Neelam Mathews
With over 13,000 large commercial engines installed,
Pratt & Whitney is no amateur
to this business. So lets cut some flak. The GTF engine is a class by its one
and as a Head of Engineering of a major airline told aerospacediary: “ Technology
such as this takes some time to get off ground.” He added: “Remember the
battery issue in the 787s? Now we hardly talk about it.”
Even the aviation
ministry said recently in-flight shutdown cases in A320neos in India are less
than global average but it would do a comparable study to assess the timeline
of teething issues in new engines.
So, at a meeting at the ministry
when senior aviation ministry officials met with their stakeholders to discuss
the GTF performance of the A320neos, the only issue and status to be give by
Pratt was regarding the main gearbox and status of root cause analysis. Pratt
has said work is on and will be submitted to the DGCA in a few weeks. Secretary
Choubey confirmed Pratt is working on resolving the issue related to the main
/accessory gear box.
There seems to be some confusion regarding the main gear box
(MGB) which is a standard component of every engine, with the fan drive gear
system which is unique and central to the architecture of the GTF engine.
There were a few incidents with the MGB on a GTF engine which occurred late
last year and earlier this year.
It is essential to know the main gear box is:
·
A standard engine
component, not specific to the GTF, that provides power for aircraft and
engine systems.
·
The aircraft has three sources of power: two MGBs (one per
engine) plus an APU (auxiliary power unit), so there are multiple
redundancies built into the aircraft.
The MGB sits outside the engine; the fan drive gear system is
separate from the MGB.
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