Category Archives: Aerospace & Defence

November 6, 2012 · 8:00 am

So much for composites…

Few weeks ago I was talking to a stress engineer from Eurocopter Spain about the different activities they performed. He was looking forward to the future work in relation to the latest EC 175, a helicopter built in cooperation with China for civilian and parapublic markets, mainly to support oil and gas exploration and search and rescue missions.

“At last we’re back to metal structures…”

He mentioned this in relation to apparent problems given by composites ones in their use in helicopters. This reminded me of a teacher (at engineering school) and former (very senior) colleague at Airbus Military, who was never seduced by the massive application of composites and he always called for their introduction following his mantra:

“Technology (in the context of application of science), is the most powerful means to increase the effectiveness-to-cost ratio.”

Which not always calls for the use of the latest technology available.

So much for the hype of composites…

Leave a comment

Filed under Aerospace & Defence

Tagged as , , , , , ,

November 4, 2012 · 8:30 am

Looking at History through US Foreign Military Sales

If an alien came to Earth and had to quickly make sense of the last half century of History, he could get a first glimpse of geographical hot spots and changes of regime by looking at US Foreign Military Sales program data (please refer to my previous post for an explanation of the program and sources of data).

For example, take the figure below. It shows the historical data of FMS deliveries (in thousands of $) from 1970 to 2010. As you can see deliveries stopped in 1980. What is even more telling, in the 4 years to 1979 (from 1976-79) the arms sales delivered to this country represented a whole 34% of the complete US FMS program over that period (see the total volume of deliveries in this graphic from a previous post). Which country do you think it coud be?

Which country could this be?

This alien, combining these data would know that something that happened in that country, from representing a third of military sales to not taking part in the program ever again… you may have guessed right: Iran, where the Islamic Revolution started in 1978, the Shah left the country in 1979 and at the end of that year the hostage crisis started.

Having taken a look at the graphic of Iran, find below the one for Iraq:

 

In the graphic you can see that from 1970 to 2005 there were not FMS agreements and deliveries from 2006. Nevertheless you can see that during the 1970’s and 1980’s there were commercial arms sales to Iraq from American contractors (this is also published by DSCA), which deliveries stopped altogether in 1990 (invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 and subsequent first Gulf war). Then, once the second Gulf war had changed the regime, commercial and FMS sales restarted from 2003.

There are plenty of cases to look at: Cuba not forming part of FMS since before 1970, Russia neither (though receiving commercial arms since 1992), Spain having been always part of FMS program (including during dictator Franco’s time) but which agreements surged in 1982 with the order of 72 McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 fighters (the same year in which it joined NATO), Chile, Venezuela, China…

Russia: never part of FMS.

Before concluding this post let me show again the distribution of FMS deliveries during the last 60 years per region (shown in the previous post) and a table with the main receivers in each region:

FMS Sales per region (1950-2010, source: DSCA).

FMS Agreements per region and selected countries (1950-2010, in k$ – source: DSCA).

Which have been then the top receivers of FMS Arms sales agreements in the period 1950-2010? In order:

  1. Saudi Arabia (16.9% of global FMS program)
  2. Egypt (7.3%)
  3. Israel (7.1%)
  4. Australia (4.1%)
  5. Korea (South) (4.0%)
  6. United Kingdom (4.0%)
  7. Turkey (4.0%)
  8. Japan (3.7%)
  9. Germany (3.3%)
  10. Greece (2.7%)

Leave a comment

Filed under Aerospace & Defence

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 2, 2012 · 8:00 am

US Foreign Military Sales

The Foreign Military Sales (FMS) is a program managed and operated by US Department of Defense (DoD) on a no-profit and no-loss basis. Countries and international organizations participating in the program pay for defense articles and services at prices that recoup the actual costs incurred by the United States. This includes a fee (currently 3.8% of what the defense articles and/or services cost, in most instances) to cover the cost of administering the program.

Foreign countries may also opt to procure directly from American contractors in Direct Commercial Sales, though FMS ensures third countries rates similar to those received by the DoD (bargaining power) but the items will be the standard procured by the USA, not especially tailored to the needs of other countries. In any case the sales will have to pass the same approval requirements for the sale of defense materials to third countries.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) is the one managing this program and the one which publishes the different deals (Major Arms Sales Notification and FMS Contract Awards).

