Future vertical lifting motor program on “up ramp”

GE Aviation

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — As the Army’s program to build a next-generation helicopter engine has faced its share of woes related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the program manager said it’s on an “uphill ramp for its first delivery in November.

The T901 engine will be ready for integration into future aerial reconnaissance aircraft in late fall after the military and engine maker General Electric ignite fuel in the engine to generate power for the first times at the end of March, said Colonel Roger Kuykendall, program manager. for aviation turbine engines.

“I’m very confident that November is the bottom line and confident in GE and these suppliers despite the challenges,” he said. National Defense.

The Army originally expected the engine – known as the Enhanced Turbine Engine Program – to be ready for liftoff in the spring of 2021. The two FARA competitors told reporters at the Army summit. Aviation Association of America in April that their prototypes were mostly complete and on hold. for engine integration.

While the engine program has suffered from the same supply chain issues that have plagued the rest of the defense industry, advances in additive manufacturing and digital design have mitigated the worst, GE executives say .

“There are things we can print into this additively manufactured part that we couldn’t otherwise, and so it opens up the design space dramatically,” said Michael Sousa, product development manager at GE for turboshafts.

While the parts for 80% of the engine components are ready, some take longer. The engine front frame — which is additively manufactured — is the “pacing” part, Kuykendall said.

Post-processing additively manufactured components requires additional development time, Sousa noted. However, the process became “more streamlined” as the program progressed, he said.

Even so, the engine hits some big milestones.

It hit ignition in late March and ran just over seven hours in its first few weeks, including some time at its peak output of 3,000 horsepower, Kuykendall said.

For the first seven hours, the team focused on “breaking in” the engine, said Tom Champion, GE’s T901 program manager. This involves monitoring data from over 700 sensors on the test engine.

Ultimately, the development team will put the engine through its paces for approximately 100 hours before delivery.
Brig. General Robert Barrie, the Army’s program director for aviation, noted how quickly the program had come together.

“The team fought through tremendous diversity for what is arguably one of our most important technologies,” he said during a media roundtable at the summit. army aviation.

Topics: Army News