GE Audio & Video: Podcasts, Stream GE, On Demand
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[[Narrator] I remember when I started working at GE]
[The engines all looked the same, shaped like a football.]
[All that sheet metal hid the technology that laid beneath it,]
[but then came along the unducted fan.]
[Born of the energy crisis, this was a new, fuel-efficient]
[engine that had exposed fan blades, ]
[or propellers, counter-rotating. ]
[What made this possible, though, was carbon-fiber technology.]
[The carbon-fiber fan blades were lighter]
[and stronger and allowed you to do this unducted fan]
[without titanium fan blades. ]
[And it caused a sensation, too. ]
[When it flew, it flew across the Atlantic Ocean to England in 1988]
[on an MD80 to be displayed at the Farnborough Air Show.]
[The concept was proven, but the marketing conditions didn't cooperate. ]
[Fuel prices went down, the savings evaporated, ]
[and the investment in the unducted fan was not justified. ]
[Within 2 years, GE began to build the GE90,]
[the largest commercial jet engine in the world,]
[again, incorporating composite fan blades. ]
[The composite technology allowed larger bypass ratios]
[making the engine more fuel-efficient with lower emissions. ]
[The engine generated 115,000 pounds of thrust,]
[which gave it a Guinness World Record for the highest thrust-class commercial engine. ]
[That accomplishment was made possible by the unducted fan. ]
[The carbon fiber has proven itself in service ]
[with an incredibly reliable record. ]
[That led to GE's latest engine, the GEnx, ]
[which powers Boeing's new 787 long-range airplane. ]
[The GEnx has carbon-fiber fan blades like the GE90,]
[but it also has a carbon-fiber fan case to go with it. ]
[And you'll notice that there's fewer fan blades, only 18.]
[Twenty years ago we had twice as many, but the]
[carbon-fiber technology is more efficient, allows us to reduce]
[fan blades, and has taken 400 pounds out of the engine. ]
[That's almost 1000 pounds out of the aircraft. ]
[And now that funny-looking unducted fan back from the '80s]
[that didn't make it onto an airplane is now]
[The technologies that were demonstrated then are now proving]
[their worth and proving the investment, bringing all the promise]
[of lower fuel burned, and lower emissions, to today's modern jet liners.]