The DSCA also publishes historical data of the FMS sales by year and per country and region. (I have always admired the openness of the different US agencies in their publishing of data to work with).

In the graphic below you can see the total US arms sales agreements with foreign countries and FMS-program agreements during the last 40 years.

Total Military Sales (*) and FMS-program agreements (in k$) per year.
[(*) Total Sales includes foreign sales not made through FMS program]

You can see how most of the agreements are close within the FMS program, which ensures moderate costs to the third countries and a standardization for US allies. You can notice as well how the first Gulf war and the recent wars in Irak and Afghanistan have increased FMS agreements.

However, given that military equipment takes time to build, there is a lag between those sales agreements and when the arms are delivered. See below the two lines representing FMS agreements and FMS deliveries (both in k$).

FMS (in k$): agreements vs deliveries per year.

You can see how the deliveries show a growth trend since the 1970’s, with peak at the end of ’90s.

The following question is: to which countries were those sales…

FMS Sales (1950-2010) per region.

I will end this post with this graphic, showing how the Middle East (“Near East & South East Asia”) is the region which received the most of FMS during the last 60 years. In a following post I will dive into which specific countries as that is a very interesting analysis deserving a single post.

4 Comments

Filed under Aerospace & Defence

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

October 21, 2012 · 8:00 am

Berlin Tempelhof Airport

Berlin Tempelhof Airport was one of the spots that we wanted to visit in Berlin. The airport was built in the 1920’s and had been an iconic airport for decades, e.g., by the famous Berlin Airlift which with the allied forces supplied West Berlin once surface traffic was blocked by the Soviet Union in 1948.

Other historic events happening in the airport (quoted from Wikipedia):

In 1909, Frenchman Armand Zipfel made the first flight demonstration in Tempelhof, followed by Orville Wright later that same year. Tempelhof was first officially designated as an airport on 8 October 1923. Deutsche Luft Hansa was founded in Tempelhof on 6 January 1926.

[…] described by British architect Sir Norman Foster as “the mother of all airports”.

The airport closed operations in 2008.

The coincidence was that the Berlin marathon fair was organized at Tempelhof thus we didn’t need to schedule the visit since we would go there to pick the running bibs.

See below some pictures from the airport.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I had some fun with my brother remembering that the airport is also featured in the movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (when they get into a zeppelin). I tried to find in Youtube some scenes in which the airport could be recognised, but the only scene that I find related to it is when Indiana and his father are already aboard the zeppelin:

3 Comments

Filed under Aerospace & Defence, Travelling

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 24, 2012 · 8:00 am

World commercial aircraft fleet: forecast vs. actual

Some weeks ago I made a comparison about Airbus and Boeing aircraft market forecasts. Last week I published a couple of posts about the evolution in the forecasted aircraft average size and on the accuracy of these market forecasts. For this, I looked for old issues of Boeing Current Market Outlook from as back as 1990.

The next step then it was obvious, I compiled the following graphic showing with the data available information over a 40-year span on:

  • The evolution of world commercial aircraft fleet year by year (blue line) from 1995 to 2011,
  • The forecasted world aircraft fleets by Boeing CMO (red line) from 2000 to 2031 (with some gap years). For 2015 to 2031 the forecast was made 20 years ahead; for 2010-13 it was made 15 years ahead; for 2005-2008, 10 years ahead and for 2000-2003, 5 years ahead.
  • The published 20-year aircraft market forecast year by year.

World commercial aircraft fleet: forecast vs. actual (data source: Boeing CMO).

As you can fleets, forecasted fleets and market fleets have all been increasing year by year. The compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for each one has been:

  • Actual fleet growth: 3.73% from 1995 to 2011 (2.88% from 2000 to 2011).
  • Forecasted fleet growth: 3.55% from 2000 to 2031 (3.69% from 2000 to 2011).
  • 20-year market forecast: 5.07% from 1992 to 2012 (3.43% from 2001 to 2012).

It is interesting to see that in those years when there is both figures for actuals and forecasted fleets the figures are close (-3.3% average deviation) and so is the trend, though forecasted fleet was lower at the beginning of that period (-7.2% in 2000) and grew at a higher rate until almost matching the numbers in 2011 (+1.2%).

