Yeah… if it stays at current prices I agree.

But, will it sit?

I don’t wanna jump on tin-hat bandwagons, but with fast growing economies over the world needing fed (oil) and oil production around the world at best… marginally improving – will prices stop increasing?

OPEC have fed us pish that the prices are currently high due to speculators buying for the future – well, if everyone knew there was a load of oil in the system (after all, its only useful to the speculator as a sell-able item), then the prices would drop. I think they are near 100% capacity as it is. What happens when they pass their oil well’s best years?

Since the early 1980s the economic growth has maore and more decoupled from energy consumption. This trend is especially true for Europe (energy demand in Germany for example has declined despite moderate growth), also true to lesser extent in the USA (while the USA still need too much energy per USD economical output), and it is not really true for economies like China or India. Reasons are various (economic enables more people to have very basic comforts, while in USA/Europe it is more the thing with replacing a desktop with a laptop; also, lots of energy-intensive production moved to China, however, that doesn’t make too much).

Anyways, productivity and energy consumption are not coupled any more, and will decouple even further. The oil price makes some considerable percentage of the airfare, but it doesn’t dramatically rise it. Other activities like driving a car are much more bound to the oil price.

In general, on the long run, economic growth will exceed the growth in energy prices. Bad years are to come when over a limited time period that isn’t true (like in the so-called oil crisis).

I would think airbus would be better off working hard on the 350 family , it is an excellent family of aircraft and they should allocate full recources to that project and launch 320RS probably 12-24 months after boeing launches Y1 (i guess the 320 can hold off any new boeing varient for 2-3 years easy at a healthy ROI ).

I think it does. Same with the A320 replacement, while I would think that Airbus will introduce something like an A320 advanced with better engines and some structural refinements. Fact is that on a future singla aisle there isn’t much to improve, perhaps a few percent less weight. The question is more about marketing: where to place it capacity-wise, split in two families, use propfan or prop on the lower end. Quite risky. A plain replacement wouldn’t be worth the money. Boeing has more pressure because the B737 is aging.
Anyways, Boeing has said that it doesn’t see pressure to hurry, so is Airbus. As long as the aircraft sell, they’ll be stupid to replace it. And if comes to strip airlines of cash with aging aircraft designs, both manufacturers found a similar hobby.

Boeing is in a big black hole at the moment and are scarce on engineers , test pilots and other key technical folks . the 350 family is rather large with 3 varients , one extender range varient and one freighter vareint , i think the -900 380 should preceed the 380F and until and unless airbus sees healthy demand for the -900 varient (over and above the gazillion that EK,QR will order) then they should launch it.

An A380F only makes sense with a considerably increased MTOW. The whole concept of the A380 first has to prove itself, otherwise there is no need for the -900. When the A380 doesn’t sell as intented Airbus will probably not pure resources into it.

I had a very interesting chat with a japanese financial guru who has a good grasp (and expereince) of the aviation sector and we were talking of 380,748,Y3 and he was particularly woried how the market worls wide would respond in 10 years to the damn near 1000-2000 new widebodies (factor in the 330,787,777,380) that have been ordered in a very short period of time , he had his reservations . we have had 2000 order years now for 3 straight years , it would be interesting to see what happens to trends once this honeymooon phase ends.

The big driver with probably be oil prices, which puts a pressure on airlines to replace aircraft. Problem: The gas-wasting aircraft are mostly replaced, a lot of B767 will be replaced (with B787 primarily, some with A350-800). The A340 will probably not last very long, either. And don’t forget the B747, which are quite uneconomic compared to the twins on the market and coming to the market. Some airlines still haven’t figured out how to replace them. Most B747-400 came out of the factory before 2000, that means the timeframe 2015 to 2020 will be the replacement time.
The orders now placed now are often for time frames beyond 2014, that is 7 years from now. Airlines are not stupid, either, while I have the impression that they sometimes plan a bit too optmistic.
On thing I am quite sure in: demand for travel will continue to grow, and even with current oil prices air travel remains affordable and will become affordable for more and more people. In the late 1970s the share of fuel in overall costs soared to 40 to 50%, when it was below 25% before.

You see it right. But that has something to do with the internal situation of each country. Some Su-35 or something else will not be the solution for that internal problem, but that will rise some other dangers. It is much “easier” to use such expensive weapons to distract from internal shortcomings, than to deal with that really. The economic situation in Argentina and the Malvina/Falklands “adventure” in 1982 is a wellknown example. Suffering for nothing in the end.

