Jet engines
Going Very High, Very Fast: Up in the Air With GE’s 747 Flying Test Bed Engineers
It’s hard to get bored when your day job involves climbing into a seat on the upper deck of a Boeing 747 and cruising over the Sierra Nevada mountain range on a regular basis. For Nate Kamps, principal engineer and test director for GE Aerospace’s Flight Test Operations team in Victorville, California, the work — and the view — never gets old.
Jets
With Final Delivery of Last 747, Dave Kircher Sees a New Era Dawning for GEnx
When the last 747-8F freighter rolls out of the completion center at Boeing’s wide-body aircraft factory in Everett, Washington, on Jan. 31, it will be a poignant moment for Dave Kircher.
“In aviation, everybody can probably tell you two things: the first time they flew anything and the first time they flew on a 747,” he says. For Kircher it was a British Airways flight to London early in his career. “I’ll never forget being on that upper deck of a 747. It’s just iconic.”
Jet Engine Testing
Time Flies: GE’s Original Flying Testbed Jets Off Into History
The history of GE and modern aviation are closely linked. Few symbols embody the connection more than the original GE flying testbed, a 49-year-old Boeing 747-100 that served as an airborne lab for engineers testing generations of new jet engines. The plane, the last operating model of the first variant of the iconic 747 jet, made its final flight earlier this month.