Even though, the 20-year market forecasts have grown at a higher rate than fleets, it is mainly because the first data that I could retrieve come from the economic crisis of the beginning of the 1990’s, when Boeing trimmed down its forecasts. From the 2000’s the figures for market forecast have grown at a similar rate than those of fleets. And so will be the growth of forecasted fleet from 2011 to 2031: 3.5%.

****

Notes:

  • 1990 CMO long-term market forecast is made for 15 years, not 20.
  • Forecast of fleet for the periods 2000-2003, 2005-2008 and 2010-2013 does not come from CMOs published 20 years before, but from 5, 10 and 15-year fleet forecasts included in the CMOs of 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999.
  • Boeing does not publish 5, 10 and 15-year fleet forecasts anymore.
  • It would be interesting to have a per-segment graphic, however there is not consistent data to produce it for the same time span. Boeing changed singe-aisle cut-off seat size from 1999-2000, in 1996-1997 and 2008 didn’t report the split within twin-aisle, in 2008 it also didn’t report the split within single-aisle.

2 Comments

Filed under Aerospace & Defence

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

September 20, 2012 · 8:00 am

Aircraft market forecasts accuracy

In a previous post I wrote about how the predicted average aircraft size by Boeing in 1990 did not match the actual evolution of that average size since then. In a more general context, how accurate are these aircraft market forecasts? Especially taking into account that they forecast along a 20-year period.

I dug in the archives and found an article in Flight International‘s issue of 10-16 March 1993 which compared Airbus’ GMF and Boeing’s CMO (you can find 2012 comparison here). Some excerpts from that article:

  • “Boeing is projecting deliveries of 12,005 aircraft, worth $815 billion at current values, from 1993 to 2010.”
  • (Boeing) “The trend towards larger aircraft will accelerate so that, although single-aisle types will account for about two-thirds of all deliveries, they will comprise 74% of those up to 2000 and only 60% beyond.”
  • “Airbus Industrie has released an upbeat forecast, predicting market demand for 11,653 new jet airliners to be delivered during 1992-2011, up from the 11,500 deliveries predicted in 1991.”
  • (Airbus) “The manufacturer foresees an accelerating demand for widebodied aircraft, driving average airliner size from today’s 176 seats to 255 seats in 20 years.”
  • (Airbus) “The global jet-airliner fleet will grow to 10,000 by 1998 and to almost 15,000 by 2011.“

Now, let’s see what was the fleet at the end of 2011. Seeing Airbus’ Global Market Forecast from 2012, the departing numbers are those of 2011 fleet.

  • Passenger aircraft: 15,556 a/c.
  • Freighter aircraft: 1,615 a/c.

Thus, 17,171 a/c at the end 0f 2011. The GMF from 1992 underestimated the 20-year market by slightly above 2,100 or nearly 15% error. Not a bad shot taking into account the time span used.

Let’s take a more recent example, this time from Boeing. In the CMO from 1997, we find the following chart showing Boeing’s forecasted fleet size and distribution for 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016 year-ends.

1997 Boeing CMO year-end fleet forecasts for 2001, 2006, 2011 & 2016.

In 2012 CMO, Boeing offered figures of 2011 year-end fleet.

Fleet at year end 2011 according to Boeing 2012 CMO.

We can make a quick comparison:

Comparison of aircraft fleet at year-end 2011: 1997 forecast vs. actual (sources: Boeing CMO 1997 and 2012).

Some reflections:

  • The total fleet figure was missed only by 1%.
  • The single-aisle figure was missed only by 2%, though less larger single-aisle were acquired than expected.
  • Where the forecast is off mark is in both regional jets (underestimated) and twin-aisle, where there are almost 1,800 less aircraft in the current fleet than forecasted… another reason for Boeing to play down on A380 segment.

***

NOTE: Figures of current fleet from Boeing and Airbus differ. Some causes: Airbus does not include figures for regional jets, and definitions between large aircraft and twin-aisle vary from one company to the other. Other than that, figures for freighters are similar, 1,615 (A) vs. 1,740 (B), as they are for passenger single-aisles, 12,161 (A) vs 12,030 (B).

3 Comments

Filed under Aerospace & Defence

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

September 18, 2012 · 8:00 am

Aircraft average size: Boeing’s forecast in 1990 and following evolution

Boeing, in its Commercial Market Outlook forecast, currently downplays the potential of the A380. Two years ago, I wrote a post in which I collected some views from Boeing in 1996:

“Most major aerospace companies agree that airlines will require 500 to 700 airplanes capable of carrying more than 500 passengers. Boeing forecasts 500 airplanes will be needed by the year 2015. […]”

Boeing later left a joint study with Airbus for the Very Large Commercial Transport (VLCT).

