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United Launches E175 ‘Hot-And-High’ Upgrade

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United Launches E175 ‘Hot-And-High’ Upgrade

Old 03-30-2016, 07:41 AM
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Default United Launches E175 ‘Hot-And-High’ Upgrade

From Aviation Daily, Guy Norris:

LOS ANGELES—United Airlines has become launch customer for a newly certified ‘hot-and-high’ performance improvement package developed by Embraer for the E175 airliner.

The upgrade, which will be introduced on 135 aircraft the airline group has either already accepted or is due to receive, enables the current production model of the E175 to fly an additional 500 nm from hot-and-high airports such as Denver. The extended capability is only available on versions of the aircraft delivered after April 2014 with a revised and extended winglet design as well as other aerodynamic enhancements.

The improvement, which extends range by 50% over the baseline aircraft’s 1,000-nm capability, takes advantage of the inherent performance now available in the extended-span variant of the model, which was introduced slightly less than two years ago. The package comes in the form of a new version of the electronic computerized aircraft flight manual (Ecafm), which has updated software to calculate takeoff performance.

The upgraded E175 was developed as an interim step toward developing the new “E2” generation of E-Jets that is scheduled to enter service beginning in 2018 with the E190-E2. Now Embraer hopes the hot-and-high performance feature will further boost sales of the variant, which the company maintains has clinched more than 80% of this portion of the large regional aircraft market in North America over the past three years. Overall sales of the E175 stand at 500 of which almost 170 are in the company’s order backlog.

Many of the original upgrades, which included modifications to the airframe as well as systems, avionics and the interior, were intended to form a foundation for development of the E2 generation while at the same time bridging the gap between the current production versions and their successors. The E190-E2 was unveiled at the company’s Sao Jose dos Campos facility in Brazil on Feb 25. The next-generation E175-E2 will fly in 2018 and enter service in 2020. Critical design review of the E175-E2, which has attracted 100 firm orders, is due to be completed in May.

Flight tests of the upgraded E175 showed that fuel consumption was 6.4% better than for the baseline model, or around 1.4% more than expected. The bulk of this comes from a new wingtip that extends the overall span by around 9 ft. to 94 ft. 2 in. overall. The larger tip, which replaces a vertical winglet, incorporates a distinctive dihedral of 45 deg. The aerodynamic benefits outweighed the added weight of the extra structure required to compensate for the increased bending loads to the wing.

“With more span in the wings, a better hot-and-high performance was expected, but we decided not to include it in the original campaign because the main focus for the airlines at the time was fuel burn,” said Luis Carlos Affonso, chief operating officer of Embraer Commercial Aviation. “We said let’s do a two-tiered upgrade and we have just developed and fielded that second part.” The performance boost “will provide a huge improvement from a variety of hot-and-high airfields such as Mexico City, Bogota and Quito,” Affonso explained. “We did the bulk of the testing in 2013 [for the original upgrade package] and what we completed now was basically climb performance because that’s what is important. The lift/drag ratio is improved and particularly the second segment climb, and the upgrade has been certificated by the Brazilian authorities and the FAA. It has not yet been certificated by EASA and we will do that when we have a customer [in that region],” he said.

“The E175 is already the best in this segment and becomes even better with this,” noted Affonso, who believes the latest enhancement will “for sure help deliveries while we wait for the second generation.” As well as in the U.S. market, the package is also expected to stimulate additional sales in Latin America where there are “other situations where this aircraft will be useful,” he asserted.
Preparations for the start of flight tests of the E190-E2 meanwhile continue at Sao Jose dos Campos where the remaining flight-test instrumentation is being installed in the prototype.

“We are progressing very well with both the aircraft where we are finalizing the software and undertaking safety of flight reviews, as well as continuing tests with the ‘iron birds’ [ground-based system test devices]. Within the next 15 days, we will start running the [Pratt & Whitney PW1900G geared turbofan] engines and will start to do tests outside the hangar,” Affonso added.


Hmm. Looks very much like they want the next UAL order, and not let UAL buy more guppies.
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Old 03-30-2016, 10:02 AM
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These "upgrades' were factory options that various regionals (and United on their owned aircraft) skimped on when purchasing the jets. Good spin though!
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Old 03-30-2016, 02:19 PM
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Originally Posted by ReadyRsv View Post
These "upgrades' were factory options that various regionals (and United on their owned aircraft) skimped on when purchasing the jets. Good spin though!
Honest question: if it's just been certified how could UAL, or anybody else, have received it sooner?
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Old 03-30-2016, 03:58 PM
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I'd chalk that up to poor reporting, or reading a press release by the reporter as gospel. FWIW, I was not on the 175 fleet but was told this by some company guys at my old gig. They are mixing up the -175E2 and the mid life upgrades on the -170/175 such as the new wing shape etc while also mentioning the geared turbofans etc. Poorly written and contradictory article.

IIRC, the -175s without this mode are really limited in DEN during summer ops.
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Old 03-30-2016, 05:43 PM
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Errr,,, I don't know where the 1000 nm range comes from. The first gen E175's that I fly have a 2000 nm range.
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Old 03-31-2016, 07:55 AM
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Shouldn't the title read "United Feeder/Regional/Commuter launches E175 ‘Hot-And-High’ Upgrade????
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Old 03-31-2016, 08:21 AM
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Originally Posted by 757Driver View Post
Shouldn't the title read "United Feeder/Regional/Commuter launches E175 ‘Hot-And-High’ Upgrade????
Yes and no.

Some of the E175s were ordered by UAL directly and are simply operated by an express carrier while UAL retains ownership. As for the rest, the carriers simply ordered whatever UAL specified (i.e. was willing to pay for.)
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Old 03-31-2016, 08:43 AM
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Bring all 170/75s on the property
Buy 65 E190s and add 2000 on the seniority list

That should be the goal of UAL ALPA
and I was told indeed it is
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Old 03-31-2016, 09:17 AM
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Originally Posted by Sniper66 View Post
Bring all 170/75s on the property
Buy 65 E190s and add 2000 on the seniority list

That should be the goal of UAL ALPA
and I was told indeed it is
I'd love for ALL flying to be brought in-house.

But FWIW, didn't UAL just order 65 737-700s instead of E190s or CS100s?
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Old 03-31-2016, 09:33 AM
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I'm pretty sure this article is just talking about the SkyWest, Mesa, and newer Shuttle 175's with the enhanced wing tips. They've been flying for about two years now and are supposedly quite a bit better than the wing let version otherwise everything else is the same between the two planes.
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