The Magnificent Seven: Seven high-powered fans blast freezing wind at 65 miles per hour.

This week, GE opened a $50 million jet engine testing facility on the icy plains surrounding the James A. Richardson International Airport in Winnipeg, Canada. At the heart of the testing site is a 21-foot wind tunnel equipped with seven high-powered fans. The tunnel, which looks like the bottom of a spaceship knocked on its side, can generate winds blowing at speeds up to 65 miles per hour. An array of 125 nozzles sprays micron-sized droplets into the freezing gale and the resulting ice cloud then pummels the hapless engine. The various testing regimens are precisely prescribed in FAA manuals, from the size of the droplets, to wind speed, temperature and length of exposure. An engine must power through the mayhem to earn an FAA certification. GE also feeds gathered data back to aviation engineers to fine tune and improve on their designs. The site, which will be operated by the Canadian aircraft service company StandardAero, will test the GEnx, LEAP, Passport 20 and other engines.

Kevin Kanter, engineering executive at GE Aviation, said that Winnipeg was an ideal location because every year it has on average 50 days when temperatures fall bellow zero. It has freezing weather from November to mid-April. GE’s other testing facility in Peebles, Ohio, has not had any sub-zero days this winter for example and is generally getting warmer. “At Peebles, you can’t get enough days to test icing,” Kanter said.

Hail and High Water: The 122,500 square foot testing facility is a partnership between GE and StandardAero. Testing regimens will include ice, hail, lots of water, and more.

What happens when Winnipeg warms up? There are other ways to test an engine. They involve hailstones, water ingestion, birds, and ice slab, which the engines must “digest” and perform at set levels to pass the FAA test. The goal is to make sure that GE engines are in top shape to handle any situation they might fly into. The FAA “tells you exactly what to do,” Kanter said. “It gives you a sense of clarity that you need to stick to.”

What are some of the products in high demand? Start with GE Aviation. The world’s largest and most powerful commercial jet engine, GE90, has had its most successful year in 2011. Airlines and freighter operators ordered 400 of the engines valued at $11 billion (list price).

The engine’s French-American cousins, the CFM56 and LEAP engines, also had a record year. CFM International, a joint company between GE Aviation and France’s Snecma, received orders and commitments for more than 2,900 CFM56 and LEAP engines valued at $30 billion. There is a good reason for the ecomagination-qualified LEAP to be popular. The engine can achieve double-digit improvements in fuel burn and emissions, and lower maintenance costs. The total GE Aviation backlog stood at $99 billion in equipment and services at the end of 2011.

GE Energy’s total backlog surpassed $72.7 billion at the end of last year. The unit received orders and commitments that included the new ecomagination-qualified FlexEfficiency 50 Combined Cycle Power Plant. GE invested $500 million to develop the technology. The system helps utilities efficiently incorporate power generated by renewable sources such as wind and solar farms. It can ramp up power production on a cloudy day in minutes, twice the rate of today’s energy benchmarks.

Other GE divisions that reported multi-billion backlogs include GE Healthcare ($3.9 billion in equipment), and GE Transportation ($3.3 billion in equipment).

“We feel good about where we are,” Jeff Immelt, GE chairman and chief executive, said on a call with analysts. “Organic growth looks solid with a $200 billion backlog.”

1. Reducing the High Cost of Solar Power: In April, GE announced that its thin film solar panels made from a crystalline compound of the elements cadmium and telluride achieved nearly 13 percent efficiency. Consider that a one percent increase in panel efficiency equals around a 10 percent decrease in system costs. The thin film panels will be manufactured at a new solar panel plant near Denver, Colorado. The factory, the country’s largest, will create 355 jobs and make enough solar panels per year to power 80,000 homes. It is scheduled to open in 2013.

In October, engineers at GE’s Global Research Center reported that they developed a system that aims to cut installation costs by half, from $6.50 per watt to just $3. At that price, the savings provided would more than offset the expense of mounting them on the roof.

2. Integrating Renewable Power into the Grid More Seamlessly: Solar and wind power provide clean, renewable energy. But how do utilities and power grid operators replace lost power when the sun stops shining or the wind stops blowing? Enter GE’s new flexible power technology, like the FlexEfficiency 50 Combined Cycle Power Plant. GE invested some $500 million in the R&D effort that led to the FlexEfficiency 50. The system can ramp up power production on a cloudy day in just minutes, twice the rate of today’s energy benchmarks. In November, GE announced that it would build the first FlexEfficiency 50 plant in northern France. It will produce 510 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 600,000 households. The plant is scheduled to come on line in late 2015.

