Welcome to GE on Demand.
Your "behind the scenes look" at GE's technology and ideas and the people who make it happen.
We hope you like what you find. Hi, this is Tom Brisken.
I am with GE Aviation located in Cincinnati, Hi, this is Tom Brisken.
I am with GE Aviation located in Cincinnati, excited with the results so far.
We are not surprised that the technology is taking off but we are surprised how fast it's taken off.
We have currently passed this $10 billion sales mark with 830 engines on order and that's before we have even certified the product, and I think that's the confidence that the airlines and the airframers, Boeing in particular have placed in the GEnx project because of the technology level that we have in the engine.
It's 15% lower fuel burn than the engine we are replacing which is the CF6-80C2 has half the noise footprint and has emissions that are 40% reduced related to the factor outside emissions that the engine produces and also 15% less carbon dioxide.
So customers like that equation and they like the fact that our engine comes off of the GE90 Family which has been extremely reliable in the field and they know that GE will execute.
This program is a greater example of our best and delivered strategy investing heavily upfront, developing the state of art technology and then delivering it for 30 years to customers meeting their important requirements.
GE has invested over $1 billion in just the development program alone and then we also had to make a healthy investment to help Boeing with the 787 Airplane developments.
So we are in lockstep with aircraft manufacturer.
So this is a huge investment in a new product.
However, we are going to be producing this engine for 30 years.
Our first engine goes out later this year.
The CF6 started producing engines in early 1980s.
It is still in production.
The GEnx will follow soon.
We all know what's happened to the fuel.
GEnx will follow soon.
We all know what's happened to the fuel.
When we started designing this engine, you know oil was at about $30-$35 a barrel and we all know that it's over $60 today and who knows where it will go in the future.
So #1 CTQ for the customer is lower fuel burn, reduce my cost of ownership, allow me to have a profitable business.
We are helping our customers now with the technology that we have in this engine to reduce that fuel burn, cost of ownership with Boeing until the 20% versus what they are flying today And now the emission side is obviously more and more important, You can't pick up a newspaper any day of the year and read about the CO2 reduction that carbon trading going on in Europe, smog around airports, and so I think with the technology of our new TAPS combustion system that has really attracted airlines and they know that if they buy the GEnx engine that they are going to be good for the next 20 to 30 years with this technology in meeting more stringent requirements coming in the future and this thing is going great, we've got six engines on test, we've got over 1000 hours, over 600 cycles, we are just about ready to finish up our icing testing in Malibu, Canada where it's nice and cold, we get all the points run there, we are doing HEL testing now and in Cincinnati at our people's outdoor test facility.
Testing is going very well.
We are on schedule to certify this engine as we have committed to Boeing in September of this year, in about a month we are going to start running the most critical path engine which is the block test engine.
This is where we run the engine at Max Core Speed, Max Fan Speed and Max Temperature, those conditions will never ever be seen in the field but it's a way that we run to the most severe conditions for 150-hour block test to certify that the engine does meet all the durable requirements not only for the FAA, but for ourselves.
Well, we are actually going to ship 18 production engines this year, 81 production engines next year, and that's all we have had of our first delivery to China Eastern Airlines in June, 2008.
Of course the Olympics Beijing, you know September-October of 2008 and I am sure these airlines are going to be very proud of flying their new aircraft into Beijing.
skip to secondary navigation