The GE Brief: October 7, 2021

 
A company called 10 Tanker, which operates four DC-10 jets powered by GE CF6-50 engines, is throwing its weight behind efforts to contain damage as the West gets hit by another brutal fire season. Its planes have flown 1,315 missions this year, and counting. Find out more about what it’s like to fly a jet into a forest fire here.

 
On Oct. 7, a Qantas 787-9 Dreamliner named Great Barrier Reef, powered by GE Aviation’s GEnx engines, flew 9,333 miles (15,020 kilometers) from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Darwin, Australia. The flight lasted 17 hours and 25 minutes, a new long-haul record for the airline. The nonstop flight, which carried 107 passengers, four pilots and 17 crew, was a “repatriation flight” commissioned by the Australian government to bring its citizens home during the pandemic. The GEnx engine is the successor of the CF6 engine. Read more about the flight here.

 
This week the Air Transport Action Group declared the aviation industry’s commitment to a goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The group’s members include GE Aviation, which invested $1.8 billion in 2020 alone in aviation research and development, including new advanced materials and technologies that can help cut fuel consumption and even enable hybrid electric design. In June, CFM International, a 50-50 joint company between GE and Safran Aircraft Engines, announced the launch of the Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines (RISE) Program to demonstrate advanced technologies for the next generation of engines that will use 20% less fuel and produce 20% fewer CO2 emissions than the most efficient jet engines built today. Read more about the declaration here and the RISE program here. 

H2 FTW!
Tomorrow is H2 Day, the 6th annual National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day! Hear Jeffrey Goldmeer, emergent technologies director at GE Gas Power and host of the “Cutting Carbon” podcast, discuss the important role hydrogen is playing in the energy transition and the global move toward decarbonization.