FLUG REVUE April 2005: Boeing 777-200LR rolls out

April 2005

BOEING ROLLS OUT LONG-RANGE “WORLDLINER”

By Sebastian Steinke

Boeing has moved into a faster gear: using a combination of wings and engines from the 777-300ER and the short fuselage of the 777-200, has created the longest range commercial passenger plane in the world.

Boeing 777-200LR

The projected 17,446km range of the 777-200LR is the equivalent of flying from Singapore to Miami, from Taipei to Johannesburg or from Karachi to Sao Paulo non-stop. With only two engines, albeit the massive GE90-110B1L almost three-and-a-half metres in diameter, Boeing plans to outdo the performance of Airbus's four-engined, ultra-long-range A340-500, which has a range of 16,700km.

At the roll-out ceremony on 15 February in Everett near Seattle, Boeing christened the 777-200LR (Longer Range) for 301 passengers in a three-class configuration the “Worldliner”. Beneath an array of multilingual advertising placards bearing the slogan “Going the distance” and against a background of folk music strains from all over the world, the manufacturer unveiled the first 777-200LR in Dreamliner colours, initially shrouded in white material, to 5,000 VIP guests.

Standing in for his boss, Alan Mulally, who was in Chicago, Mike Cave, Vice President and General Manager for Airplane Programs at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, declared, “The 777-200LR is a masterpiece of collaboration. And it is a key model for our customers' point-to-point operations.”

Dr. Sughra Junejo, a member of the board of directors of launch customer Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), endorsed his view. “Airlines need aircraft which can fly the farthest distance possible non-stop. With the 777-200LR, we will be able to fly non-stop from Pakistan to the USA for the first time. That is very important to us, as we are a lot closer politically than geographically. This will also bring the world closer to Pakistan.”

The 777-200LR fits neatly into Boeing's prevailing belief in point-to-point traffic, which assumes a sharply rising demand for medium-sized aircraft on direct routes and especially over long distances, and is expressly at variance with the philosophy of transfer connections via hubs with large aircraft à la Airbus A380. Along with the 787 still to come, in whose future final assembly hall the 777-200LR premier took place, Boeing is pinning its hopes for the next few decades on the 777 family, which it is for ever upgrading and which so far has won 673 orders from 38 customers. This is reflected in the enormous prices that the Americans are demanding: with a unit price of $202 million to $225.5 million, a twin-engined 777-200LR costs the same amount as the significantly larger, four-engined 747-400ER. At $218 million to $245.5 million, the stretched 777-300ER is actually Boeing's most expensive civil model, as the manufacturer has noticed a shift in the market.

“Average aircraft sizes have not increased since the mid-1990s. Instead, the market growth is manifesting itself in additional non-stop routes and higher frequencies,” says Randy Baseler, Vice President Marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “The 777 will fragment the Pacific traffic just as the 767 did in the North Atlantic in its day.” Baseler believes that even at the apparently congested Asian hub airports like Tokyo-Narita, Haneda or Hongkong the number of aircraft the size of the 747 will decline.

But the 777-200LR, the new long-range record model, could have already arrived at the upper end of actual airline demand in a market niche that seems quite small. Up to now few airlines have provided a non-stop service connecting cities a huge distance apart. And it is still not clear how the passengers will cope with almost 20 hours on board without a break. Singapore Airlines, for instance, has reduced the number of seats in the Business and Economy classes on its A340-500 ultra-long-range flights to only 181 seats so as to improve onboard comfort, with only slightly higher ticket prices for the passenger.

Only five 777-200LR's have been sold up to now, two to PIA and three to EVA Air of Taiwan. On the other hand, the A340-500, which has now been available for three years, has notched up 26 orders, 16 of which have already been delivered. Despite this, the Boeing sales strategists believe their new product outperforms the offering from their arch rival from Toulouse. The advertising brochures from Seattle promise 21 extra passenger seats, 17 percent more cargo volume and up to 25 percent less kerosene per passenger seat for the 777-200LR, compared with the A340-500.

Hence, Boeing is making a point of wooing A340-500 operators Singapore Airlines and Emirates, both of which have sizeable 777 sub-fleets, as potential future customers of the LR version. In particular, to cope with the extreme heat conditions that Emirates grapples with in Dubai, Boeing is set to shortly offer the 777-200LR with 501kN of engine power, up from its present 488kN. In fact it is public knowledge that the GE90-115B on the stretched 777-300ER even generates as much as 511kN.

