- If Boeing are struggling
to put together a new mid-sized aircraft, something a lot of airlines
out there are asking for, well then, why don't they just slap some new wings
and new engines on the existing Boeing 757? This is a question that
I am getting very often on my channel. And it turns out that this
is a question that Boeing themselves have asked not too long ago. So why isn't it happening? Stay tuned. (cheerful music) Up until January 2020, Boeing was planning
on releasing something that we got to know as the NMA, the New Mid-sized Aircraft. The idea behind that aircraft was to plug
a hole in the Boeing passenger jet lineup where the biggest of the Boeing 737 MAX series,
the Boeing 737 MAX 10, at the moment, seats or will seat, 230 passengers. But then, the next passenger jet
is the Boeing 787-8 and it seats 359 passengers. So that's a pretty substantial gap. But that gap hasn't always been there. Boeing used to have the 757-200
that could seat up to 240 passengers, and the really long Boeing 757-300, which is actually the
world's longest single-aisle aircraft, seating 280 passengers. And then came the Boeing 767,
which, in different length, could sit anything between 245 and 375 passengers
in a single-class configuration. Now, the Boeing 767 is still
being made, but only in a freighter version, and a military-refueling tanker version. Boeing stopped manufacturing the 757
back in 2004, because of a lack of demand, but that wasn't necessarily
because the aircraft wasn't profitable anymore. It was just because after 9/11,
there was a general downturn in the industry, and there weren't enough orders
in order to sustain continued manufacturing. That came as a big shock
for a lot of people out there because the Boeing 757 had a lot of fans
and I consider myself to be one of them. I love the way that that aircraft looks. The Boeing 757 was really made to be able
to operate out of some hot and high airport and because of that, it had a lot
of excess engine power, making it a very sporty aircraft to fly. It also was among the first aircraft
that were equipped with EFIS screens and ACAS. And it had a really roomy cockpit,
something that I, as a Boeing 737 pilot, would definitely appreciate. The airlines that were using the Boeing 757
generally tended to hold on to them for quite a long time and a lot of the aircraft
also found a second life as freighter towards the end of their lifecycle,
turns out that those oversized engines produce an overall great performance
which suited well for cargo aircraft as well but now, the 757 have not been manufactured
for many, many years and the airlines are desperately looking for a replacement. A good example of an airline
who has been actively asking for an aircraft of this size is Delta Airlines in the US. And the last time that they bought
a new aircraft from Boeing was back in 2011 when they bought 100 Boeing 737-900ERs. Delta had been in active talks to Boeing
about their New Mid-sized Aircraft, the NMA. That's likely why they didn't go out and buy
a similar type aircraft from another manufacturer. But then in January 2020,
Boeing froze all plans of the NMA. Remember, at that point,
Boeing was fully committed to trying to sort out the Boeing 737 MAX crisis and then after 2020, came COVID. So with the plans of the NMA
now completely frozen, Delta instead went out and ordered Airbus 321neos. That aircraft could seat as many passengers as the Boeing 757-200 could
but it had a slightly shorter range. But Airbus will sort that out
with a variant of the Airbus 321 called the XLR and Delta
right now is in talks with Boeing about purchasing Boeing 737 MAX 10s. So could Boeing potentially come up
with something new centered around the old Boeing 757? Well, as it turns out, this is something
that Boeing themselves seriously considered. When they dropped the plans
for the NMA, the Boeing engineers looked into a possibility of a new version
of the Boeing 757 called the 757 Plus. Now, it's unclear whether that version
would have a completely new wing, but we do know that
they were looking into a Boeing 767 that will be completely re-winged and re-engined. So why haven't Boeing gone
ahead with either of those ideas? Well, there are many possible reasons
but let's start with the most obvious ones. It was now more than 18 years
since Boeing stopped producing the Boeing 757. It is unclear whether or not Boeing
even have the required toolings and jigs needed in order to restart production again. Bear in mind that this is
not just about Boeing themselves. Boeing sources a lot
of parts from external suppliers when they're building the Boeing 757. And those suppliers need certified
and specialized tools in order to create those parts and it's unclear
whether or not they have kept those either. But, of course, if there are
enough financial incentives here, both the suppliers and Boeing themselves
are gonna overcome these obstacles. But it's gonna come at a fairly steep price. But then we get to the next challenge
in this idea, and that is the engines. In order for a new 757 to be financially viable, it has to have better per-seat cost
than very efficient new single-aisle aircraft like the 737 MAX or the Airbus 321neo. And the only real way that it can do that
is by fitting the 757 with new, more efficient engines. But the problem here is that the engines
that are available on the market today are either too big or too small. Boeing has been in talks with General Electric about the possibility of a new engine. General Electric has the GEnx engine
which is fitted to the 787 and also to the 747-8. In the case of the 747-8,
the GEnx has a slightly smaller fan but even that engine is way too big
to be fitted onto the Boeing 757. There is also the CFM LEAP engine family that is fitted both to the 737 MAX and the Airbus 320neo family and that engine was actually
built on the basis of the GEnx engine. Those engines would be,
in terms of size, engine diameter and weight, well-fitted
to fit onto the wing of the 757. The problem though, is that they
don't have as much power as is needed. And it would be a possibility to maybe boost up the engine thrust a bit on those engines. But once again, that is going
to take a lot of time and money to do. There are other engine manufacturers as well, for example Pratt & Whitney
which have the geared turbofan engine. But the problem with that engine
is that it has more or less the same kind of power as the LEAP engine family has,
so it wouldn't help much. And then we have Rolls-Royce. Rolls-Royce is working on a completely new engine type, called the UltraFan. And the UltraFan was actually looked at
for the NMA aircraft back in the day. But ironically, Boeing didn't choose
the Rolls-Royce UltraFan, because they wanted to launch the NMA quicker and the UltraFan was still under development at that point. But lately, Rolls-Royce has confirmed
