Japan Airlines takes the world’s first aircraft with large-scale riblet coating to the skies

Japan Airlines Co, Ltd, in partnership with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and O-Well Corporation, has applied riblet-shaped coating to the majority of the fuselage of one of its Boeing 787-9 aircraft.

Applied onto aircraft JA868J, this marks the first time in the global aviation industry that the riblet coating has been used anywhere in the world. 

The aircraft will also be the first finished with such a coating to be used on international routes.

The riblet coating aircraft was taken up for its inaugural flight earlier this month.

Innovation towards decarbonisation

As JAL, JAXA, and O-Well are all promoting the decarbonisation of the global aviation sector, their joined teams applied the riblet coating to the aircraft’s exterior using the Paint-to-Paint Method, a technology continuously improved by O-Well and JAXA, and have been validating its durability and fuel efficiency improvement effects. 

The teams have been testing the durability of the riblet coating on JAL’s domestic Boeing aircraft since July 2022.

Since November 2023, they have confirmed the fuel efficiency improvement effects by applying the coating to a large area of the fuselage bottom. 

The Paint-to-Paint Method, which applies riblet shapes directly to the paint film, is expected to reduce weight and improve durability compared to riblet processing using decals or films.

This time, wind tunnel tests and numerical analyses by JAXA confirmed the drag reduction effect on international aircraft, and the development of a riblet coating system by O-Well that can accommodate larger aircraft has enabled the expansion of the application area to the upper fuselage of international aircraft. 

Long-haul flights on international routes are expected to yield further fuel efficiency improvements.

In the aircraft with the newly applied coating, the drag reduction rate during cruising is 0.24 percent, which is expected to result in an annual reduction of approximately 119 tonnes of fuel consumption and about 381 tons of CO2 emissions. 

This is equivalent to the annual CO2 absorption of approximately 27,000 cedar trees.