Going backwards further than 1996, I found in Flight International issue of 5-11 September 1990 the following chart showing Boeing’s estimate for the average size of airplanes up to 2005. It showed an ever increased average size:

Average aircraft size forecast made in 1990.

Seven years later, in the 1997 CMO Boeing forecasted as well an ever-increasing average aircraft size (though trimmed from 1990 forecast):

Average size evolution forecast (source: Boeing CMO 1997).

However, you may see the evolution since then in this other chart from Boeing’s CMO below:

Average aircraft size evolution 1991-2011.

In a following post I will compare how accurate these market forecasts are in general and by segment. As we will see, the general figures for fleet and for some segments were well predicted, not so for other segments.

3 Comments

Filed under Aerospace & Defence

Tagged as , , , , ,

September 16, 2012 · 10:00 am

EADS and BAE Systems merger talks

I first learnt about the merger talks between EADS and BAE Systems via a tweet from my brother:

I then suggested that the possible kind of “last supper” might have been the “Defence and Security Co-operation Treaty” signed almost 2 years ago between France and United Kingdom.

Last supper. First, what is that “last supper” my brother was referring to? It refers to a meeting that was called in 1993 by William Perry, then US Deputy Secretary of Defense, in which he explained defence contractors the post-Cold War defense strategy which called for defense industrial base consolidation. In the chart below, you can see the spree of mergers and acquisitions that took place in the following years:

US defence contractors consolidation after “last supper” in 1993.

In Europe at the time there was a similar consolidation trend, which ended in mainly 3 big European aerospace and defence groups: EADS, BAE Systems and Finmeccanica.

Setting the record straight. Prior to the definition of those 3 groups, several discussions took place at the end of the 90s between different companies. Some articles that I have read about the EADS and BAE talks mention that after conversations between German DASA and British Aerospace failed in 1998 (when BA opted for acquiring GEC Marconi), DASA underwent the acquisition of the Spanish Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA). Well, this is not true. It never happened. DASA merged with French Aerospatiale. Some months later CASA joined the merged when EADS was created. This is well reflected in many other articles. Just as a side note: Tom Enders, current EADS CEO took a role personally in those conversations between DASA and BA already in 1998.

Balance between Defence and Civil business. Most of the articles that we can read today mention the strategic goal of EADS in balancing its defence portfolio with the civil one. Two years ago I wrote a post which included some graphics comparing the then largest world defence companies. I compared the relative size of each company and how defence-oriented their businesses are. Today, I will make use of one of those graphics to show the profile of the two companies, EADS and BAE Systems to weigh that strategic fit:

EADS vs BAE. Size and defence profile.

Stock Market response. The merger talks were announced last Wednesday 12th. The closing prices of each company the previous day were:

  • EADS: 29.67€. This is, a market value of 24.3bn€.
  • BAE Systems: 328pc. This is, a market value of 13.3bn€ (taking that day exchange rate of 1.25).

That is, the combined merger would be 37.6bn€; 64.6% coming from EADS, 35.4% from BAE. However, the announcement mentioned a 60/40 split of the parent company. That is, the announcement pointed investors that either EADS was overvalued (up to +17.7% to get a 60/40 split keeping BAE’s value constant), BAE undervalued (up to -21.5% to get a 60/40 split keeping EADS’ value constant) or somewhere in between.

In the following days, EADS price fell down and then stabilised, BAE went upwards. On Friday they closed at:

  • EADS: 25.31€. This is, a market value of 20.7bn€.
  • BAE Systems: 347pc. This is, a market value of 14.1bn€.

That is a split of 59.5%/40.5%… thus, the market understood EADS was overvalued around -15% while BAE was undervalued around 6%.

Self praise. Taking that price in which now EADS sells, 25.3€ (undoubtedly guided by the 60/40 split), I wanted to bring back another post I wrote about a year ago. In that post, I mentioned that I valued EADS at a price of 24€… Not bad :-).

2 Comments

Filed under Aerospace & Defence, Investing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 5, 2012 · 9:00 am

Airbus vs. Boeing, comparison of market forecasts (2012)

Yesterday, John Leahy, Airbus COO Customers, unveiled at a press conference in London the new figures of the 2012-31 Airbus’ Global Market Forecast (GMF, PDF 5.6MB).

