Premium #315 – Technology: Are the next steps revolutionary or evolutionary?

Aerospace is a technology-heavy business.  But the pace of technology change is accelerating.  Consider just 15 years ago that composites were too expensive and unproven for aircraft structural applications, large geared turbofans were a lab experiment, hybrid cars were new, flip phones were state of the art, and the hard drive on my computer had less storage than my USB thumb drive today.  And technology continues to accelerate at a faster pace.

Airplane programs, on the other hand, should take between 10-12 years from the concept on the drawing board to entry into service.  But a number have missed that goal.  There’s  a lot of technological change that can happen in a dozen years, and some characteristics of a new product may be obsolete before it even enters service.  OEMs today have a careful balancing act as they introduce new technologies and upgrade products.  Some, like LED lighting, are relatively straightforward.  Others, such as building a large piece of an aircraft engine using additive manufacturing, may become “bet the company” decisions if they don’t work.

Boeing

took a “moonshot” with the 787, incorporating a number of new technologies into what is a revolutionary aircraft.  But difficulties in development ended up in a cost of more than $30 billion, and Boeing may never make a profit on the airplane. As we look forward, what are some of the technologies that will be impacting aircraft over the next decade, and perhaps find their way into the next generation of narrow-bodies from Airbus and Boeing?