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Max Kingsley-Jones/Flightglobal
Lufthansa banged the drum for its new Jumbo when its first 747-8 arrived in May
The 747-8 was originally slated for service entry in 2009, but a series of programme delays, caused by
development issues and a knock-on from the interruptions suffered by the 787 programme, meant the first
stretched aircraft did not leave the ground until February 2010. The new jet finally entered service - in freighter
form - with Cargolux in October last year. The 747-8 Intercontinental passenger variant followed in June this year,
debuting with Lufthansa.
The "big Boeing" is in effect a major derivative of the 747-400 that had been launched two decades earlier, which
itself traces its DNA right back to the original Jumbo developed in the late 1960s by a team headed by industry
legend Joe Sutter.
Now aged 91, Sutter has been officially retired from Boeing for more than 25 years, but retains an office at the
company's Seattle headquarters so he can keep a watchful eye on the latest iteration of his precious creation.
"Joe's still as sharp as ever and we talk about the airplane a lot," says today's 747 chief project engineer Bruce
Dickinson. "I welcome Joe's opinions and input."
Unlike some of the more ambitious studies of the 1990s, the definitive 747 stretch does not incorporate a major
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fuselage extension and enlarged wing. Instead, the fuselage has been treated with a modest stretch, with plugs
fore and aft of an effectively all-new - but similarly sized - wing.
TYPE COMMONALITY
"About 70% by structural weight is new. In many respects, though, we could state almost all of the airplane is new,
as we have heavier gauge materials that have similar construction as the 747-400," says Dickinson. "We strove
for a lot of commonality in general, though, as it is a huge advantage to us for our installed fleet. You see that
with a lot of our systems, where we've tried to keep it common."
Both freighter and passenger variants feature the same-sized plugs fore and aft, although this was not always the
case. While both have 1.52m (60in) aft plugs, the 747-8I model initially had a shorter 2.03m forward plug. A year
after its launch, Boeing adopted the -8F's 4.06m forward plug dimensions for the -8I, to further boost capacity.
This means that the stretch increases the overall length of both models to 76.3m. On the passenger variant, this
raises nominal three-class seating capacity over the 747-400 by 51 seats to 467, while on the freighter, it allows
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for two additional pairs of 96x125in pallets on the main deck and three more pallets on the lower deck. Overall,
the 747-8F has 16% more capacity than the 747-400F.
The decision to stretch the 747-8I further - which increased passenger capacity by 17 seats, but reduced range by
about 270nm (500km) - did not have unanimous appeal. Emirates was evaluating the 747-8I at the time, having
already ordered the 747-8F for its cargo arm, and wanted Boeing to concentrate on the range rather than
capacity.
"We have made it clear to Boeing that we prefer the [original] stretch because of its greater range at maximum
payload," said the airline's president Tim Clark.
"With Tim's Middle East to US West Coast type [range] hunger, that's the classic tension of trying to hit his sweet
spot of the market," says Dickinson.
Boeing's decision to go with the larger -8I was vindicated shortly after, when Lufthansa became launch customer
for the revised passenger version, with a deal for 20 747-8Is in November 2006.
HEAVY WEIGHT
The forward plugs in the 747-8I and -8F are inserted in slightly different positions within the fuselage (see
below). The passenger model's plug is between doors one and two to extend both the main and upper decks, while
the freighter's is inserted further aft, closer to the front of the wing box, which avoids what would be a pointless
increase in the length of the unused upper deck.
ALL-CHANGE ON THE INSIDE
There is a stark contrast between the experience
passengers have when stepping into the new Boeing
747 family, and that of the flightcrew. While the
cabin has undergone a significant, 787-inspired
makeover, the flightdeck will feel very familiar to
747-400 pilots.
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The aircraft's maximum take-off weight was increased by around 6t during testing after a flight loads survey
revealed that additional structural margin was available. Boeing said the MTOW increase was not aimed
specifically at restoring payload/range capability lost as a result of the growth in structural weight during
development.
Boeing focused on weight reduction during the design phase through the use of new materials. There is extensive
use of carbonfibre in secondary structures, while the fuselage incorporates new advanced aluminium alloys
throughout its length (other than the passenger doors), as does the wing. A weight-saving effort is expected to
bring later aircraft close to the original empty-weight target.
Aside from the stretch, there is little visual difference between the -8 fuselage and earlier marks. But the same is
not true for the wing.
"The wing is key to this airplane, combined with the GEnx engines, and what makes it so dramatically different
from its predecessors," says Dickinson. "There's the advanced technology airfoil with the supercritical wing and
raked wingtip designed using computational fluid dynamics, giving it the same technology level as the 787 wing. It
is extremely efficient."
The wing shares little with the 747-400 other than its 35 sweep and incorporates new materials that help reduce
weight. The design features an optimised reloft and retwist, while the raked tip (in place of the winglet on the
-400) increases wing span by 4m to 68.4m. "The new wing has similar dimensions to the earlier wing, but it is
quite different. We really did not use any of the earlier aerodynamic features," says Dickinson. Although he
declines to reveal the area of the new wing for competitive reasons, Lufthansa quotes a figure of 554m.