The last two years, I already published comparisons of both Airbus’ and Boeing’s forecasts (Current Market Outlook, CMO, PDF 3.0MB). You can find below the update of such comparison with the latest released figures from both companies.

Comparison of Airbus GMF and Boeing CMO 2012-2031.

Some comments about the comparison:

  • Boeing sees demand for 14% more passenger aircraft (excluding regional a/c) with a 19% more value (including freighters).
  • Boeing continues to play down A380 niche potential (56% less a/c than Airbus’ GMF), though for second year in a row it has slightly increased its Very Large market forecast, this time by 20 a/c, or 3.5%.
  • On the other hand, Boeing forecasts about 200 twin-aisle and 4,200 single-aisle more than Airbus, clearly pointing to its point-to-point strategy versus the connecting mega-cities rationale presented by Airbus.
  • In terms of RPKs (“revenue passenger kilometer”), that is, the number of paying passenger by the distance they are transported, they see a similar future: Airbus forecasts for 2031 ~12.8 RPKs (in trillion) (a ~4% increase vs last year GMF) while Boeing forecasts 13.8 (also increased about 3%).

The main changes from last year’s forecasts are:

  • Both manufacturers have increased their passenger aircraft forecast in about 500 a/c, less dramatically than last year’s change.
    • In the case of Airbus it has increased the single aisle segment, probably reflecting the success of the A320neo launch.
    • In the case of Boeing, they decreased both single aisle (130 a/c) and small twin aisle (300 a/c), but increased the intermediate twin-aisle in 900 a/c… selling internally a new version of the 777?
  • Both manufacturers have increased the value of RPKs in 2031.
  • Both manufacturers have increased the volume (trn$) of the market in this 20 years, 12% Airbus (to 3.7trn$) and 10% Boeing (to 4.4trn$).

Some catchy lines for those who have never seen these type of forecasts:

  • Passenger world traffic (RPK) will continue to grow about 4.7% per year (5.0% according to Boeing). This is, doubling every ~15-20 years.
  • Today there are about 15,500 passenger aircraft around the world, this number will more than double in the next 20 years to above 32,500 a/c in 2031.
  • The A380 market equation: Urbanisation + Mega-cities + Wealth = VLAs (Very Large Aircraft, i.e. A380 and B747).
  • Emissions of aviation industry amount to 2% of man-made CO2 emissions.
  • Centre of gravity of world travel will have moved from the Atlantic Ocean (in 1971) to the Middle East (2031).
  • A key driver here is the propensity to fly of the people as the economies of their countries grow. This is captured well by the graphic below, a classic in the industry. This time, Airbus mentioned in the GMF that it has carried out a survey during summer asking 10,000 people around the world whether they expected to fly more in the future. This was true especially in China and India.

Trips per capita vs. GDP per capita (source: Airbus GMF).

Again, I strongly recommend both documents (GMF and CMO) which, differences apart, provide a wealth of information of market dynamics. The complete book from Airbus will be published online next week according to Chris Emerson (SVP for Future Programmes & Market Strategy).

In case you find it tough, to read those kind of booklets, you may take a look at the video of the press conference, a great class on global economy, world aviation, forecasting, trend spotting…

11 Comments

Filed under Aerospace & Defence

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 4, 2012 · 8:00 am

Neil Armstrong and engineering

While on holidays I read the following tweet from my brother:

Some weeks have passed by since I last wrote in the blog, and today I just wanted to pay homage to Neil Armstrong. In the wonderful obituary dedicated to him in The Economist, he is portrayed as having “engineer’s reserve, mixed with a natural shyness” and someone who didn’t like to be treated as a hero (though as the article goes “the struggle against heroism seemed particularly futile”).

The obituary quotes a self description he made at an address to the America’s National Press Club in 2000 (podcast here):

“I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer, born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace and propelled by compressible flow.”

I love that description and we may appreciate him even more for his humbleness, but, as the tweet of my brother says, thanks to figures like his, even if due to a collective achievement, there are students that are encouraged to become engineers. Three videos:

The arrival to the Moon…

Neil Armstrong’s address at his college at Purdue University praising the engineering profession:

A nice and short tribute to him I found surfing the web:

Leave a comment

Filed under Aerospace & Defence

Tagged as , ,