While its new Leap project is grabbing the headlines here at Paris, CFM is rolling out performance upgrades to its existing CFM56 engine family.

Since the first CFM56 was delivered in 1984, the Franco-US venture has "never stopped improving the product", said CFM executive vice-president Chaker Chahrour.

The latest upgrades in this stream of continuous improvements sees the first CFM56-7BE engine being delivered in July to a Boeing 737NG customer, said Chahrour. "We are shipping 7B engines from our factory as we speak."

The -7BE has 1% better fuel burn and up to 4% lower maintenance costs.

The CFM56 is also being upgraded for the Airbus A320, with the CFM56-5B improvement programme offering an engine with 0.5% better fuel burn and 1% better maintenance costs. "We are always improving fuel burn without sacrificing dispatch reliability," said CFM executive vice-president Olivier Savin.

The first A320 with the latest -5B package will enter service in the third quarter of this year. CFM (hall 2a B252, chalet B121) is certificating kits that will enable customers to retrofit the improvement into existing -5B engines in the maintenance shop.

Source: Flight Daily News

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