Engine Seen As Potential Replacement For Apache, Black Hawk Helicopter Turbine

The Advanced Turbine Engine Company, LLC (ATEC), a Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney joint venture, has successfully completed the Preliminary Design Review by the US Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) and other government customers for the Advanced Affordable Turbine Engine (AATE) technology demonstrator program.

The advanced engine is planned as a potential retrofit for the T700 engine now powering UH-60 Black Hawk and AH-64 Apache helicopters. The AATE demonstrator program is designed to validate the technologies needed to achieve the Army's aggressive performance goals of 65 percent improvement in shaft horsepower (SHP)/weight ratio and a 25 percent improvement in fuel consumption for the next-generation 3,000 SHP turboshaft engine.

"The successful Preliminary Design Review demonstrates the innovation of this new engine design and the ATEC team's strong commitment to our customer," said Dave Katariya, ATEC program director and Honeywell program manager. "This new engine will provide an innovative solution for the Army's power requirements, as well as help lower fuel consumption by delivering greater efficiencies."

"Successful completion of the PDR is the first of many major milestones for the AATE program as we develop this advanced engine," said Jerry Wheeler, ATEC deputy program director and Pratt & Whitney program manager. "The ATEC team is focused on leveraging the industry leading strengths of Pratt & Whitney and Honeywell to meet the Army's performance goals for the next generation turboshaft engine."

With the completion of PDR the ATEC team will now focus on execution of Detailed Design and the beginning of validation testing. Validation testing will begin in 2009 and will continue through full engine testing in 2011.

The $109 million AATE contract was awarded to ATEC by the US Army in May 2008.

FMI: www.pw.utc.com, www.honeywell.com