Keesje From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 34133 times:
The Airbus A321 will be the first family member to receive the upgrade, increasing the US transcontinental range to be more competitive with the Boeing 737-900 and to target the Boeing 757 fleet, a prevalent aircraft in the US legacy carrier operation. American, Continental, Delta, Northwest and United airlines all have large 757 fleets.
PlaneAdmirer From United States of America, joined Jul 2009, 530 posts, RR: 1 Reply 2, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 34016 times:
Interesting considering all the posts on here that are negative on the 737-900 and that Airbus wants to match it with the 321.
Clickhappy From United States of America, joined Sep 2001, 9444 posts, RR: 72 Reply 3, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 33750 times:
AIRLINERS.NET CREW PHOTO SCREENER
My mistake
Back in May they had expected a decision in "4-6 weeks" so I thought this was old news.
Ikramerica From United States of America, joined May 2005, 21028 posts, RR: 60 Reply 6, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 32511 times:
A real benefit of these in the USA would be performance out of places like BUR and SNA, where the winglets would allow for a higher TOW, meaning more usable fuel, meaning better payloads transcon out of these airports for A320s.
Of all the things to worry about... the Wookie has no pants.
R2rho From Germany, joined Feb 2007, 2248 posts, RR: 1 Reply 8, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 19 hours ago) and read 31340 times:
I'll believe it when I see it, because Airbus has already tested several winglet designs in the past without success. If this does happen however, then it would mean that the recently tested AP winglets proved a to be a good design that worked with the A320's wing.
However, I'm surprised at the mention of sharklets. That design hasn't even been flight tested yet, it seems premature to already be considering it as an option.
A 2-4% fuel burn improvement is a welcome upgrade, but won't quite put the A321 into 757 territory (although it will slightly eat away at it). An A321WL would still not be able to do transatlantic, but would at least be more comfortable doing US transcon than it is now.
These winglets could also be welcomed by airlines operating A320Fam a/c on longer routes, too, like Western EU - Russia or UK/northern EU - Canary Islands.
Keesje From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 9, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 30201 times:
Several variants were tested in the last few years.
December 2008
July 2006
April 2006
I guess bigger more efficient wing lets require structural strenghtening making them less suitable for retrofits. After innitial testing probably designs were adjusted & windtunneled and now look good. The next one to be seen on A320 proto will probably be close to the final design.
Scipio From Belgium, joined Oct 2007, 590 posts, RR: 6 Reply 10, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 29785 times:
Since the A380 has essentially the same wingfences as the A320, would it too get 2-4% more efficient if these wingfences were replaced by a scaled-up version of the new A320 winglets or sharklets?
Stitch From United States of America, joined Jul 2005, 26699 posts, RR: 83 Reply 11, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 15 hours ago) and read 28552 times:
The A321 can't take pallets, either, and the AKH container can't be interlined with any non-A320 family model. I also imagine most A321's are bulk-loaded just like 757s are.
I'm in agreement with you. Keesje, that most missions under 4500km are better served by the A321-200 and 737-900ER. However, when you need long legs or strong performance, when it comes to narrowbodies, you still can't beat a 757 and that will keep the model popular with at least one niche, especially with the winglets adding 400km of range and reducing fuel consumption by 5%.
Terryb99 From United States of America, joined Sep 2004, 291 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 14 hours ago) and read 27684 times:
LACA773 From United States of America, joined Nov 2004, 3749 posts, RR: 2 Reply 13, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 13 hours ago) and read 26704 times:
For Airbus to upgrade the 321 to specs of a 757 wouldn't they have to develop a new wing and landing gear box to hold a heavier aircraft and engines? How long would that take them to do.
If Boeing is to up the performance of the 73G series, wouldn't they too have to develop a new wing and gear box so that they can put more efficent, powerful engines on these birds? As one said, it will be difficult for Boeing to use a more powerful, advanced engine since the 73G sits so close to the ground.
What's the height difference between the A320 & 73G series'?
Virgin747lgw From United Kingdom, joined Mar 2007, 225 posts, RR: 0 Reply 14, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago) and read 21875 times:
surely Airbus would prefer to use their own sharklets as they dont need to license the design off AP? however I think they need to get AP on board as their designs have done wonders on the 737/757, wouldnt an A330 winglet help close the gap on the 787?
Burkhard From Germany, joined Nov 2006, 4248 posts, RR: 2 Reply 15, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago) and read 21682 times:
For USA Transcon, Northern Europe to Canaries , Central Europe to Gulf Area, North America to South America, there are many routes which are just on the limit of the current A321-200. So every 100 miles more ranges opens new routes it can do with full load, and on all routes it can do it is a hot candidate. The corner the 757 still has just gets smaller - and can be done by enough existing late 757 for indeed a decade or more.
