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> That's less than 5% improvement year-to-year

The aerospace industry isn't advancing anywhere near that fast. Most of the low-hanging fruit was picked over 50 years ago.

Case in point: The Pratt & Whitney PW1000G is a geared turbofan engine. From demonstrated prototype (1993), to flight testing (2008) to production (2016), it took _23_years_ to develop this engine. Efficiency improvement over baseline: 15-18%. That's quite a bit less than 1% y/y improvement.




I worked on an aircraft which flies with the GTF. Just FYI, that’s a poor example to cite in support of your point. The GTF was set aside for many years due to expected higher fuel costs not materializing for a good while. It took some major impetus to get the program going again.


Just out of curiosity: Bombardier C-Series?

For what it's worth. As a passenger it's my preferred ride on short and medium distances.


Yep, I did stress analysis on the nacelle. Glad you like it!


It is the best passenger airplane I ever flew as a passenger.


And even though PW1000G has been in "production" for two years, it's had constant problems. Someone else here probabally knows for sure, but I think they finally fixed all their issues and hope to start producing in volume sometime soon. IIRC, they are still trying to get all the existing engines swapped out with fixed builds.




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