One of the most advanced jet engines soon to enter service has just been selected as the sole western power plant for China’s new C919 single-aisle, 150-seat passenger jet. Made by CFM International, which is a 50/50 joint venture between GE and SAFRAN Group, the engine could end up powering more than 2,000 planes over the next 20 years based on estimates by the developer and manufacturer of the C919, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, or COMAC. As Bloomberg News reports in its story today, with narrowbody jetliners making up more than 60 percent of all commercial aircraft, “manufacturers have estimated the market for new engines as replacements or on newly designed single-aisle aircraft at $30 billion to $50 billion.”
Up, up and away! The new C919, seen here in this artist’s rendition, is slated to enter service in 2016. Because the new engine will be manufactured at SAFRAN and GE facilities throughout the U.S. and France — including the hot section, or core of the engine, that GE is producing in the U.S. — the deal preserves jobs across the U.S. and E.U. over the next several decades.
Spin class: The high-tech fan for the LEAP-X1C is made out of composite materials and is being developed by SAFRAN’s Snecma engine division. It’s seen here being tested at GE’s Peebles, Ohio facility. The LEAP-X will feature 18 blades, a 50 percent reduction versus the CFM56-5C engine and 25 percent fewer blades than the CFM56-7B. It’s expected to be certified in 2014.
The deal marks a new era for the joint venture, which last year extended its partnership through 2040 in order to power the next-generation of single-aisle commercial aircraft. CFM has already delivered 20,000 engines over four decades — making it the most popular airline jet engine ever. In fact, a CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5 seconds.
The engine for China’s new commercial plane is the LEAP-X1C, which has been in development for more than a decade and was built from scratch, as opposed to being a derivative of an existing engine. When it enters service, the LEAP-X1C will be the most fuel-efficient engine in its thrust class, providing double-digit fuel burn improvements over the current CFM56-7B engine.
“We expect that China will become the largest commercial aviation market in the world over the next two decades and it’s exciting for GE to be part of that growth,” said Jeff Immelt, GE’s chairman and CEO. “This historic decision by COMAC will result in decades of collaboration — and is a true testament to innovation and technology that the CFM partnership delivers to the marketplace.” Added David Joyce, president and CEO of GE Aviation: “We are very pleased in COMAC’s confidence in CFM to deliver the most advanced engine from the strongest jet engine partnership in aviation.”
http://www.gereports.com/ge-jet-engine-joint-venture-to-power-chinas-new-plane/
Tagged as: Aviation, China
Posted on December 21, 2009
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real a good news ~
China is going to be the #1 superpower in the next 15 years. Good to see GE is ahead of the curve.
The UAE nuclear deal loss to a Korean consortia..will get to see more such deal losses in the future. How can GE with all the American political clout in that region loose ? A precursor of things to come (the rise and rise of Asian comoanies).
Oil burning aircraft, ships,trains,trucks and cars. Seems to me short term thinking. We are working our way back to the stone age. All the work to burn more fossil fuels? GE inovation on making money.
Dear Sir:
I came up with this idea as I was looking at your nuclear jet engine on the internet.
I saw that it used Hydrogen and that it had anuclear device to power it with control rods. I thought that I could use this application, replacing the hydrogen with an alchol and a steam tank. then replacing the nuclear rod with a cobalt rod placed in the combustion chamber. But that not all, then i would place the entire thing (the nuclear engine); except for the controls, the tail exhaust cone, the steam and alchol tanks, in a an enclosed tubeular boxlike
enclousure with anti-contamination oil tokeep it from over heating then another enclouse of CO 2 around the box to maintain the cooling of the metals. then at the tail end, where the cone exists . the cone will stick out the box air tight from the box enclosed from the oil which is only exposed to the surroundings of the cone combustion chamber up to the egde of the cone where it begins, so that the oil only touches the fuel entering the box going directly into the chambers on the sides with no exposure to the oil and the pipes so that the chamber is entirely enclosed. Then the exhaust created by the power plant will be used to turn over a turbinr wheel in back of it. the turbine wheel will then power a generator inside the MHD. The turbine whee will then draw air from the intake of the engine housing at the beinning of the other engd of the nuclear jet design ( an intake system housing placed in front of the nuclear jet to retrieve cool air to move over the jet engines for cooling as the engine produces heat exhaust. as the engines idles by rod adjustment a operator switches over the tanks (alchol and steam) to just hot air and some steam mixture . As the engine heats up the operaor will eventuallly swich over the fuel system to just hot air only. making this system self sufficient and independent of fussel fuels. eventually it will be housed on aircraft to be the fist nuclear engine to run on hot air. A plane that can fly this way has no reason to be left out of the airports and be forced to land in jungles because an FAA mobster didn’t get his nuckie or woopie or whatever that causes them to act like Irish mobsters in the FAA towers. I was an airforce pilot/flight engineer.
Interesting. Loran space provided China with gyroscopes and guidance technology to help launch satellites and 12 years late China has developed a ballistic ship killing missile. China and probably Russia stole 1tb worth of data on F-35 program and now are flying 5th generation prototype fighters, probably 10-15 years ahead of where they were expected. China’s main weakness of their military aircraft has been jet engines and now GE will help them build advanced engines for “commercial” use. China has overtaken rest of world by stealing technologies shared through joint ventures. They are now largest ship builder in the world. Anyone who thinks 200-500 jobs created in US by GE over this engine joint venture is great should consider the potential loss of thousands of jobs at Boeing as China is helped to develop fuel efficient jets to compete on the world market. The Western world is foolish, looking for a short term gain to then hand China the ability to take business away in droves in 10-15 years, as well as the ability to potentially defeat our military 20+ years earlier than previously thought.
So much for Immelt being the new Jobs Czar. Instead of making the engines in the United States. Mr Immelt is building factories in China and giving China jet engine technology. I guess creating job in China is the reason why Obama chose Immelt as the new Jobs Czar. Look like the goal is to send jobs to China rather than keep them in the United States and increase exports.