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Aviation History
1983
1983 - 0022.PDF
France's small-engines giant ^n average of 17 small turboshafts and turboprops are turned out every week from Turbomeca's factory in Bordes, where (and surely only in France) completed engines vie for space with potted plants in a light, colourful factory. Although its annual turnover has risen quite dramatically since 1977, to a 1981 record of FFr1,593 million (£145 million), the recession has been biting. Orders for helicopters built by Aerospatiale, Turbo meca's principal customer for 25 years, have fallen and there is as yet very little light at the end of the tunnel. But there is still plenty of work in hand, ' and Turbomeca has two new engines to offer and hopes to add a third soon, giving it a complete range of modern turboshafts with which to attack the market when or ders pick up again. The company is also promoting its engines in the role of tur boprops and turbofans. Life began for Turbomeca in 1938, when •Joseph Szydlowski (still its president, at 86) began to manufacture compressors Nestling in the lee of the Pyrenees is a family business which, in 1981, produced no fewer than 865 aero-engines. Julian Moxon reports from Bordes. and turbochargers for piston engines. The company moved from St Pe-de-Bigorre, near Lourdes, to Bordes in 1942 and ran its first gas turbine six years later. The year 1950 saw tests of the com pany's first mass-production turbojet, the Marbore. This became a hugely successful project, and thousands have been licence- built by Teledyne CAE and Continental Aviation under the name J69, powering drones and light trainers. The Marbore also went to Spain for licence production. Growth continued throughout the Fifties with the mid-decade creation of a flight test centre at Pau-Uzein airport a few miles from Bordes. The facility, which also caters for some of Snecma's engine testing, is owned by both companies and has a staff of around 45. Various successful turboshaft prod uction programmes, such as the Artouste and Astazou, were already under Turbo meca's belt when, in 1965, the company became involved in its first big inter national project—with Rolls-Royce, to build the Adour engine for the Jaguar. The same year also saw the inauguration of a new factory at Tarnos for the series prod uction and repair of engines. Production of the Adour, of which almost 1,600 had been built by the end of 1981, doubled the size of Turbomeca's workforce and bought the company into the big league of world engine manu facturers. Its next big collaboration came in 1969, with French partner Snecma and German manufacturers KHD and MTU, to build the Larzac for each country's Alpha Jets. Larzac continues in develop ment, and a higher thrust version aimed at improving the tactical performance of Luftwaffe aircraft has just started flight testing. But Turbomeca's speciality is small turboshafts for helicopters, and not sur prisingly much of its business has come from its long relationship with Aero spatiale. In the Seventies, two engines were born which today account for the ma jority of turboshafts sold. The 650 s.h.p. Arriel, which first flew in a Gazelle and now powers the Ecureuil and various Top Turbomeca has its own flight-test facility at Pau-Uzein airport. Left The TM.333 mounted in the testbed Dauphin. First flight was on April 8 last year FLIGHT International, 1 January 1983
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