Bombardier's CSeries has been the target for years of Saj Ahmad's rants that have no bearing to reality. It's time to go down his puffery one-by-one.
The following is from Ahmad's 1 Feb 2011 column slamming the CSeries.
Ahmad wrote: Considering that Bombardier swore blind that it would have the CSeries in service by 2010 (and has failed on that score) and a dubious set of Chinese partners building core components, the recipe for disaster (and delays) is already cooking in the oven. Fact: Ahmad constantly goes back to the original CSeries concept and timeline. This concept was dropped due to poor market reaction. The current CSeries version was launched in 2008 with an EIS of 2013. Ahmad knows this (if he did even a modicum of research) and ignores the facts.
Bombardier dropping an early concept of the CSeries is no different than Boeing dropping the concepts for the Sonic Cruiser, 747-500, 747-600 and 747-X. But Ahmad never talks about the false starts at his favorite company.
Ahmad wrote: Pratt & Whitney is equally glad that its reliance on the CSeries and other poorly selling platforms like the MRJ and MC-21 have been pushed onto the backburner as they tout their GTF engine to prospective A320 customers. Fact: Where the bloody hell does Ahmad have the basis to make this statement? He certainly didn't get it from PW. He's making this up out of thin air.
Ahmad wrote: No longer do they [airlines] have to worry about the inability of the CSeries being able to emulate transcon route....Fact: The CSeries ER had 2,950nm in range, more than enough to serve US trans-continental routes. Ahmad knows this and ignores it, and this makes for a lousy "analyst." Or if he doesn't know this, it makes for a lousy "analyst." Either way, he is wrong, wrong, wrong on the facts.
Ahmad wrote: And with Lufthansa steadfastly refusing to be the first customer.... Fact: Lufthansa's Nico Buchholz, the executive vice president of fleet planning who ordered the CSeries, said he ordered deliveries when he needed the airplane (2014), not for the honour of being first. A 20-minute podcast has Nico in his own words praising the CSeries. But this doesn't fit Ahmad's biased and irrational distaste for the CSeries so he continually ignores the truth.
Ahmad also whinges on and on about how the CSeries can't be stretched because it will need a new wing (so he says). Fact: Ahmad is no engineer and apparently doesn't bother to talk to anyone who is. The Montreal Gazette interviewed Chet Fuller of Bombardier who says the wing is capable for taking a larger airplane. Once again, Ahmad is wrong.
Fact Checker will return to this topic in the future.
One more comment to the wing: Ahmad should just compare the A320 wing, the B737 wing and the CSeries wing. Then he should see that the CSeries wing area is less than 10% smaller than the A320 wing. MTOW of the CSeries though is almost 20% below the 78t of the A320. So there is enough room to grow the CSeries before the wing loading of the CSeries is equal to the wing loading of the A320, not talking about the A321 at all. And as the aspect ratio of the CSeries wing is higher than the A320 (and the B737 wing), the Lift/Drag ratio is higher, leading to a higher effective wing area.
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