News From Paris UPDATE 2.5

The Washington Post reports that as expected, ILFC ordered 63 B787s.

It's an important statement from the house of Udvar-Hazy on the technical merit of the B787 program and where the largest aircraft owner in the world thinks the future of commercial airliner construction lies.

As you know, for the last couple years International Lease Finance Co.'s irrepressible CEO has been asking Airbus to build an A350 that he can buy. Apparently that is not in the cards at this time.

Stay tuned.

Is you is, or is you ain't my baby?

MarketWatch has an interesting article that quotes Fabrice Bregier of Airbus as saying that the performance specifications for the A350 have been set to upstage the competition.

This was in response to McNerney of Boeing opining that the specifications for the A350 were undefined at present, in a French newspaper no less. What he said was more or less "Nobody knows what it's going to be like."

Mr. Bregier went on to say that detailed performance specifications will be released to the customers in September. It'll fly from Paris to Honolulu nonstop, so 'tis said.

As the design freeze for the A350 is not set to take place until the fall of 2008, there's a lot of room for change there. In fact, we think that at this point it's quite evident that nobody can say with reasonable specificity how an aircraft that does not exist will perform.

We here at the Dougloid Papers aren't from Missouri, but the frequently repeated maxim from the natives of that fair state bears repeating: show me.