This is from Aviation Week. I'm not 100% sure if I am allowed to post their articles so I will put in a good word for them. The subscription price is well worth it. Lots of great comments on this article at the website as well from those in the industry.
"P&W’s geared turbofan is a farsighted bet, but could it be launched today?
In November, Airbus’s A320neo, powered by Pratt & Whitney’s PW1100G PurePower Geared Turbofan (GTF), was certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency and the FAA. Deliveries should begin any day. Its arrival represents the final stage of a rare event: new technology having a disruptive impact in our otherwise conservative industry.
Since the A320neo represents a “minimum change” variant of the latest A320ceo (current engine option), it is the engine that’s really new. And it is the GTF that disrupted the market.
The idea of a GTF has been around for decades, and several production engines have incorporated a gearbox, most notably Honeywell’s TFE731. But Pratt’s GTF is the first large jetliner engine to enter service with this technology. The company spent heavily to mature the GTF concept, patiently waiting until the market opportunities, high fuel prices and jetliner product development cycles aligned to permit its introduction.
Then, Pratt leveraged this technology to get back into the single-aisle propulsion business as a prime. The first application was Bombardier’s C Series, launched by Lufthansa at the 2008 Farnborough Airshow. But Pratt’s bigger goal quickly became clear: the C Series was also leveraged against the two legacy single-aisle players, forcing everyone to go with new engines.
By helping to create the C Series, Pratt lit the fuse on the single-aisle powder keg. Airbus, threatened by a new single-aisle jetliner with new-generation engines, fought back aggressively. It adapted the GTF as lead engine for the A320neo series, which became one of the fastest-selling new jets ever and gave Boeing little choice but to launch the 737 MAX.
The results of this chaotic change are quite remarkable: Of the 12,500 large commercial jets on backlog as of Nov. 1, 7,452, or 59%, are next-generation, single-aisle jets. This excludes hundreds of Embraer E-2s and Mitsubishi MRJs, which also use GTF engines, and possibly hundreds of Comac C919s (with CFM Leap-1Cs) and Irkut MS-21s (with GTFs). All of these models were developed as a direct result of the GTF’s launch. This month’s A320neo, of course, is the first of this new generation to arrive. All of these aircraft burn less fuel, produce fewer emissions and are quieter than last-generation models. They stimulate the market, too.
There are two important lessons from this remarkable chain of events. The first is that market disruption doesn’t necessarily mean market victory. Pratt’s disruptive business plan was complicated by a very effective CFM response. GE/Safran didn’t just curl up and sleep; they didn’t passively defend a dying franchise, as Pratt did 30 years ago, when the CFM56 took over from Pratt’s JT8D. Rather, CFM countered with an elaborate new technology development roadmap.
The resulting Leap-1 doesn’t have a key enabler like Pratt’s planetary gearbox, but it does have the materials and design features needed for a very competitive product. Thanks to the Leap-1’s sole-source position on the 737MAX (and as an option on the A320neo), CFM will maintain a greater than 60% share of the single-aisle powerplant market. The only all-new large jet enabled by the GTF is the C Series, which has garnered just 243 orders and seems to be hanging by a thread.
The second lesson is related to the first. Since disruption is no guarantee of total market victory, and since new program launches (even disruptive ones) don’t see financial returns for many years, companies are less likely to fund potentially disruptive technology. Pratt began funding GTF technology research decades ago, and if it follows the typical jet engine program pattern, it won’t be profitable until the installed base is large (and mature) enough to start spending heavily on aftermarket parts and services.
Meanwhile, aerospace companies have cut back drastically on new product development funding. In 2014, U.S. defense primes gave back more than 100% of cash from operations to shareholders, at the expense of investment spending.
Pratt did something admirable when it decided to fund the GTF. Without its disruptive impact, Airbus, Boeing and Embraer would still be building last-generation jets for many years to come. And its parent, United Technologies Corp., has been a good corporate citizen, funding the GTF and also Sikorsky’s X2 Raider high-speed compound helicopter technology, used to create the S-97 Raider scout model. But with the company’s profits today under heavy pressure from slumping aftermarket work, it quite possibly would not choose to initiate these long-term projects today. It is equally legitimate to question whether Sikorsky’s new owner, Lockheed Martin, would have funded the X2 program if it had owned Sikorsky a few years ago.
The world aircraft industry should enjoy the remarkable wave of disruption, now starting with the A320neo’s arrival. But after this wave, our industry risks stagnation. It’s far from clear that anyone today will follow Pratt’s path.
Contributing columnist Richard Aboulafia is vice president of analysis at Teal Group. He is based in Washington."
http://aviationweek.com/commercial-a...1ceafb166cac39