The US Department of Energy has granted GE Aerospace, Boeing and NASA access to government-owned supercomputers to jointly study the aerodynamics of installed open-fan engines on aircraft in simulated conditions. GE is leading the project to model integration of an open fan with an aircraft wing design, the US engine maker says, noting that Boeing, NASA and Oak Ridge National Laboratory will collaborate in the effort. The objective is to optimise engine design for "additional efficiency, noise and other performance benefits", GE adds. CFM International – jointly owned by GE and Safran – targets at least 20% better fuel efficiency versus the Leap with its open-rotor-based technology demonstrator programme RISE (revolutionary innovation for sustainable engines) for a potential future narrowbody engine. Noise has been a main challenge of unducted fan designs so far. Safran chief Olivier Andries said at the RISE programme's launch in 2021 that noise had been reduced to the Leap engine level in the French manufacturer's open-rotor studies and ground tests at the time. Under the new project, GE and its partners have been awarded 840,000 supercomputing hours through the Department of Energy's INCITE (innovative and novel computational impact on theory and experiment) programme. Studies will use the Aurora supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, near Chicago in Illinois, and the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, for the project. Frontier and Aurora are the world's second and third fastest supercomputers, both capable of crunching data at more than a quintillion calculations per second, GE notes. "Advanced supercomputing capability is a key breakthrough enabling the revolutionary open-fan engine design," states GE general manager for future of flight technology, Arjan Hegeman, noting that "airplane integration is critical" for the concept.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi has called for the resumption of direct flights between China and India at a meeting with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, in a sign of warming ties between the two countries. “We should strive to make practical progress in resuming direct flights, sending journalists to each other, and facilitating visas as soon as possible,” says Wang on 18 November in Rio De Janeiro, where the two met on the sidelines of the G20 summit. Wang calls for both sides to “enhance mutual trust through dialogue and communication, and properly handle differences with sincerity and good faith, so as to push the bilateral relations back to the track of stable and healthy development as soon as possible”, states a readout from China’s foreign ministry. “The consensus between India and China far outweighs the differences. The two sides should view bilateral relations from a strategic perspective, properly handle relevant issues with a more positive attitude, and not let specific differences define the relationship between the two countries,” adds Jaishankar. There are currently no direct flights between the two most populous countries in the world after they were suspended in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Prior to that, there were 64 flights weekly flights between the two countries November 2019 schedules data shows.

Following shootings of three US-registered aircraft in Haiti last week, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 has been struck by gunfire – this time on US soil. The 737, MSN 61865, operating flight WS2494 bound for Indianapolis, was struck by gunfire "near the cockpit" around 20:30 local time on 15 November while taxiing for takeoff from Dallas Love Field, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration. It adds that the aircraft returned to the gate and passengers were deplaned. "No injuries were reported and Southwest accommodated our customers on another flight," the airline advised. Southwest adds that the replacement flight "continued to Indianapolis only after the Dallas police had ascertained that there was no ongoing threat to public safety and the airport authority had reopened the runway for normal operations". The jet is nearly four years old and was originally delivered to Southwest in January 2021 with SMBC Aviation Capital listed as the manager, fleets data shows. It is one of 13 Max 8s that SMBC Aviation Capital manages for Southwest. Last week on 11 November, three US-registered aircraft operated by American Airlines, JetBlue and Spirit Airlines were hit by gunfire in Haiti. Two of those jets were managed by lessors.