Originally Posted by
Dairyground
Recent in-service problems and development delays for high thrust engines suggest that we may be approaching limits on the thrust achievable. On the other hand, there seems to be growing interest in increasing the capacity of twin jets. If these factors collide, will there be a move back to three and four engine long-haul transports?
The GE90-115B is the highest thrust high bypass engine in existence (~115,000 lbs sea level static thrust), has been in service for over 15 years, and been very, very reliable. It's planned replacement - the GE9X - will actually have a bit
less thrust than the GE90-115B. The issues that have occurred with some engines are generally unrelated to the level of thrust - rather it's been the ever increasing demand to reduce fuel burn. And even with some well publicized issues, engine reliability has never been better - the shutdown rates are easily
an order of magnitude better than they were 40 years ago. In short, your basic premise is flawed.
Is there a chance that A and B will find it profitable to resurrect A380 and B747 production lines in five or ten or twenty years time?
Well, in the case of the 747, there are currently no plans to shut down the existing line - although currently planned production is freighter only. Boeing remains optimistic that there will be sufficient demand to keep the 747-8F production going for many more years - for it's role, the 747F really has no meaningful competition.
As for the A380, once an aircraft is out of production and the line shut down - that's pretty much it. Tooling is scrapped, manufacturing expertise is lost, vendors move on to other things. Five years after the last A380 rolls out in 2021, it would cost nearly as much to put the 25 year old A380 design back into production as it would to simply design and build a new big quad from scratch.