As it prepares for an anticipated program launch of its C Series airliners later this year, Bombardier continues to fine-tune the design to achieve further operating cost reductions. With the price of jet fuel having almost tripled over the past three years, Bombardier’s goal of achieving a 15-percent cash operating cost benefit had become all the more daunting. In fact, without the 20-percent fuel burn advantage promised by Pratt & Whitney’s new Geared Turbofan engine, it could not have met that original goal.
Studies over the past year aimed at further lightening the airframe and cutting maintenance burdens have called for an increase in composite content from 20 percent of the airplane to 47 percent. While Bombardier plans to use aluminum-lithium fuselage skins, composites placed in strategic, corrosion-prone areas will account for some 34 percent of the fuselage structure, explained Gary Scott, Bombardier Aerospace’s new commercial aircraft president. Meanwhile, composites would account for 80 percent of wings and virtually all the material used in the empennage.
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