Story ID: GPhawaiianpratt04112013
Pratt’s GTF Maintains Momentum with Hawaiian Deal
By: Gregory Polek
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Word Count: 239
Pratt & Whitney today announced a contract award from Hawaiian Airlines to provide its PurePower Geared Turbofan for as many as 25 Airbus A321neos. The 16 airplanes on firm order and nine on option could account for as many as 50 PW1100Gs, detailed endurance and operability testing of which Pratt expects to start some time in July, according to the company’s vice president for next generation products, Bob Saia.

So far three development engines have run for a total of some 150 hours. The first, a performance test vehicle, just finished running for 120 hours on a stand on grounds shared with Pratt’s Rocketdyne division in West Palm Beach, Florida. Plans call for imminent disassembly and shipment to Mirabel, Canada, from where the company expects to fly it aboard its Boeing 747SP test bed in four to five weeks. A second engine in West Palm Beach has accumulated roughly 20 hours of what Saia called low-rotor testing, involving the fan and the low-pressure compressor and turbine. Plans call for the third engine to perform endurance testing following a round of certification icing trials in Manitoba, Canada, now in process. Pratt expects a fourth engine, meant to gauge high-pressure rotor and turbine performance, to go to test next month.

Pratt & Whitney plans to test eight PW1100Gs before gaining expected certification in the third quarter of 2014, in time to meet Airbus's fourth-quarter 2015 first delivery target.