The increased range only slightly affects economics, I read an A321-200 needs about 50l more than an A321-100 per hour.
Babybus From United Kingdom, joined Dec 2003, 3512 posts, RR: 6 Reply 16, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 3 hours ago) and read 19923 times:
I'm not sure I like whose winglets. They look like the ones on the 737 family.
With Airbus being a pan -European company you'd think they'd pass any new designs past the Italians for approval. It's the one country that knows about industrial design.
and with that..cabin crew, seats for landing please.
N623JB From United States of America, joined Sep 2007, 702 posts, RR: 0 Reply 17, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 2 days 1 hour ago) and read 17820 times:
I wonder if JetBlue would consider getting the A320 with winglets..also.I was thinking: Would the A320 be the same thing as the B757 with winglets? I was thinking that the winglets would give the A320 more range, which would be great.
Bring JetBlue To Mexico City! (TLC and/or MEX would be great)
CALTECH From Poland, joined May 2007, 1581 posts, RR: 22 Reply 18, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 14150 times:
Where are the Airbus fans who said the A-320 wing was perfect, but then a improvement makes it more so. So the Boeing 737 NextGen wing is more perfect than the Airbus wing right now ?
The A-320 family will look good with winglets, just like the winglets on the A-330 have made it look real good.
Be interesting and nice to see retrofits done. And what JetBlue does.
Lightsaber From United States of America, joined Jan 2005, 10671 posts, RR: 100 Reply 19, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 1 day ago) and read 13969 times:
Quoting CALTECH (Reply 18): Where are the Airbus fans who said the A-320 wing was perfect, but then a improvement makes it more so. So the Boeing 737 NextGen wing is more perfect than the Airbus wing right now ?
I like how you phrased this.
There is no perfect wing, as we all know. They all should have greater wingspans, but weight reasons cut that back. As we improve our materials... wings will improve. Not to mention new cross sections are still being invented.
Winglets improve the effective aspect ratio. Every wing out there is an 'engineering compromise' that could have been better if certain technology was more mature...
Quoting CALTECH (Reply 18):
Be interesting and nice to see retrofits done. And what JetBlue does.
Airport From United States of America, joined Aug 2009, 1395 posts, RR: 9 Reply 20, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 23 hours ago) and read 13883 times:
Yuck, I know looks aren't important in aviation since it all boils down to the almighty dollar, but to me an A320 without the standard wingtip fences is not an A320 at all. (I'm not speaking in terms of technicalities, I know that the first 320s didn't have them at all) That bird is an ugly duckling to me.
Astuteman From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2005, 9136 posts, RR: 96 Reply 22, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 21 hours ago) and read 13644 times:
Quoting Lightsaber (Reply 19): They all should have greater wingspans, but weight reasons cut that back
Weight AND gate, I suspect.
I also suspect the economic paradigm was slightly different in the days when these planes were conceived, and the convenience of the smaller wingspan was at an acceptable price.
That, and as you rightly point out, the manufacturing advances made since then....
Keesje From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 23, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 20 hours ago) and read 13512 times:
Quoting Columba (Reply 21): Quoting N623JB (Reply 17):
I wonder if JetBlue would consider getting the A320 with winglets.
I believe the initial idea of putting new winglets on the A320 came from Jetblue.
A Jetblue A320 was fitted with 2 different seats of winglets for comparisons in 2006. This thread has been cleaned up like no thread before with the majority of posts gone via the reference post deleted procedure. It used to have this picture:
Lightsaber From United States of America, joined Jan 2005, 10671 posts, RR: 100 Reply 24, posted (3 years 7 months 3 weeks 15 hours ago) and read 13183 times:
As you note, it was a different economic situation. Optimizing for < $30/bbl oil results in a different aircraft than oil at ~$70/bbl.
Quoting Keesje (Reply 23): A Jetblue A320 was fitted with 2 different seats of winglets for comparisons in 2006.
It was a wake up call, to me personally, when neither set was approved/accepted. It was more than a little bit surprising that neither set was not going to pay off back when oil prices were 'shooting to the moon.'
What I'm most excited about is the range improvement. Ok, its small, but if IAE would improve their engine too...
Lightsaber
Life is short, Live it!
25 EstorilM: Personally I think the 320 looks great with the winglets (presumably the AP variants? Who knows at this point..) with the Airbus livery. It's a shame
26 Jdevora: The winglet itself, last December they tested a new set of winglets designed by Aviation Partners, the same guys that created the 737-s winglets Chee
27 RayChuang: My guess right now is that JetBlue (B6) will be the primary customer right now for the A320 upgrade with winglets, all being installed as part of each
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I like how you phrased this.
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