Pratt & Whitney Canada enters NBAA riding high on the back of its exclusive position on the Gulfstream G500 and G600 with its 15,000lb-thrust-class PW800-series engines.
Rolled out last week with their flight-test powerplants installed – the PW814 for the G500 and PW815 for the G600 - it marks a significant win for the Canadian manufacturer having beaten long-term Gulfstream supplier Rolls-Royce to the deal.
“We are pleased that we have got this application,” says Michael Perodeau, vice-president of corporate and military aviation at P&WC. “It was a very fair and professionally run competition. I am very proud that we were the overall victor.”
P&WC has been working on the PW800 since 2010, with an unannounced first flight performed aboard its Boeing 747SP flying test-bed in 2013.
Certification by Transport Canada is anticipated before year-end, says Perodeau, with the engine having already racked up some 2,500h of testing, including 250 flight hours.
Although the new engines share a core with the PW1000G-series of geared turbofans being developed by its Hartford, Connecticut-based sister company for commercial aviation applications, they do not feature the fan drive gear system technology of the GTF line.
Perodeau says the work carried out by Pratt & Whitney on the core has is a “head start” for the programme. “We have the benefit of a core that is already very far along with its development and is already certificated.”
However, the PW800 was not affected by the oil system problem that afflicted a PW1500G flight-test engine and caused a temporary grounding of the Bombardier CSeries fleet earlier in the year.
The PW800 features a 50in (127cm) single-piece titanium fan produced through linear friction welding giving a “very robust but very lightweight and aerodynamically higher performing fan”, says Perodeau.
Performance of the test engines has been as expected, he says, particularly in important areas like fuel burn and vibration levels.
Elsewhere, P&WC is continuing its development activities on the PW306D1 for the Cessna Latitude which it hopes will obtain certification in December this year.
This will be followed by the PW307D which will power the Dassault 8X. Certification of the engine is targeted for late in the first quarter of 2015.
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Source: Flight Daily News