3. Slashing Emissions and Fuel Costs for Jet Engines: The LEAP engine, short for Leading Edge Aviation Propulsion, is manufactured by CFM International, a joint company between GE Aviation and France’s Snecma. The engine can achieve double-digit improvements in fuel burn and emissions, and lower maintenance costs. In 2011, CFM received orders for over 2,830 engines. This brings total LEAP orders to 3,160 engines, valued at $38 billion (U.S. list price).

To explore how the innovative tech of the LEAP engine reduces costs and emissions, check out the infographic.

4. Connecting the World’s Machines: From enormous gas turbines to kitchen microwave ovens, machines are vast repositories of data. Harvesting and analyzing this information and then applying the insights can make the systems run smarter and more efficiently. That’s why in November GE announced that it would hire 400 software engineers and professionals and open a new software center in San Ramon in the Bay Area. They will be developing digital tools that gather and analyze the millions of gigabytes of data generated by controls, sensors, computers and other devices that together make the brains of industrial machines. These software tools will predict and respond to changes, and guide customers in how to best use their assets. GE already has some 5,000 software engineers on staff. GE’s software revenues are about $2.5 billion. The company expects double-digit growth in this segment from now until 2015.

5. Personalizing Medicine: GE has been focusing on technologies to help clinicians better personalize diagnoses and treatments. In short, GE provides tools that help physicians assess a disease in individual patients and pick the treatment that fits each best. For example, in 2010 GE Healthcare acquired Clarient, a California-based molecular diagnostics firm and the manufacturer laboratory tests such as Mammostrat. This test allows doctors assess the likelihood of breast cancer recurrence. “If her cancer does not have an aggressive profile, she may not need additional therapies,” said Gerard Brophy, head of new product development at GE Healthcare Medical Diagnostics.

In September 2011, GE announced that it would invest $1 billion in new cancer solutions and the company has also introduced a $100 million innovation challenge open to anyone to come up with new ideas to fight cancer. “Why?” asked GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt at a recent speech. “Because we’re a big innovator in healthcare and technology and because I know that in my lifetime we can treat major diseases, like cancer, more effectively at lower cost.”

The U.S.-made Thrush 510G plane will be powered by GE’s new H80 turboprop engine.

GE saw a great promise. The company was seeking to lift its presence in the turboprop market and Walter could help. After the Walter deal closed in 2008, GE tasked teams of aviation engineers in Ohio and Massachusetts and their Czech counterparts to apply U.S. know-how, advanced materials and three-dimensional aerodynamic design techniques, and slim down and rebuild the M601.

The result was a new GE turboprop called H80. It took a maiden flight in 2010. This week, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certified the engine, a milestone GE celebrated in Prague, the Czech capital, in the company of U.S. Charge d’Affaires Joe Pennington and Czech Minister of Industry and Trade Martin Kuba.

The H80 takes the elegant and robust design of the M601 and combines it with advanced materials and sophisticated technologies to create a more powerful, fuel-efficient and durable engine. For example, the new design allows the engine to operate more efficiently in hot weather, especially during the take-off, and deliver more shaft horsepower and faster high-altitude cruise speeds.

GE’s H80 engine.

The versatile engine can power commuter planes as well as agricultural aircraft. The company has already lined up a number of customers both in the U.S. and Europe. For example, the engines will power the U.S.-manufactured Thrush 510G crop duster, the latest Thrush model, as well as the Czech-made L-410 passenger plane.

GE currently plans double the production of the H80 from the 70 engines per year in 2012 to 150 engines in 2015.

This airborne L-410 commuter plane is powered with two H80 engines.

The company announced this morning that the low fare carrier Southwest Airlines would purchase a total of 416 engines valued at $4.7 billion. The order includes 300 innovative LEAP engines to power the airline’s 150 new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, and 116 CFM56 engines for 58 planes of the existing 737 model.

To explore how the innovative tech of the LEAP engine reduces costs and emissions, check out the infographic.

GE and Snecma, a member of the Safran Group, each hold a 50 percent stake in CFM. The new airplanes will begin delivery in 2017.

CFM started working on the LEAP engine, short for Leading Edge Aviation Propulsion, in 2005. The goal was to develop a high-bypass turbofan engine that radically increases the fuel efficiency of narrow-body aircraft that carry between 100 and 250 passengers and fly within a 4,000-mile range.

