. This is a
market segment that is growing rapidly, so why can't Boeing and Airbus
create competitive products to fill this niche?