BUSINESS AVIATION
16 MAY 2016 AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY
tion aircraft fly fewer hours. At the same
time, somewhat counterintuitively, the
"engine overhaul cycle is much shorter."
A commercial powerplant will stay on
wing 20,000 hours, perhaps more. By
contrast, BGA engines stay put in the
3,500- to 5,000-hour range. Fewer flight
hours, more frequent overhauls. Mottier
says, "ATP's time between overhauls will
increase more than 30 percent, virtually
a full third." With the ATP, Mottier says
control logic prevents you from doing
incremental damage to the engine, dam-
age that mounts up and hurts long-term
durability.
CZECHMATE
For the time being, ATP design
and testing will be at GE
Aviation's existing facilities.
By 2020 the engine maker
plans to start manufacturing
ATPs in the Czech Republic
at the GE Turboprop Center of
Excellence (CoE), which is now
under construction.
Why the Czech Republic? GE Aviation
has been there since 2008, when it
acquired Walter Engines. In 2012 GE's
existing Czech facility began producing
H Series turboprops, with power in the
750 to 850 shaft horsepower range.
GE Aviation leveraged the robust
design elements of the Walter M601
engine, incorporating 3-D aerodynamic
design techniques and advanced materi-
als to create the H Series of turboprops.
That's important. Mottier says, "With the
new [Czech-based CoE] the ATP will join
the H Series as the first engines designed,
tested, and manufactured outside the
United States, incorporating the best of
our proven technologies into our newest
family of turboprops powering next-gen
aircraft, like Textron's SETP."
When people ask Mottier, 'How are
things going in Europe?' the exec answers
that there are some 12,000 GE Aviation
employees there now, about 2,000 of them
engineers. "Over the last decade," says
Mottier, "we've established centers for
AviationPros.com/company/10134838
By 2020 the engine
maker plans to start
manufacturing ATPs in
the Czech Republic.