Return of the Rural Transports - Twin Otter, Dornier 228 and Nomad

The good designs of the Twin Otter, the Dornier Do-228 and the Nomad airplanes, together with enough market demand, will bring these Rural Transport type aircrafts back into production.

The Nomad is an Australian-designed 12 seater twin turboprop Rural Transport type aircraft with 170 units built from 1971 to 1984 when production ended. 54 Nomads remain operational worldwide according to Gippsland Aeronautics, the maker of the 8 seater GA-8 Airvan that bought the Nomad design from Boeing Australia last June. The Next-Generation Nomad has already two letters of intent from two Australian operators and expected to be in production by 2010.

Nomad

The Dornier Do-228 is a German-designed twin turboprop Rural Transport type aircraft with a 19 seat capacity. More than 200 were built from 1981 to 1998 when production ended. In 2003, RUAG of Germany acquired the design of the aircraft from the insolvent Fairchild-Dornier as part of its purchase of the Aircraft Services Division. In October 2007, RUAG decided to resume series production of the aircraft as the Do 228 New Generation. The fuselage, wings and tail unit will be supplied by Hindustan Aeronautics of India, and final assembly will be at RUAG's Pfaffenhofen plant. First deliveries of the new aircraft model is expected in 2010.

Dornier 228

The Twin Otter is a Canadian-designed twin turboprop 19 seat Rural Transport type aircraft that was produced from 1965 to 1988 with more than 800 aircraft built. In 2006, Canada's Viking Air bought the design from Bombardier and will use some of the Twin Otter's original toolings to manufacture the new generation Series 400 model. First deliveries of the new generation Twin Otter Series 400 model will be in 2010.

Twin Otter

Tanker Comparison

The long running saga between the KC-767 and the KC-330 in the tanker competition has generated a lot of half truths between the two competing companies Boeing and NG-Airbus. Let us try to sort this out.

1. NG-Airbus, and Airbus for that matter, has not yet produced any operational tanker. Their models are still in the test phase, both the KC-330 MRTT and their A310 boom test plane.

2. Boeing has delivered operational KC-767 tankers to Japan but of the A series, not the AT series that is designed for the USAF.

3. Boeing has delivered a lot of tankers to the USAF for a long time.

4. Airbus has tested the boom designed for the KC-330.

5. Boeing has yet to make and test the boom for its KC-767AT but has an operational boom used in the KC-767A of Japan and Italy.

KC-767A refuels a B-52 bomber

6. The KC-330 has a larger payload than the KC-767AT.

7. The KC-330 has a higher flight fuel consumption than the KC-767AT.

8. The KC-330 has a more contemporary design.

9. The KC-767 has a lighter empty weight.

KC-330 drawing

In my opinion, the KC-767 is more appropriate for the USAF for the following reasons:

1. The USAF covers the whole world and needs more tankers/more gas nozzles in the sky.

2. The lower flight fuel consumption of the KC-767AT will be a big advantage over the 50 year deployment of the tanker.

3. The KC-767AT satisfies the stated USAF requirements and a large improvement over the KC-135 that it will replace.

4. The KC-767AT will need a lot less of infrastructure modifications in air bases.

5. The KC-767AT is perceived to be more of a US-made tanker, and returns more of the acquisition costs to the US economy and to US employees.

Good Chances for Bombardier CSeries jet

Bombardier has announced the production of its 130 seater C series jet before the openning of the Farnborough Air Show. With an Aluminum-Lithium alloy fuselage, Composite wings and a Pratt and Whitney Geared Turbofan (GTF) engine, it offers better economic and lower emission advantages over rival models from Airbus and Boeing. Both very important in a $200 per barrel, and global warming environment.

And Bombardier might just succeed against these two giants in this passenger plane sector.

Bombardier C series drawing

Boeing and Airbus both has recently announced that their new aircrafts in this sector will not be introduced until 2018 at the earliest. With the Bombardier C jet planned to be introduced by 2013, it will have a long five year monopoly period. This period may be shortened if Brazilian plane maker Embraer will lengthen and enhance its E-195 passenger jet to a similar seating capacity. However, the C series jet will have the big advantage of a new revolutionary engine in the Pratt and Whitney GTF, and lighter fuselage and wings.

The main threats that the Bombardier C jet may face towards its success are:

1. The reliability and on-service date of the Pratt and Whitney Geared Turbofan (GTF) engine - the reliability of the reduction gearbox inside the hot engine is still being proven, and potential problems on this will have a big effect on on-service date. Long term reliability also is still to be proven.

2. The sturdiness of an Aluminum-Lithium fuselage with Composite wings passenger jet on a high cycle operation.

3. Production capability of Bombardier factories, specially its partners in China and Ireland.

4. WTO protests from competitors specially Embraer.

5. Massive discounting by Boeing and Airbus on their respective competing models - B737-600 and A-318.


Overall, my gut feel is the Bombardier CSeries jet will be a success.