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The wing incorporates revised leading and trailing edge high-lift devices while fly-by-wire outboard ailerons
"enable the wing to be even more efficient with the weight reduction, by providing manoeuvre load alleviation,
which is new for the 747. This gives us a significant advantage for weight."
The ailerons are optimised to span-load in cruise flight and Boeing has introduced a droop capability as a
performance improvement. "We developed this initially on the Intercontinental and have since introduced it on
the Freighter," says Dickinson.
"We realised during -8I flight-testing that we had the opportunity to better position the aileron to optimise spanloading and discovered a 0.4% improvement, which is a pretty significant number."
WING CHANGES
The wing's major changes centre on the flaps. "Optimising the trailing edge is a real opportunity for
performance," says Dickinson.
All earlier marks (except the 747SP "shrink") incorporate triple-slotted trailing-edge flaps, but the -8 has adopted
a double-slotted inboard and single-slotted outboard design, which extend on redesigned tracks and new
carriages. The leading-edge variable camber Krueger flaps have also been redesigned to incorporate a gapped
configuration. Actuation systems are unchanged. The spoilers are also now fly-by-wire.
Boeing spent a lot of time during flight-testing optimising the flap settings to improve on the approach speeds,
which is "always a challenge, but we did this successfully". Dickinson says that "fundamentally, the wing's
structural design is not entirely different" from earlier variants, although advanced aluminium alloys are
incorporated in the wing and carbon composites are used for the trailing edge and raked tip.
During development, the changes to the 747 airfoil design created a variety of new problems. Speaking at the
time, the programme's then chief engineer Michael Teal explained: "When we changed the wing airfoil and
ultimately changed the centre of gravity, it fundamentally shifted how the whole aircraft balances loads. As the
loads shifted back on the wing, the tail is the balancing load. So we changed more parts in the tail. Then the loads
in the aft body changed, so we had to change the aft body."
The knock-on effect was that the 747-8 supply chain was thrust into limbo as it waited to adjust tooling and this
contributed to the two-year programme delay.
"After we put that issue behind us, no follow-up was required since I joined the programme," says Dickinson.
The wing side-of-body has the same basic overall geometry and construct to the -400, but "has been 'gauged up' to
account for the increased loads on the 747-8", Dickinson says. "The fairings are unchanged in basic geometry.
However some changes to material, gauge and local geometry were required due to increased loads, systems
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changes, increased tyre size and environmental control system [ECS] pack temperature differences."
Dickinson says that there are no significant differences in the primary structure of the tail section. "The materials
have been updated and gauges changed slightly. But we did adopt a double-hinged lower rudder."
NASA TECHNOLOGY
Power comes from four GEnx-2B67 engines rated at 66,500lb-thrust (296kN), which although derived from the
787's GEnx-1B, are optimised for the 747-8. The engines share the same core and 80% of the line replaceable
units. The GEnx-2B incorporates a 2.67m fan, digital bleed control and a new pre-cooler. The four engines are
suspended from a new pylon design and wrapped in nacelles that make extensive use of carbonfibre.
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Max Kingsley-Jones/Flightglobal
All-new: GEnx-2B engines and redesigned wing deliver big performance gains
In parallel with GE's PIP, Boeing has a weight-saving programme targeting a 2,270kg (5,000lb) reduction and is
working on aerodynamic improvements. One aspect of the latter is the aileron droop, which has already been
introduced on the 747-8I.
Other efficiencies being developed include improved nacelle leakage and rigging improvements around the aft end
- primarily the rudder - to reduce cruise drag. There are other "study items" under evaluation, says Dickinson.
"We're always looking for minor improvements - a 10th here and a 10th there - as the production line becomes
more consistent and stable. Virtually all the improvements can be retrofitted, although some could be a little
time-consuming to do."
One item at the top of Dickinson's to-do list is the re-activation of the -8I's 12,500 litre (3,300 USgal) tailplane
fuel tank. An analytical model showed that in certain scenarios, a flutter condition could occur when fuel is in the
tank, so the decision was taken to disable the tank prior to certification.
"We're on track to work our way through that and get it certified and activated with some relatively minor
changes," says Dickinson.
The other main focus of improvements is around the flight management computer, for which a series of upgrades
is being introduced.
"We rolled in the 'FMC 2.5' load around August, which addresses some nuisance warnings but the real motivation
was to activate the FMC V speeds," says Dickinson. "'FMC 2.6' will be introduced at the end of the year to provide
a tweak to those V speeds - and is something that will be able to be applied to the 747-400."
A major update, dubbed "FMC 3.0", is scheduled for the end of 2013 and will "complete all the different nuances
that the customers have asked for".
The upgrade will incorporate a host of new capabilities such as required navigation performance, a quiet climb
function and "other bells and whistles features that will help the airplane operate slightly more efficiently and
bring some other features into the airplane", Dickinson says.
Boeing will undertake a major flight-test programme in mid-2013 to clear the GEnx PIP, FMC 3.0 update and the
modifications needed to reactivate the tail fuel tank. Approval of all these is due at the end of next year.
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