The world’s three biggest engine-makers hit a snag

It never walks. But does it run?

IT USED to be the world’s two biggest makers of airliners that would invariably deliver new designs late and over budget. A decade ago the cost of Airbus’s A380 superjumbo soared by about €5.5bn ($6.6bn) after engineers got its 330 miles of cables in a jumble. Boeing’s rival 787 Dreamliner exceeded its forecast costs by a whopping $20bn, give or take; its parts, once assembled, did not fit together properly. But just as both planemakers are mending their ways—Airbus’s A350 and A320neo and Boeing’s 737 MAX arrived in a much more timely and economical manner—manufacturers of the engines which power the aircraft are beginning to stall.

On March 15th Boeing revealed that the new engines, the largest ever made, for its new 777X wide-body airliner had completed their first test flight. But GE, the American engineering giant that built them, is already three months behind with their development, because of hiccups with the...Continue reading

from Business and finance https://www.economist.com/news/business/21739175-new-generation-engines-has-pushed-designs-and-materials-their-limit-worlds-three?fsrc=rss
https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20180324_WBP001_0.jpg