Engines
Boeing: one engine will cut costs on new 747-8
A 16-percent operating cost improvement sounds like a formidable hurdle for any aircraft program, but even more so for one at its outset seen as a low-risk

A 16-percent operating cost improvement sounds like a formidable hurdle for any aircraft program, but even more so for one at its outset seen as a low-risk grab at a piece of a target market Boeing itself had dismissed as modest at best. But the 747-8 benefits from one thing that most other programs in the past haven’t–a new engine on which a much more expensive proposition rests in the 787 Dreamliner.

Although derived from the GEnx core designed for the 787, the engine for the 747-8 uses a smaller fan diameter and a system of bleed air, as opposed to the all-electric architecture of the 787’s powerplant. According to the 747-8 chief engineer Corky Townsend, the effort to tailor the GEnx to the 747 essentially made Boeing’s choice to offer only one engine type for the program.