New Facility Allows Comprehensive Engine Testing

Formerly MTU München, the company known today as MTU Aero Engines AG is a German designer and producer of civil and military aircraft engines. The company’s Deutschland headquarters occupies the plant in which BMW once produced its 801 series aero-engines by which the Luftwaffe’s formidable Focke-Wulf FW-190 fighter and Dornier Do-217 bomber aircraft were powered.

On 06 April 2023, MTU Maintenance Dallas Inc. announced it will presently relocate from its current DFW-adjacent location in Grapevine, Texas to a vastly-larger 430,000-square-foot building on Fort Worth’s Alliance Airport (AFW). In addition to serving as MTU’s main North American hub for aircraft engine Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) operations, the new facility will enable the German concern to comprehensively test its aero engines on U.S. soil.

MTU Maintenance Dallas general manager Nezam Moghadassian set forth in a statement: “Our expanded footprint for operations is ten-times larger than our current location, which allows MTU Maintenance Dallas to offer our customers comprehensive, one-stop maintenance solutions at one of the largest on-site service and level one maintenance facilities in North America. Licensed technicians provide rapid response to maintenance needs, whether scheduled or unscheduled, and other maintenance tasks include engine pre-buy inspections, field service engine repairs, and full video borescope capabilities.”

Worldwide, MTU employs upwards of ten-thousand skilled aircraft engine engineers, fabricators and maintenance personnel.

Alliance Airport is among the U.S.’s principal industrial airports, supporting cargo, civil, corporate, and military flight operations. The airport is the centerpiece of the 27,000-acre AllianceTexas development, which comprises 562 companies and north of 55-million-square-feet of office, retail, and industrial space.

Alliance Airport senior vice-president of aviation business development Christopher Ash remarked: “MTU will be a valuable partner as they serve our existing cargo carriers and attract new commercial aviation customers at Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport. Having the ability to test engines on-site will strengthen and expand MTU’s business and provides the necessary engine test capacity, which is critical to their global and domestic customers.”

In 2002, the Europrop International (EPI) consortium was set up by MTU, France's Safran Aircraft Engines, Rolls-Royce, and Spain's Industria de Turbo Propulsores. The EPI entity is tasked with designing, developing, marketing, manufacturing, and providing support for the TP400-D6 turboprop engine by which Airbus’s A400M Atlas military transport aircraft is powered. Readers unfamiliar with subject aircraft are encouraged to envisage the offspring of a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III and a Lockheed-Martin C-130J Hercules.

In addition to the aforementioned firms, MTU has partnered with Pratt & Whitney; General Electric; CFM; the EuroProp, EuroJet, and Turbo-Union consortia; and Turbomeca.

FMI: www.mtu.de