that they are, again, talking to Boeing. And Rolls-Royce will be starting testing
of its UltraFan engine very, very soon. However, this engine is a huge engine. It is way too big to fit
under the wing of a Boeing 757. It's so big that it won't even fit
on the wing of a Boeing 777X. Then there's the question of whether or not
an updated Boeing 757 would need a new wing. Obviously, that's a cost issue. But there's a lot of financial gains
that can be made by putting a new, ultra-modern composite wing onto a new aircraft. That's why Boeing decided
to do it on the Boeing 777X. However, as we've seen with the Boeing 777X, just re-winging old aircraft type
with a new wing is not necessarily a quick thing to do. The Boeing 777X was launched back in 2013 and it was supposed to go into service in 2020. Now it looks like it might
be certified in 2024 to enter service in 2025. But to be fair, Boeing had to develop
a brand new facility for composite wing manufacturing. So it is a possibility that the experience
that they gained building the wing for the Boeing 787 and for the Boeing 777X might make it
both cheaper and quicker to do it for a new updated Boeing 757 wing. So if finding and making the tooling
and the jigs is possible and developing a new engine is possible and making
a new wing for the aircraft is possible, is this still a good idea? Is it economical for Boeing to do? Well, we're gonna get to that just after
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will get 25% off their Fabulous subscription. And I highly, highly recommend it. Well, in order for it to be worth it for Boeing
to upgrade the Boeing 757, it would have to be financially more viable and better
than developing a completely new design. That means it needs
to be both cheaper and better. And neither of those is a given in this case because Boeing has been putting out a lot of emphasis lately on a change they wanna make in how they both build and design new aircraft, something they called the Digital Engineering Revolution. Boeing hopes that, using this new process,
they will be able to launch an aircraft much, much both cheaper and quicker. And in order to do so they have to involve
the sub-manufacturers, the suppliers, not only in the actual supplying phase,
but also in the design phase. The first time that Boeing actually used
this new manufacturing philosophy was a military project
called the T-7A Red Hawk trainer. They did this together with Saab in Sweden. And Boeing bolstered that
by using this new digital engineering. They managed to get the aircraft from computer screen into the air in only three years. Now building a single-engine
two-seater jet training aircraft is, of course, a completely different animal
than to build a two-engined airliner that's seating over 200 people. So Boeing is not claiming that they will be able to do that in less than three years. But it begs the question that if they can
now use this new design philosophy to maybe build a brand spanking new all composite aircraft, is it really worth it to spend time
re-engineering a Boeing 757, which is a very old design
that they stopped making 18 years ago, especially since we now know how long time it took to do the same thing for the Boeing 777? Of course, that question cannot be answered
without also looking at the competition because the competition is everything in this world. And when we say competition,
obviously we're talking about Airbus. If tomorrow Boeing were to announce
that they are releasing a new 757 MAX or 757 Plus on to the market with maybe Delta as a launch customer, you can be absolutely sure that Airbus
would not be just sitting there waiting, looking at a new competitor
getting onto the marketplace. They would react in one way or another. And the way they would react
is the same way that Boeing has reacted when Airbus has done this in the past. They would look at the possibility
of making some of their existing types more efficient, or looking at a completely new design to counteract this threat. And that's a pretty big problem
because Airbus could quite easily pull off a rewing project of their Airbus A321neo and they could probably do
that much quicker than Boeing could, because Airbus has already been working on a very similar project like this,
something they call the Wings of Tomorrow, where they're looking at an out of autoclave, all composite new wing structure that will be easier and cheaper to manufacture. In fact, in 2021, there was some sources saying
that Airbus was indeed looking into a stretch version of the Airbus 321neo with a lighter wing,
something that they might call the Airbus 322. And they could also do
a very similar thing to the Airbus 320neo. Now later in the year,
Airbus did say that they were not about to launch that project after all. But the Wings of Tomorrow project is still ongoing. And you can be absolutely sure
that if Boeing would launch a new product, so would Airbus and they would do it very quickly. Finally, as I mentioned in the beginning of the video, even if Boeing were to make
a new Boeing 757 MAX or 757 Plus, it still wouldn't cover the gap
in the passenger capacity between the 737 MAX and the 787. In order to do so, they will also need
to do a reengineered version of the Boeing 767. And, of course, making two reengineered versions, one of the 757 and of the 767
is completely out of the question. So finally, sadly, my conclusion
is that there are many reasons why re-engining and re-winging
a Boeing 757 is not a very viable idea for Boeing. Even if they could find suitable,
more powerful and more economic engines and put new wings on it,
it's likely that a Boeing 757 MAX still wouldn't be quick enough to get into service, cheap enough to develop
or even competitive enough against Airbus. And it wouldn't properly fill the gap
that Boeing has between the MAX and the 787. So what will Boeing actually do? It's been more than two years now
since they put the NMA project on ice. And after that, they've been
very quiet about their future plans. The few statements that they have made, points towards a new aircraft,
possibly towards the end of this decade. And in that case, it's likely going
to be very similar to the NMA project. The problem Boeing now faces
is whether or not they will put it off and wait for potentially more efficient engine types to be released, or if they're gonna go ahead
with the current engine technology that exists today. What we do know though, is that Boeing
has recently been hiring a lot of new engineers and that is a good sign. Now check out this video next, which is about the reason
for the ongoing travel chaos that we're seeing right now. And if you wanna support the work
that I do here and on the Mentour Pilot channel, consider becoming part of
my wonderful Patreon family or buy yourself some merch. Have an absolutely fantastic day
and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.
