Pratt & Whitney's Bombardier CSeries PW1524G turbofan has completed its first flight on the company's Mirabel, Canada-based Boeing 747SP testbed. Bob Saia, P&W vice-president, Next Generation Product Family, said the flight lasted for roughly 2h, focusing on normal take-offs, go-arounds and low-level manoeuvring.
P&W is planning for about 50h of flight tests of s/n 802 this summer, adding to the 60h of ground testing already completed. The campaign will be followed by a second round of flight tests with an updated engine (s/n 804), now being built. The first engine to test (s/n 803), which completed 250h of ground testing, most recently at the company's natural icing facility in Manitoba, is now being disassembled and analysed.
Paul Adams, P&W senior vice-president of engineering, said results of the tear down are "consistent with the excellent durability" findings to date. He said the effort will be complete in about two weeks. P&W is also 90h into a 500h endurance test of PW1524G's fan drive gear system in a special test rig at the company's headquarters in Connecticut.
Adams says production prototype engine s/n 804 (the second flight-test engine) has "minor tweaks" to a couple of stages in the eight-stage high pressure compressor based on analysis efforts.
Flight testing by Bombardier on a CSeries aircraft is set for the second half of 2012, as is engine certification. CSeries entry into service is expected in 2014.
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Source: Flight Daily News
