Rolls-Royce has started building the world’s largest aero-engine, the UltraFan, and in a reversal of fortune is now engaged in discussions with Boeing for its proposed new mid-market aircraft – the 797.

Two years ago, Rolls-Royce, stunned the aviation world by pulling out of the race to power Boeing’s 797 after it announced a £2.9 billion loss over costs to rectify durability faults on its Trent 1000 engines.

The 797 is expected to be a twin-aisle 220-270 seat aircraft in a 2-3-2 configuration in economy that would have a range of about 10 hours and sits between the smaller single-aisle 737/A320 aircraft and the larger 787/A350 designs.

The promised fuel economy of both the new generation engine and the airframe optimized only for 10-hour missions, has the airline industry excited with Qantas’s chief executive Alan Joyce saying prior to COVID that Boeing would be “crazy not to do it.”

“We think it’s a fantastic aircraft on paper that looks good for what we want.”

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The market size for the 797 is put at between 5000 and 7000 aircraft over 20 years.

When Rolls pulled out of the race to power the 797 in 2019 it told the stock market that it was “unable to commit to the proposed timetable to ensure we have a sufficiently mature product which supports Boeing’s ambition for the aircraft and satisfies our own internal requirements for technical maturity at entry into service.”

However, the disruption of COVID-19 has dramatically changed the timeline landscape and Boeing and Rolls Royce are now aligned on an entry into service of about 2026/7.

The UltraFan test engine will be significantly bigger than what Boeing needs but it will spawn a family with a variety of thrust levels.

However, what the discussions do flag is that Boeing is looking at the larger of two 797 options that have been studied.

Boeing has been looking at both a single-aisle 200-240 seat aircraft, and a twin-aisle 220-270 aircraft to fill this emerging and potentially large middle of the market segment.

While the single-aisle would have better economics, it would be more cramped and airlines want it to fly up to 10 hours and passengers complain now about five houses in a single-aisle 737 or A320 so a twin-aisle is the main focus.

As well as more room the twin-aisle 797 would offer far more overhead baggage space which has become a key issue, particularly in the US, where passengers are loathed to check their bags.

The twin-aisle medium-range aircraft seating about 250 passengers is not new and both Boeing and its legacy company McDonnell Douglas touted the concept in the 1980s and 90s.

However, at the time seating space was more generous and carry-on baggage was not the issue it is today.

Work on the first UltraFan engine is underway at Rolls Royce’s dedicated DemoWorks facility in Derby, UK, and the demonstrator engine will be completed by the end of 2021.

Rolls Royce says that the engine promises 25 percent fuel efficiency improvement compared with the first generation of its Trent engines, which power the A330 used by Qantas.

And it is that sort of efficiency gain that makes a twin-aisle design economically viable.

AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes has reaffirmed his confidence in a strong comeback for AirAsia and for airlines the world over this year, on the back of vaccines and robust pent-up demand for travel.

Tony, who received his first vaccination today in Malaysia, commented: “Vaccines are working and you only need to look to countries with significant progress in Covid-19 vaccination, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel, where there is a clear correlation between significantly less daily cases and vaccination programs being rolled out as fast as possible.”

“Vaccines being rolled out and strong demand will fuel a V-shaped recovery in coming months. According to IATA, there will be a rapid recovery in domestic air travel set to be above 2019 by 2022 with the Asia Pacific region leading the way.”

This view is shared in a recent report by Rothschild and Co which concluded that travel sentiment is improving on vaccine efforts and combined with pent-up demand, will fuel a strong rebound in key domestic markets in Asia-Pacific by the second half of 2021. It highlights that web traffic for major airlines and broader travel websites indicates a surge in web traffic for regions with high vaccination rates.

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“I received my vaccine today and my Allstars (staff) in all of our key markets are either already vaccinated or are registering to get theirs as soon as possible. Importantly, in all of the major markets we operate in, vaccination rollouts are on track to have the majority of the population vaccinated towards the end of the year which is a great sign of things to come for the AirAsia Group,” Mr Fernandes said.

“In Malaysia, although we are seeing a new wave, we see this as short-term pain for long-term gain. Things will get better and this is already proven in countries where vaccination progress is highest. Although Asean countries are already in the early stages of vaccination, many country authorities are committed to meeting their targets of inoculating the majority of their citizens by the end of the year.

