Pratt and Whitney claims better than expected fuel burn data from green engine

Pratt and Whitney officials have claimed that their Geared Turbofan has achieved better-than-expected fuel burn figures.

At the Eco-Aviation conference, which was presented by Air Transport World and Leeham Co. in Washington, Pratt and Whitney officials said that their GTF completed 250 hours of bench testing, and has achieved a 15 per cent improvement in fuel burn. The company's initial target was 12 per cent over comparable 737/A320 powerplants.

Pratt's new engine will start flight tests next week hooked to Pratt's 747SP, before heading to Toulouse for testing on an A340-600 later this summer.

Pratt's vice president for technology and environment Alan Epstein said testing has been "unusually boring". He had earlier said that tests simulated the engine's 30,000 horse power gears to 40,000 take offs with no significant wear, and told attendees of the conference that the GTF would deliver a 50 per cent reduction in Nox, and a saving in CO2 emissions equal to 1,500 tonnes per aircraft per year.

The area affected by noise will be reduced a massive 72 per cent, he said.

For his part, GE Aviation manager for advanced applications, strategy and evaluations, Steve Csonka, was optimistic of  ''technologies on the horizon'' that promise a step change in fuel consumption. Csonka said that change is linked to achieving burn reductions on single-aisle engines that are realised on wide body aircraft with two-stage, high-bypass engines.