After the industry-wide problems of the past five years - with relatively flat revenue growth - Pratt & Whitney president Louis Chênevert is smiling at Le Bourget as he predicts revenues of around $9 billion this year and good growth for the foreseeable future.
Aftermarket income now represents almost 60% of P&W's revenue and Chênevert is delighted with the company's structure which splits commercial engines, military engines and P&W Canada into three, relatively similar, chunks with different cycles: "This is, I believe, unique in the industry and it gives us excellent stability when different markets are moving on different cycles."
He is also delighted with the two major partnership projects in which P&W is involved. The Engine Alliance (50:50 with GE) now has around 58% of the Airbus A380 market with the GP7200, while IAI (in partnership with Rolls-Royce, MTU and Japanese Aero Engines Corporation) leads CFMI 56:44 on narrowbody airliners with its V2500.
"Both EA and IAE are a great way to go to market," he says, "and I'm confident that they'll be hugely successful for a long time."
Generation
Commenting on the 'next generation' single-aisle and regional airliner market, Chênevert says IAE will be in there and fighting. The airlines are unlikely to accept a single engine supplier solution when these new aircraft appear in 2010-12, so the logical solution is for both today's powerplant providers to be represented.
But, says Chênevert , if for any reason it doesn't work out with IAE, make no mistake, P&W will be represented on whatever airframes Boeing and Airbus propose.
He continues: "We have made large investments in technology and it's waiting to be utilised. Our preference is to move ahead with IAE."
What the engine's architecture will be, Chênevert doesn't yet know, - or if he does, he's not saying. But it may be appropriate to go down the geared turbofan route as this would give around 11-12% improvement in fuel burn over today's engines, along with a reduction of up to 31dB in noise levels.
Chênevert says: "I don't believe that any other technology can achieve these figures. And, of course, we have a lot of experience with the technology through P&WC and the NASA quieter aircraft technology (QAT) programme.
"We can even see a situation where the airframe will become the challenge as it may generate more noise than the engines."
The PW600 new turbofan family of engines - which Chênevert describes as game-changing technology - is also proving to be a success on a range of entry-level business jets.
Rate
The engine is now being produced at a rate of one every 11h hours, but Chˆnevert says that this will be cut to 8h next year largely because it is a modular engine with a minimum of moving parts.
Turning to the military programmes, Chênevert reports that the F135 programme for the JSF is on course, with more than 3,000h run-time already in the bank. The F119 programme for the F-22 Raptor is also progressing well, he says, with 'initial operational capability' being reached in December this year.
Source: Flight Daily News
