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The GE Brief — November 12, 2019

November 12, 2019
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November 12, 2019


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MADE IN MISSISSIPPI


As a young cadet in the Air Force Academy, William Dobbs thought he wanted to be an astronaut. He ended up in the desert instead. Just a few weeks into his classes, in the summer of 1990, Saddam Hussein’s troops entered Kuwait, and the Mississippi native was sent to Iraq — where one day, more than a decade later, he found himself in a B-1B bomber being chased by a surface-to-air missile. Dobbs released anti-radar materials to obstruct the missile’s guidance systems and called for the plane to make an evasive maneuver, and he and his fellow airmen landed safely. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan, Dobbs knew. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them.

A man with a plan: The lesson serves Dobbs well in manufacturing. Retiring from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel, Dobbs — who ended up logging more than 1,000 combat hours flying over Iraq and Afghanistan — took a role as quality leader at GE Aviation’s plant in Batesville, Mississippi. The plant is crucial to the company’s operations, making high-tech components for commercial airline engines like the CFM LEAP engine and the GE9X, the world’s most powerful jet engine. (And GE Aviation made the engines that powered Dobbs’ old B-1B bombers: “I knew GE produced a good product because I used it,” he said.) But when Dobbs arrived, he found a factory fighting to get parts out on time while keeping costs under control. The problems, though, were no match for Dobbs’ military precision and rigorous root-cause analysis — the very skills he’d learned half a world away.

As Monday was Veterans Day, learn more here about the crackerjack Air Force vet who has helped turn the plant around. And see how GE Aviation is supporting veterans on college campuses here.

 

THE FARA-EST OF THEM ALL


In April, the U.S. Army launched its program FARA, for Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, which is pretty much what it sounds like: The Army is seeking the next generation of attack and recon chopper, something that’s high-performing and also agile enough to “hide in radar clutter and the canyons of megacities.” At this phase of the project, different manufacturers have put forth five designs for the Army to consider. Bell’s 360 Invictus is a two-seat, tandem helicopter; Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, calls its Raider X an “agile, lethal and survivable compound coaxial helicopter.” One thing unites these disparate proposals, though: Each relies on a new GE Aviation engine.

Workhorse power: That’s because the Army already selected GE Aviation’s 3,000-shaft-horsepower T901 engine for use in the program earlier this year in yet another competition. It isn’t hard to see why. The T901 taps into some of GE Aviation’s most sophisticated materials and technologies, from lightweight, tougher-than-steel ceramic matrix composites to the complex shapes that only 3D printing can achieve. And the GE engine already has a military pedigree. In February, the Army announced it would upgrade the engines in its Black Hawk and Apache helicopters — those battlefield workhorses — to the T901. The choppers had been using GE’s T700 engines for decades. “I've been working with these for 17 years,” one pilot said,” and have never had a reliability issue.”

Click here for more on the tough, smartly designed engine that will power the next generation of U.S. Army choppers.

 

ONSHORE THING


Offshore wind energy has been getting a lot of attention lately, and for good reason — but wind turbines can be land lovers, too. Last week, GE Renewable Energy announced its largest-ever wind order in Asia, signing a deal with China Huaneng Group — one of China’s largest state-owned power generation companies — related to a 715-megawatt wind farm in China’s Henan province. GE will provide 286 units of its 2.5-132 turbines to the project. Specially designed to work with the unique low wind speeds of the area, the machines represent the company’s deep expertise in wind turbine technology. Jérôme Pécresse, president and CEO of GE Renewable Energy, said, “GE has a long history in China, and we are excited to have this opportunity to continue to learn locally and grow together, with technology specifically developed for the region.”

The way the wind is blowing: China is a key player in wind energy, and in renewable energy generally. In 2018 it was the top market globally for both onshore and offshore wind, according to numbers from the Global Wind Energy Council. That trend shows no sign of slowing, said GWEC’s CEO Ben Backwell earlier this year: “We expect huge growth in Asia through the coming decade and beyond as part of the continuing shift from Europe to Asia as the driving region for wind development.” With deals like the China Huaneng agreement, GE Renewable Energy will be there to help power companies catch the breeze.

Learn more here about the low-wind-speed turbines being installed in Henan.

 

COOLEST THINGS ON EARTH ?


 

1. Good Buoy

Researchers at the University of Rochester used precision lasering to create a metallic structure so hydrophobic — that is, water-repellant — that it won’t sink even if it’s got holes drilled into it. The technique could be used perhaps to build a truly unsinkable ship.

 

2. What’s All The Truss About

Artificial intelligence is good at solving problems within a defined set of rules, but a team at Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering wanted to see if they could get their AI to think a little more creatively — so they asked it to help build a bridge.

 

3. Glass Full Of Data

A collaboration between Microsoft and Warner Bros. has yielded a data storage device that’s made of glass and could last centuries.

 

Read more here about this week’s Coolest Things on Earth.

 

— QUOTE OF THE DAY — 


 

“You need to make the problem very clear and obvious so everyone can understand it. That’s the only way we can solve it.”


Bill Dobbs, quality leader at GE Aviation’s plant in Batesville, Mississippi


 
Quote: GE Reports. Image: Bill Dobbs.

 

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