I had a great chat yesterday with Pratt & Whitney about the geared turbofan (GTF), which is really starting to look dressed to impress these days.
Pratt VP of next generation products Bob Saia told me that later this month executives will meet for a review with airlines, including a 15-member steering committee for the GTF.
The review comes just before the engine maker moves into formal engine design. "We will be in that design phase in the latter half of this year. We are very close to the end of that programme process. We are exactly on plan," says Saia.
“We have a lot of results now in the engine tests we’ve done but we really want to share that with them [the airlines] and get whatever feedback they give us, and we’re pretty close [with them] as we’ve had a lot of dialogue,” adds Saia.
Pratt's GTF has already been picked to power the MRJ and proposed CSeries. Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways recently placed a firm order for 15 GTF-powered MRJ90s with options for 10 more, representing the first order for the high bypass GTF. First delivery is scheduled for 2013.
On a side note, this photo (while in need of better resizing by moi) is one of very latest to be released by Pratt.
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