Can the new Ultra Fan make A380 neo a dual engine plane
Posted by lordofnowhere@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 12 comments
It seems Rolls Royce upcoming Ultrafan engine can be scaled up and down in terms of power / thrust.
Can the scale up version of Ultrafan, allow A380 NEO to be dual engine?
planefan001@reddit
Maybe if they built a cleansheet double decker aircraft based around 2 engines instead of 4. And tbh, a double decker wouldn’t look the same without 4 engines, especially with those massive wings.
Anonymous017447@reddit
What’s the point? The production line for the A380 has been dead for years and Airbuses current priorities are for their more smaller planes.
isaacladboy@reddit
Dead and buried,
a few years back the tooling for the wings was scraped off to clear factory space to increase the production capacity for A320 wings
Positive-Hat2127@reddit
I don't think anyone is really interested in more power. The engines of today and even yesterday are plenty powerful already. Fuel efficiency is the name of the game.
planefan001@reddit
Yup. I was on a fully loaded Lufthansa A350 last month and that thing took off like a rocket with 9-10 hours of fuel onboard.
In fact, the GE-9X can produce more power than the GE-90, but they’ve limited the thrust to a little lower setting than the GE-90 at max thrust.
C4-621-Raven@reddit
Twinjets require a higher thrust to weight ratio of about 0.32 or 0.33. Quad jets only require about 0.24 or 0.25. That means an A380 twin would require engines that produce about ~203,000 to 209,000 pounds of thrust. This is twice as much power as what RR is targeting with Ultrafan.
Dark_Skyes@reddit
No. Not even close. Next question.
BrewCityChaserV2@reddit
Not without a complete redesign of the airframe.
lordofnowhere@reddit (OP)
Yes, Airbus would upgrade wings ( composite ) and other stuff in the glider
Can even add folding wing tips like 777x, that would make A380 accessible to more airports
Known-Associate8369@reddit
Why would they? Theres no market for the A380 outside of Emirates, thats already been proven.
frix86@reddit
No. Planes that are designed for 4 engines can't magically become 2 engine planes.
The plane is designed for losing 1 engine out of 2 on a side, it doesn't have the rudder authority to compensate for losing the only engine on a side.
This is the same reason the B-52 is being re-engined with 8 engines instead of 4 bigger ones, even though 4 bigger ones would cost less and be more efficient.
DWCuzzz@reddit
No