I'm not dissing lightsaber in the least...He definitely has the inside track on all things engine.
It's just I'd rather be cautious and wait for something official, especially since this is the first I've heard of this issue. Maybe it's been out there, but I haven't seen it, so I'm somewhat suspicious. I've been disappointed by credible sources before.
If Aspire is a Boeing fanboi site and they dis Airbus, (and I don't check it out often enough to see any trend), I am not inclined to take their word for much on news, especially since their reputation, overwhelmingly, is that they tend to be one sided.
I don't see anything wrong with having a fanboi site...as long as skewed opinion isn't passed off as news.
The dreamliner was all kinds of messed up but as screwed up as it was, not every inside rumor turned out to be true...some turned out not so bad...though others proved to be much worse.
I fully agree that the
GTF route will be the way going forward...I have guessed for some time now that
GE has gearboxes spinning away in labs, if not actually mounted to test engines. Even
RR is. As for their reported shortfall, I'm just taking a wait and see approach.
Both
GE and
RR have some pretty robust gearboxes on their turboprop/helicopter engines. That gives them some place to start.
The step after that will be variable pitch fans...and I believe the Superfan will have that. Soon, everybody will.
I think my opinion of this generation of narrow body engines is that the
GTF has more room to grow but
GE is very good at working on the bleeding edge. They can do some crazy things with materials, they have deep pockets, and they are drawing on experience, from a lot of very good engines, GE90, CFM56, and the GEnx. Much of what they are doing is also going into their Passport engine. I'm inclined to give them the benefit of doubt...for now.
If anybody can squeeze every bit of potential out of that form factor,
GE can.
So, yes, I'm taking a wait and see approach...and it's not because I'm a fanboi of any particular engine...I'm a fanboi of pretty much every engine.