The Falklands are a good example. All military forces in South America are relatively weak and unable to operate outside their borders. Some are even unable to operate successfully outside the capital region.
To deter a potential opponent only small forces are needed. A small force of British military in the Falklands would have prevented the Argentinians even think of such an adventure. The 20 or so garrison was potentially no deterrence.
(12 Phantoms plus 500 soldiers on the other hand might have raised the price and risk of that attempt beyond the Argi capabilities; 12 Phantoms and 500 soldiers had cost the British tax payer a fraction of the actual war)

By the way, it is not the duty of the USA to decide, what kind of government a country in Latin-Amerika has to have.

Let’s put it this way: It shouldn’t be! But in the times of Cold War South America was the backyard of the USA, and US influence was all over South America. Today I think many South American nations don’t accept that any more, while they are all still very dependant of the USA.
Other powers (China, Russia) are just too far away. The hole left by sometimes dubious USA foreign policy (some actions surely did not qualify for the Nobel peace prize right away) will be filled, and some nations might turn to this “alternative” Latino group proposed by Chavez. The terms of trade between USA and South/Middle America are still not favorable. I can understand that some nations want to get more on eyesight with the USA.

Like most South American nations Brazil has a large percentage of population that does not really participate on economical progress. Social dynamite, and they have to care that nobody ignites the fuse!

There are basically two kinds of people.. The wise ones who produce weapons.. and the stupid ones who buy and use them.. It is much better to be on the producing end and make profit and Brazilians know it very well.

I would doubt that Russia or the USA ever really made a huge profit with their weapon industry. The related development costs eat up huge sums that the export orders can hardly compensate. Keeping such an industrial base is costly. Of course, it is some kind of nice side effect when you need the weapons anyways. And most deals came with a political price tag, too (Middle East, Asia, South America).

In the times of Cold War with only few nations offering weapons, it was some kind of political decision. Today it still is, but Brazil can basically buy in Russia, in USA, or in Europe without having any problems. I think they will turn to Europe as that is where their strategic partners are located. With three nations eager to sell their aircraft, they’ll get a share of compensation. For the sellers it would not be the big profit but rather a small input to fuel the industrial base a bit longer (see Sweden: without export they would lose their industrial base, same with France).

Typhoon/Gripen/Rafale plus 2 to 3 tankers would do the job I guess. All affordable and off-the-shelf (B767 from US or A330 or A400M).

The security situation in South America demands at least that the leading powers safeguard the current situation as the USA cannot and should not do that for ever. Venezuala’s government has some funny ideas and is actively supporting some strange groups in other countries. That is not the direct reason to purchase fighters, but increased power-projection does have an effect.

If South America wants some kind of European Union equivalent in the long run it needs stability.

And 36 fighters for 130 million people. With this ratio the Netherlands would ask for 4 to 5 in total, and Norway for one.

Would you care to enlighten us on what the offered price of C-17 was? And how it compares to the price of 1) A400M, & 2) current selling prices of C-17s?

The average dollar-euro exchage rate in 1999-2000 was about 1:1 (fluctuated between 0.9 & 1.2 dollars/euro). It’s currently 1.46 dollars/euro. I’d be grateful if the basis of any price comparison is made clear.

I’m happy to accept that you’re well informed of costs & financing arrangements, if you’ll demonstrate that knowledge in what you say. Easy enough – support what you say by giving a few checkable numbers, or reasonable estimates based on something checkable. The A400M contract price is published, & EADS provisions against cost overruns have been all over the financial press lately.

And I like everybody to acknowledge that the A400M is 100% European. I have the feeling especially in the UK people don’t care much about their aviation industry. Now with BAe even out of EADS, Britain has reduced its own participation. At least they have a good share in the engines.

The A400M secures thousands of high-tech jobs and will be one of the few airlifters available on the market. It is actually the only airlifter to haul more than 20 tons at the moment beside the C-17. The wing, engine and overall configuration are new for European industry and all involved gain knowledge that may be used for future civil applications. Boeing always proposed its C-17 as BC-17 for commercial use, just that business case doesn’t work. For the A400M that might work.

Finally, the A400M is the fastest turbo-prop aircraft currently in production, using 21st century technology. Maybe someone noticed the fuel prices recently. The A400M may be used as technological basis for a future 80-120 people regional airliner.