The result is a highly reliable engine with lower maintenance costs that can achieve double-digit improvements in fuel burn and emissions.

For example, the ecomagination-qualified LEAP can save up to 15 percent in fuel costs, compared to current CFM models in its class. That’s as much as $12 million per aircraft over 15 years, at $2.50 per gallon of fuel.

These saving are possible because the engine incorporates many breakthrough features and technologies. Consider, for example, that the air passing through the engine is much hotter than the melting point of the materials inside the jet engine. These higher operating temperatures known as thermal efficiency result in lesser fuel use. CFM engineers have developed an innovative way to transfer heat from the engine so that it can burn hot and clean and conserve fuel.

LEAP’s composite fan blade design and innovative three-dimensional, woven resin transfer molding (RTM) manufacturing process lower the engine’s weight, make it more fuel efficient, and improve maintenance.

The magazine Aviation Week reported that CFM was “focusing on reducing LEAP maintenance costs by combining its hard-earned CFM56 design experience of high-cycle and high-durability with the advanced architecture of General Electric’s long-range GE90 and GEnx turbofans.”

The magazine quoted LEAP manager of engineering Ted Ingling: “We’re bringing the capability of the underlying technology for fuel efficiency, emissions and acoustics into narrow-body, high-cycle operations. We understand both regimes, and we understand that entire airlines built their entire low cost carrier approach on a situation where 10 cycles per day is the norm.”

This includes plans to design and build a $120 million engine overhaul facility for Emirates airline in Dubai.

The orders include a $6 billion engine and service contract to power Emirates’ 50 new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft with the GE90-115B engines. The company also signed a $1 billion agreement with Cargolux to power its new fleet of Boeing 747-8 freighters with GE’s latest engine technology, the GEnx-B2 engine.

CFM International, which is a 50/50 joint venture between GE and France’s Snecma, announced that it would sell Republic Airways of Indianapolis, Indiana, advanced LEAP-1A engines to power the airline’s 20 Airbus 319neo and 60 Airbus 320neo aircraft. CFM will also supply Lufthansa with engines valued at $60 million.

GE also signed other agreements with Cathay Pacific, Air China, Qatar Airways and other airlines.

Speed, power and efficiency are some of the key factors that give airlines their competitive edge and determine which engine they buy. The GE90, GEnx, and LEAP are all part of GE’s Ecomagination portfolio.

For example, the GE90-115B is the largest and most powerful commercial aviation engine ever built. But it’s also been designed to be more fuel-efficient than its competition.

A fleet of thirty Boeing 777s powered by GE90-115B engines is designed to emit 389,000 fewer metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, compared to its closest competitor. That’s equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of over 76,000 cars on U.S. roads. The same fleet can save $100 million in fuel costs annually, compared to its closest competitor.

IUE-CWA Local 761 President Jerry Carney told the Louisville Courier-Journal: “At least GE has enough faith in us to keep trying to turn the place around. We are in a depression in the appliance industry. We will fight to keep raising wages up, but we can’t improve jobs that are not here. We have got to be competitive and make Appliance Park profitable.”

As always, adding jobs and expanding manufacturing hinges on healthy demand for products. For the appliance business, that demand is tied closely to the housing market. In other GE businesses, like Aviation, demand from emerging global economies is booming, which means American manufacturing facilities are running at full capacity and expanding. For example, earlier this summer at the Paris Air Show, GE Aviation received a record $27 billion in orders for its new fuel and cost-efficient LEAP engine and related services. Aviation President and CEO David Joyce told the Cincinnati Enquirer yesterday that the business had added 1,000 new manufacturing jobs in the U.S. over the last three years and with the recent surge in orders expects to add another 1,000 positions in the next three years.

Check out our video of two GE Aviation Systems employees discussing the Dreamliner.

So what is the CCS? Essentially, it’s the plane’s primary computing environment: remote data concentrators record and consolidate inputs from the aircraft’s systems via sensors located throughout the plane and distribute the information. The CCS is designed, manufactured and tested in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cheltenham, U.K. Also on board the ANA 787 is GE’s integrated landing gear system, which controls the deployment and retraction of the plane’s landing gears, including the nose landing gear steering, and GE’s flight deck interfaces and local control electronics.

This video shows off the beautiful interior of the new ANA Dreamliner.

Later this year, GE Aviation’s next generation jet engine, the GEnx, will debut on the 787 Dreamliner.