Extreme short take–off and landing regional jets – economic motivation and technological challenges

Abstract

In their latest market forecasts Airbus and Boeing equally predict that this strong increase in demand translates into a market value of about 3·2 trillion Dollars in the next 20 years. Given their different strategic approach (A380 vs B787), Airbus assumes a delivery of 23,385 new aircraft and Boeing a slightly higher number of 29,000 aircraft. These numbers certainly were not corrected for the effects of the current crisis. However, as long as the current state of the economy is seen as a business cycle phenomenon, these numbers still give a good indication about future markets † .Whereas in the last decades the aircraft market was mainly a seller's market, circumstances have changed in the last years. Buyers of aircraft have put much more emphasis on bringing their own needs and desires into the development process ‡ . This has lead to a greater need for aircraft customisation especially in the long range segment, which Airbus and Boeing have already well addressed. A similar approach is yet to be followed for smaller aircraft, the A320 family and B737 predecessors in particular.Both factors -the strong increase in demand and the need for more customisation -offer new opportunities and new challenges to the market. Firstly, the prospects of the high market value haveamong other factors -attracted new competitors into the market, challenging the incumbents especially in the regional jet/single aisle market. Secondly, the parallel segmentation of the airline business models has lead to different customer needs, representing different requirements for the respective aircraft. A new short range aircraft for the Asian market might well look totally different to a European one in terms of cabin size, layout and flexibility as well as aircraft ABSTRACT A predominant problem in the US as well as in Europe is the imminent capacity shortage of major hub airports: Air traffic is assumed to increase significantly worldwide, while further runway extensions of airports are difficult because of residents' resistance and limited land space availability. However, the increasing market size also provides a potential for new aircraft concepts. What type of aircraft will meet best the future market requirements is a question arising.We show that currently discussed solutions to airport capacity problems are mostly not in line with market requirements and have therefore not the potential to alleviate the increasing capacity problems. We analyse to what extend an aeroplane with extreme short takeoff and landing (ESTOL) capability might be able to overcome these capacity problems and discuss resulting technical requirements. Subsequently we present some of the current technological challenges in this area of research and give an overview on ESTOL regional jet concepts that are currently investigated at Bauhaus Luftfahrt.