Future of Flight
Flight Path: A Look Back at GE Aerospace’s Progress to Reduce Emissions in 2023
Two years ago, the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), of which GE Aerospace is a member, set an ambitious goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. To gauge the progress the industry has made toward that target, GE Aerospace this summer commissioned a survey of 325 aviation decision makers in the U.S., the U.K., China, India, the UAE, and France.
Dubai Airshow
Getting Granular: How GE Aerospace Engineers Used Science to Solve an Engine Durability Problem
The LEAP engine, the high-bypass turbofan produced by CFM International, the 50-50 joint company between GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines, has built a reputation as a leader in efficiency and asset utilization. In airline service, it is demonstrating better durability in neutral environments than the previous-generation CFM56 product line at the same point in that engine’s life.
Manufacturing
How One GE Aerospace Plant Used Lean to Produce a New CFM56 High-Pressure Turbine Blade
By mid-2020, normal routines around the world had ground to a halt. Early-stage quarantine plans to make the best of the spare time — to get in shape or learn a new skill — were giving way to languor and endless doomscrolling.
Jet engines
“It All Started With QCSEE”: A Revolutionary Engine Finally Takes the Spotlight
The dawn of the jet age gave birth to the concept of the global village. Once jet engines made the jump from military fighters to civilian planes in the 1950s, commercial passenger service could carry people farther and faster than ever before. Fares dropped, ticket sales quadrupled, and by 1972 almost half of all Americans had traveled by air.
Paris Air Show
How RISE Arose: The Story Behind Decades of Innovations That Bring CFM to a Pivotal Moment
In 1941, the United States government asked GE to develop the first American jet engine. Allied defense, industrial collaboration, technological advancement, and economic growth were at stake. GE delivered the very next year.
Now, more than 80 years later, GE Aerospace finds itself at the cusp of another era-defining moment. With climate change impacting communities and economies around the world, the aerospace industry is in the midst of what feels to some like a seismic shift.
Paris Air Show
As Aviation Fans Head to Paris Air Show, a Survey of Industry Leaders Shows Broad Support for Sustainability
Next week at Le Bourget Airport, north of Paris, more than 300,000 people are expected to descend — many of them literally, from the skies — for the oldest and most important gathering of the aviation industry. It’s a tradition going back to 1909, when a Blériot type XI monoplane captivated showgoers after having completed, just months before, the first successful flight across the English Channel.
India
‘The Backbone of Indian Aviation’: GE Aerospace, CFM Close One of Commercial Aviation’s Largest Deals Ever
Vikram Rai remembers well the days when air travel was rare in India. He didn’t fly outside his native India until he was 25. His father’s first time abroad came when he was 48, and his grandfather never left the country. “We had no opportunity to buy a plane ticket back then,” Rai recalls. “There wasn’t much international business in India, and the infrastructure just wasn’t there for affordable air travel.” In the years since, Rai has been instrumental in helping India take to the skies.
Farnborough Airshow
Gaining Altitude: Airbus A380 To Test CFM’s Open-Fan Architecture In Flight
With the summer holiday season underway, air travel has bounced back from its lockdown doldrums. But so has the awareness of commercial aviation’s impact on the climate.
Airlines and aircraft and engine manufacturers want to be part of the conversation.
Farnborough Airshow
A 3-Decade Connection: Delta Was The First Carrier To Use CFM Engines. Now It’s Buying More For A New Fleet.
The weather was mostly fair on April 24, 1982, when a Delta Air Lines plane flew on a routine flight from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. It was hardly routine, however, for CFM International, a 50-50 joint company between GE and Safran Aircraft Engines. That flight, on a McDonnell Douglas DC-8-71 aircraft, marked the first commercial use of a CFM engine, the CFM56-2.
Farnborough Airshow
Made You Look: GE Employee’s 3D-Printing Hobby Helps Company Explain Most Advanced Jet Engine Concepts
Alex Hills developed a passion for 3D printing like most hobbyists: He bought a printer and began “tinkering around” with some simple print builds.
A decade ago, Hills, who works as a test hardware engineer at GE Aviation, printed his first generic jet engine design from plans he found online. “It was a real simple model that spun with some bearings,” he says. “I thought it was cool and printed another one that I put on my desk.”