GUY NORRIS / LOS ANGELES
Alliance to get four engines - set to power the A380 - built and validated in nine months
The General Electric/Pratt & Whitney Engine Alliance plans to kick off ground tests in early March of the first GP7200 engine for the Airbus A380. The tests will be at P&W's Hartford, Connecticut site following the start of final assembly of the initial powerplant with the arrival of the first core from GE's Durham, North Carolina plant.
"From a test perspective, our focus is get the initial four test engines built and the design validated over nine months," says P&W's GP7000 general manager Bob Saia. Eight engines are eventually planned for the test effort, which is set to culminate with Federal Aviation Administration FAR 35 engine certification in July 2005, and a first flight powering an A380 in early November 2005.
The engine, designated GP7200 for the Airbus application, will be certificated concurrently at take-off thrust ratings of 76,500lb (340kN) and 81,500lb, although the baseline GP7270 will be rated at 70,000lb for the A380-800 passenger version and the GP7277 at 76,500lb for the heavier -800 freighter.
The first GP7200 is expected to be structurally complete by mid-February and, following an initial two-week test phase in Connecticut, will go to the Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tennessee for an extensive altitude test programme due to last three months. "This will give us the key characteristics of the engine in terms of structures, aerodynamics and operability," says Saia.
A second engine, aimed at proving endurance at the higher thrust rating of 82,000lb, will follow it into tests in late April. The endurance runs will take place at GE's Peebles test site in Ohio and end in June.
The third engine, dedicated to stress tests, will start runs in Connecticut in late May, while the fourth engine is due to become the first GP7000 family member to fly aboard GE's Boeing 747-100 flying testbed in September.
The flight test effort is provisionally set for two months, but can be expanded "through 2004 if we need to do certain adjustments that we can test quickly at conditions we can't get in a test cell", adds Saia.
Engines five and six will join the test programme in the third and fourth quarter, with engine five conducting bird ingestion tests and number six the fan blade-out test, set for September. The bulk of this task will be performed on number seven and eight which join in the first quarter of 2005.
Separate rig tests are also planned to evaluate the fan for bird ingestion and blade separation in advance of the full-up engine tests in the second half of 2004. The bird ingestion rig test is set for April, while the blade release could take place as early as March.
The first production engine shipset is due to be shipped to Toulouse in late June 2005 ahead of a first flight on A380 serial number MSN009 in November.
Emirates will be first operator to accept delivery, in October 2006.
Source: Flight International