“Travel bubbles will also support a fast rebound in the travel industry as countries deliver high vaccination rates and gain control of the virus. Australian infectious disease experts are even predicting coronavirus may be treated as a simple cold in the future.”

Mr Fernandes also explained that AirAsia has used the downtime in flying as an opportunity to further reduce its cost structure and focus on strict cost containment including exiting loss-making ventures such as AirAsia Japan and reducing its investment in AirAsia India to focus on ASEAN, where its brand and foothold is strongest. The airline network and fleet strategy have been thoroughly reviewed to ensure flying on the most popular and profitable routes when travel restrictions allow.

“As an airline, I’m confident AirAsia will recover faster than many of our competitors, as more than 50 per cent of our business is domestic leisure, which is going to pick up before regional or business travel. Low-cost domestic short-haul will likely rebound by the third quarter of 2021, and international could reach pre-Covid-19 levels by end of 2022. With the increased introduction and adoption of a digital travel passport and vaccine passport, travel will also be made easier and safer amid the current situation.

“We as a company did not waste this crisis – we used the grounding of 245 planes to strategize and diversify our business, and really put our foot on the accelerator to fast track our digital businesses that began well before Covid-19. We now have two key businesses – the airline and digital. Digital e-commerce and logistics are the way forward.

“We already have 17 travel, lifestyle, and fintech products on our super app, offering people value and choices on what to eat, shop, where to fly, stay, and much more at the lowest prices all from the convenience of the mobile app. Underpinned by strong data, network, and technology, our non-airline businesses are already making money and I believe they will overtake airline revenues in the next few years.”

“The end is in sight. It’s not if but when. Our pilots and flight crew are ready to fly, our operations are well prepared with seamless innovations to ensure flying with AirAsia is not only safe and affordable but more hygienic and contactless than ever before.

“We already have our own version of a digital passport with Scan2Fly where guests can scan any required medical documentation and have it verified in real-time before heading to the airport and we are launching facial recognition technologies at our key airports in the coming months. We welcome the approval of a globally recognized digital health passport, and our systems can integrate into most of these like the IATA digital passport currently being tested.

“On the funding front, AirAsia has completed two tranches of our private placement exercise raising RM336 million (US$88 million) which form part of our overall plans to raise between RM2.0 billion to RM2.5 billion. Last month, AirAsia Thailand announced a corporate and capital restructuring scheme entailing fresh capital of up to Bt5.9 billion (US$190 million).

“In times of crisis, only the strong survive. We have faced so many crises in the past and have always evolved stronger. This is no different. AirAsia will emerge from this pandemic stronger than ever. The best part of this story is yet to come,” Mr Fernandes said.

Cosmic cocktails and supermoon cakes will be on the menu when Qantas launches a one-off B787 Dreamliner supermoon scenic flight to offer a limited number of passengers a closer viewing of the upcoming supermoon later this month.

It will be the second and last supermoon for 2021 and also coincides with a full lunar eclipse, making it a rare double phenomenon, with the moon expected to turn red against the night sky.

Qantas has been operating a wide range of sightseeing flights during COVID-19 including Antarctic and aurora flights – all carbon offset.

Qantas says CSIRO astronomer Dr. Vanessa Moss will work with the pilots to design the optimal flight path over the Pacific Ocean and also join the flight from Sydney to provide insights into supermoons and all things space and astronomy.

READ: New MH370 report electrifies scientific community 

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Chief Customer Officer Stephanie Tully said Qantas is committed to coming up with unique flying experiences, especially while travel options are limited.

“We have been absolutely overwhelmed with the popularity of our special flights. The recent mystery flights sold out within 15 minutes with hundreds of people on waiting lists and they keep telling us they want more,” Ms. Tully said.

“We are very excited to now be doing a supermoon scenic flight and the 787 has the largest windows of any passenger aircraft so it’s ideal for moon gazing. We think this flight has great appeal for anyone with a passion for astronomy, science, space photography, aviation, or just keen to do something a little ‘out of this world’.”

The three-hour flight will depart from Sydney and begin with a scenic flyover of Sydney Harbour before climbing above any potential cloud cover and atmosphere pollution to a cruising altitude of 43,000 feet – the maximum cruising altitude of a Dreamliner – for supermoon and full lunar eclipse viewing.

