Ask the pilot

Size isn't everything: Boeing's Dreamliner won't take off for three years and is already outselling the Airbus superjumbo.

By Patrick Smith

May 13, 2005 | Boeing and Airbus continue trading swipes over whether the latter's outsize double-decker, the A380, is destined for boon or bust. For now, Boeing is able to chortle quietly, as orders for the ungainly Airbus have stalled at about 160 copies. According to some estimates, that's barely a third of what's needed for the Europeans to recoup a $13 billion investment. Of course, with the prototype barely out of the nest and scheduled service still a year away, it's much too early to reserve that parking spot alongside Concorde and the Spruce Goose. And Boeing would be wise to recall the miserable start of its own superjumbo project. The 747 program was so beset by technical problems and performance shortfalls that it brought the company to the brink of total ruin. Thirty-five years later, more 747s have been built than any other widebody in history.

Check back in a couple of years for a more accurate prognosis.

Behind all the sparring over size, meanwhile, is a more compelling story: the gathering storm that will pit Boeing's ultra-high-tech 787 -- the so-called Dreamliner -- against the Airbus A350, a derivative of the A330 and currently under development. These will be midsize machines without the A380's record-breaking girth and stage presence, but the competitive tug-of-war will be fierce. (It already is, with a bitter U.S.-Europe trade dispute brewing over EU subsidies to the A350 project.)

So far, in what some observers are calling the most successful prelaunch in commercial airliner history, Boeing and its 787 have the edge. Three years before scheduled delivery of the first aircraft, the total number of 787 commitments and options stands at more than 240. That should enable Boeing to regain position as the world's No. 1 commercial planemaker. Once again the European and Asian carriers are the ones driving sales, though Northwest and Continental have ordered 28. Rumors say American may join them. Launch customer All Nippon Airways will receive 50; Air-India just signed papers for up to 27.

For the moment, the Airbus A350, slated to enter service in 2010, has been able to recruit only a single customer. Caution again, bearing in mind that Boeing's 767 was the dominant midsize twin for years before the A330 began to clobber it. Boeing is now weighing closure of the 767 production line after a run of more than two decades.

The baseline A350 will be slightly larger than the 787, with room for 245 in a three-class layout. A larger version will seat 285. Airbus estimates that upward of 3,000 aircraft in the 250- to 280-seat range will be retired in the next 20 years and confidently predicts at least a 50 percent share of replacement sales. We could tinker all day with comparative range and capacity variations of the A350 and 787; considering the vastness of the market and the operational flexibility of these aircraft, things could well turn out profitable for both manufacturers, mutually successful in the vein of the 737-vs.-A320 contest.

In the meantime, don't get me started on this naming and numbering business. Once upon a time aircraft designations went in neat sequential order. Why did Airbus have to skip from A340 to A380, then backfill with the A350? Who knows. Hats off to Boeing, at least, for having the good sense to retain its traditional chronology and abandon the proposed "7E7" moniker for what became the 787. To what extent the opinions of this column played into Boeing's decision is unknown, but it's nice to imagine they were listening.

In truth, tradition and sentiment probably weren't as valuable as impressing the Chinese. The naming announcement coincided with an order of 60 aircraft from six Chinese airlines. "Incorporating the 8 at the time of the China order," says Boeing CEO Alan Mulally on the company's Web site, "is also significant because in many Asian cultures the number 8 represents good luck and prosperity." (Astute flyers will recognize that all United Airlines flight numbers to Asia begin with an 8.) Though perhaps more to the point, in both Mandarin and Cantonese the pronunciation of "eight" sounds akin to the word meaning "to make money."

Another wise choice on Boeing's part was to scrap the 787's original vertical stabilizer and cockpit windscreen designs. Early drafts of the nose and tail assured us that the bulbous A380 wouldn't be garnering all the ugly votes. Aiming for something distinctive and idiosyncratic, engineers came up with a brutally overwrought tail and a set of futuristic-looking flight deck windows. There was something unsettlingly anthropomorphic about the hyperswept goldfish fin, while the nose was a tad too sci-fi for some tastes. Revised to more conventional specs, the jet remains plenty nonconformist with its long, sharply tapered wings. Few will confuse it with the A350, which will be more or less indistinguishable from the A330.

Since we're doing aesthetics, I'll mention that Air Canada has opted for fourteen 787s as part of a fleet-renewal program. Boeing's revamp spares us from a double dose of ugliness: having to see that curvy-wurvy tail done up in Air Canada's tragic new color scheme. There have been some awful new liveries unveiled in the past few years (JAL's "rising splotch" is perhaps the worst), but this one is particularly baffling when you consider just how crisp and handsome the supplanted scheme was. If it ain't broke...

Is there supposed to be something endemically Canadian about the soapy blue fuselage? It does have a certain glacial pallor, but that's not what comes to mind. If it accurately evokes anything, it's the men's room tile at the airport in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

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