Again, compared with the conventional 777-200ER, Boeing believes that the new 777-200LR has a clear advantage. Although a 777-200ER can manage the route cited as an example, New York to Hong Kong, fully occupied with 300 passengers, the new LR will be able to carry a further 24 tonnes of lucrative cargo. Randy Baseler is therefore optimistic about his latest product and sees a market potential of 300 aircraft over the next 20 years.

The 777-200LR is taking a number of technical features from its big sister, the 777-300ER. These range from the GE90 engines of the most powerful version, with its strikingly swept compressor blades, to the aerodynamically revised wing with reinforced engine mountings, tanks enlarged as far as the outer wing sections, raked wingtips and a reinforced structure overall. The 777-200LR has more powerful brakes, but due to the shorter fuselage it does not have the semi-levered landing gear system of the 777-300ER, which on rotation is supported solely by the aft pair of wheels of its three-axle main landing gear. Moreover, the short LR does not need the electronics of the long ER to provide automatic tailstrike protection on touchdown.

Within the cabin there is a lot of commonality. Behind the cockpit, above the First Class and level with door 3, there are restrooms in the roof area above the passenger deck for two relief pilots and six to seven flight attendants. Otherwise, they would have had to forgo several lucrative Business Class seats to make way for crew sleeping berths or to accommodate sleeping quarters in the rear cargo bay, where up to three additional tanks can now be installed, if the customer wishes. PIA, which has its eye on the Karachi-Houston route for 2006, has already decided on this option.

Even when it comes to flight testing, the 777-200LR will benefit from the pioneering work of its big sister, the 777-300ER: flight testing of the LR can be completed within 500 flying hours instead of 1,500, as the responsible 777-200LR project pilot, Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann, explained. The Boeing test pilot will be familiar to readers from our report on the 777-300ER flight tests in Montana in FLUG REVUE 12/2003. To demonstrate the benign nature of the type, she brought a film of her 777-300ER slow flight tests through to the stall along to the roll-out of the 777-200LR. In the video, the giant twin-engined jet is flying at 388km/h with flaps retracted and an angle of attack that rises at an alarming rate to apparently almost 45 degrees as it approaches the stall, before the aircraft nose drops sharply downwards and the wingtips vibrate violently. The aircraft descends steeply, but within a short time control has been restored without a wing drop.

Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann will also be at the controls of the first 777-200LR, designated WD001 with provisional US registration of N60659, during its maiden flight at the beginning of March, flying what is known as a “Boeing E-1 profile” from Everett to Boeing Field in Seattle. By the beginning of April the absence of flutter and basic airworthiness should have been demonstrated. Stability and aerodynamic performance will then be the main items on the agenda up to June, until in July the electronic flight control system and in August the systems become the focus of certification tests. The second 777-200LR, WD002, will assist with the airworthiness and system tests from May. Both jets are expected to have completed their flight trials, which are likely to include a new long-range record, by September. It would appear that 24 hours of non-stop flying is feasible with an empty aircraft. Once the test equipment has been dismantled, WD002 is planned to be the first 777-200LR to be delivered to a customer, in this case PIA in January 2006, with WD001 following later that month.

By then, Boeing will also have decided on the programme launch of the latest family member of the 777 series, the 777 freighter, a derivative of the 777-200LR. The 777F will be able to carry 101 tonnes of freight and fly a range of 8,980km fully loaded or 9,630km with slight weight restrictions. The voluminous windowless fuselage of the 777F, which will not have any rear doors either, will have a 3.05 metre high, 3.58 metre wide freight door to the side. The pilots' rest room is to be moved from the roof area directly behind the cockpit bulkhead into the main deck so as to create more height on the cargo deck, with reinforced floor and cargo handling system. As in the 747-400, the pilots will have bunk-beds. A small kitchen, WC and three Business Class seats for flight attendants will complete the nose area of the cargo plane.

If the planned 777F attracts sufficient interest by the summer and Boeing launches the programme, deliveries could commence at the end of 2008. The new cargo plane would be a welcome boost to the demand for the 777-200LR, which is still somewhat weak. On the other hand, it is likely to compete strongly with Boeing's ageing 747-400, which now seems to be relying solely on freighter orders. In case Boeing cannot make up its mind finally to launch a stretched 747 Advanced by the summer, 777 programme director Lars Andersen is apparently already thinking about the future of his baby “Triple Seven”. “We are studying everything,” he told FLUG REVUE. “For example, a 777 with 787 technology. But recently we have also been thinking about another stretch, the '777-400'.”

From page 22 of FLUG REVUE 4/2005

Last updated 15 March 2005

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