The Moon will be at its closest point or pedigree, coming within 357,311 kilometers of Earth at 11:50 am AEST on Wednesday 26 May. The total lunar eclipse will occur between 9:11 pm and 9:25 pm AEST when the Moon is 357,462 km from Earth.

The flight will operate with net-zero emissions, with 100 per cent of emissions carbon offset.

Just over 100 seats go on sale via Qantas.com at midday Wednesday 13 May 2021 with fares starting from $499 for economy (with a Qantas Points earn of 1,500 points plus 20 Status Credits), $899 for premium economy (Qantas Points earn of 2,500 and 40 Status Credits)  and $1,499 for business (4,000 Qantas Points earn plus 80 Status Credits).

The flight will operate with COVID-19 Fly Well procedures in place.

The new report from aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey into the tracking of MH370 using a new tool to interpret Weak Single Propagation passive HF detection has both electrified the science community but also, as would be expected, raised some questions.

Yesterday answering some critics Richard Godfrey said “I would no longer characterize the track in the new paper as speculative but a working hypothesis. The MH370 flight path I have proposed is a hypothesis supported by a body of evidence in the form of a large number of position and progress indicators.

“The working hypothesis will remain valid until someone proves it wrong by presenting evidence that this flight path was not followed. One possibility would be the publication of raw radar data for example.”

Mr. Godfreys’ latest paper builds on work done by Dr. Robert Westphal who holds a doctorate in engineering from one of the foremost technical universities in Germany. Dr. Westphal has worked on radar systems, is a patent holder, and a top-ranking member of the WSPR amateur radio community (KB9AMG rankings).

In 2021 he presented at the international amateur radio scientific workshop HamSCI 2021 on “Geocaching in the Ionosphere”.

Dr. Westphal wrote, “in mid-July 2020 I started working on WSPR passive HF detection as MH370 was still missing and current technology did not do much help to find it.”

“In November 2020 I detected and tracked flight Qantas QF114 from JNB to PER with nice WSPR signals. I posted my experience and got beaten up as usual.”

“People praise invention and innovation as long as it is not within their own zone of comfort and does not hurt their business. But disruptive technologies will do that.

“Richard Godfrey was the only one who listened and gave it a try. I totally support him with regard to WSPR detection and mostly tracking. With regard to tracking, he is more optimistic than I am, but you have to be optimistic on unknown ground.”

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Another supporting HF radio technology as an aircraft detection tool is Ari Joki from the Finnish Defence Forces’ Logistics Command, Air Force Systems Division who in a NATO unclassified paper together with the Lappeenranta University of Technology found that it was possible to track an aircraft from Saudi Arabia to Finland.

In simple language, Mr. Joki and Piotr Ptak proposed in 2016 a global air traffic monitoring system based on the existing worldwide network of radio amateurs and DX (long distance) listener resources.

The radio physics is essentially the same as listening to an express train sounding its horn when passing through a station with the seesaw change in frequency due to the Doppler effect. (You can tell the speed of the train and when it is coming towards you and when it is going away from you.)

But there are detractors and Mr. Godfrey has collated all the comments both positive and negative and these can be found here.

One detractor is John Moore (call sign VK2IJM) an experienced radio amateur and WSPR expert who says “Of course we also know that this mode of propagation doesn’t work on HF, even over short distances due to the well-understood relationship between the aircraft surface area versus wavelength. Short of a really big and reflective UFO over the Indian ocean, the WSPR theory falls well short IMO.”

Other analysts believe that WSPR technology may be helpful but that the approach taken by Richard Godfrey is wrong. Ed Anderson, a well-known and respected MH370 analyst, says “As an old ham I believe there is a fundamental flaw here, not in the WSPR approach to finding MH370, but a misinterpretation of the WSPR data by the author of the paper. Richard Godfrey has extrapolated from research by Dr. Robert Westphal who was validating and verifying the WSPR method for finding MH370 by matching up Antarctic flights with ADS-B flight tracking.”

But overall, the scientific community is excited as it appears the technology and its interpretation holds promise and that is the key that Richard Godfrey appears to have unlocked – the interpretation.

And that interpretation may lead to a more precise MH370 wreckage location and thus a new search bringing closure to relatives.