In 2018 Pratt received 2,000 orders for the Geared Turbofan, raising the backlog to over 10,000 with Over 30 airlines having chosen the GTF.

With Airbus acquiring the Bombardier CS program and Boeing acquiring the E2 program the backlog should grow even stronger. Both companies plan to heavily market their new aircraft.

It looks like customer acceptance of the new engine is strong even thought the initial launch of the engine was rough.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2018/12/19/pratt-whitneys-geared-turbofan-engine-has-had-a-very-good-year/#265660a27e94

What are your thoughts about the Pratt & Whitney GTF?

It is delivering apparently as advertised. That classify it as a successful project. Long term reliability is the only unknown.

"At Pratt, total GTF production continued to ramp up successfully, with nearly doubled GTF production," Hayes says.

UTC's P&W unit delivered 779 large commercial aircraft engines in 2018, up 45% from 537 engines in 2017, the company says. Fourth quarter deliveries did indeed nearly double -- they increased 90% in one year to 247 engines.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/utcs-profits-rise-as-pws-gtf-deliveries-surge-455234/

It looks like the production ramp up is progressing successfully. This is particularly important to Airbus with the A320neo and A220 being primarily GTF.

Palumboism wrote:

"At Pratt, total GTF production continued to ramp up successfully, with nearly doubled GTF production," Hayes says.

UTC's P&W unit delivered 779 large commercial aircraft engines in 2018, up 45% from 537 engines in 2017, the company says. Fourth quarter deliveries did indeed nearly double -- they increased 90% in one year to 247 engines.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/utcs-profits-rise-as-pws-gtf-deliveries-surge-455234/

It looks like the production ramp up is progressing successfully. This is particularly important to Airbus with the A320neo and A220 being primarily GTF.

Question is are they ramping up with engines that will last on the wing for at least a year.

Best news is dispatch reliability!, From OP link:

engine dispatch reliability, meaning availability, on A320neo is 99.9%, on A220 99.8%, and on E190-E2 100%.
Now, 99.8% is marginal for today, but Airbus will work with Pratt.

It will take time to replace defective parts (there is no way they could all be replaced before summer, in my opinion).

100% on the E2, that tells us the potential, but we must accept it is a tiny fleet. But a fleet that should be doing about 170+ missions per week or 700+ per month. So a missed engine dispatch would still be above 99.9%.

All indications are the worst is behind.

Note:. I don't like talking commitments, too many fall through.

Lightsaber

Much like the Boeing 787, perhaps the PW GTF will be known as the miracle worker with a rough start. And just like Boeing and the 787, I wonder if PW feels in hindsight they should have done more themselves instead of more risk sharing and outsourcing with partners. Time will tell, but I have the feeling enough cash will be flowing for them to scale the product...to MOM and beyond.

I have the hunch that PW and CFM still have MOM bids in the running. Or perhaps they could be partnering...with UltraFan in their sights.

GEUltraFan9XGTF wrote:

Much like the Boeing 787, perhaps the PW GTF will be known as the miracle worker with a rough start. And just like Boeing and the 787, I wonder if PW feels in hindsight they should have done more themselves instead of more risk sharing and outsourcing with partners. Time will tell, but I have the feeling enough cash will be flowing for them to scale the product...to MOM and beyond.

I have the hunch that PW and CFM still have MOM bids in the running. Or perhaps they could be partnering...with UltraFan in their sights.

Pratt has justifiably been given a rough ride over their handling of the GTF debacle...and your comparison with the 787 is apt. Both were good ideas, let down by intra company bureaucratic meddling and confusion, which, among other things, offered too much, too soon.

Delays in delivering as promised, allowed competitors to significantly bridge the relative performance gaps.

Ultimately, the basic designs are sound and will stand the test of time. Still...unlike if they had managed to perform as promised, WHEN it was promised, they now face competition they otherwise would have gotten a greater leg up on.

I think Pratt's future will center around the gearbox. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a GE/CFM engine with a PRATT gearbox, on the Boeing NMA.

JoeCanuck wrote:

GEUltraFan9XGTF wrote:

Much like the Boeing 787, perhaps the PW GTF will be known as the miracle worker with a rough start. And just like Boeing and the 787, I wonder if PW feels in hindsight they should have done more themselves instead of more risk sharing and outsourcing with partners. Time will tell, but I have the feeling enough cash will be flowing for them to scale the product...to MOM and beyond.

I have the hunch that PW and CFM still have MOM bids in the running. Or perhaps they could be partnering...with UltraFan in their sights.

Pratt has justifiably been given a rough ride over their handling of the GTF debacle...and your comparison with the 787 is apt. Both were good ideas, let down by intra company bureaucratic meddling and confusion, which, among other things, offered too much, too soon.

Delays in delivering as promised, allowed competitors to significantly bridge the relative performance gaps.

Ultimately, the basic designs are sound and will stand the test of time. Still...unlike if they had managed to perform as promised, WHEN it was promised, they now face competition they otherwise would have gotten a greater leg up on.

I think Pratt's future will center around the gearbox. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a GE/CFM engine with a PRATT gearbox, on the Boeing NMA.

Pratt would not just sell a gearbox. They would insist on some high value parts. GE won't give up the combustor or high turbine (high profit in the maintenance). So low turbine and ???

Lightsaber

GEUltraFan9XGTF wrote:

Time will tell, but I have the feeling enough cash will be flowing for them to scale the product...to MOM and beyond.

I have the hunch that PW and CFM still have MOM bids in the running.

My personal opinion is offering both PW and CFM on the MOM aircraft would be the smartest move for Boeing and Airbus. Single sourcing engines on an aircraft that would sell in such large volume makes no sense.

Has there been any consideration that adding gears to an engine increases complexity and therefore maintenance costs and an added failure point?

The article points out that Rockwell Collins, having been acquired by UTC, is now their "Collins Aerospace" division. No Rockwell. Sorry to see that name go...

Most of you probably don't remember when the ability of a machine to divide numbers was a big deal. In the 70s, anybody who had to do division as part of their job (or academic work) carried a slide rule. I was taught how to use one in high school. That was how you divided, because a typical adding machine couldn't do that. It could multiply, sort of, but it couldn't divide.

Most scientists used slide rules as second nature, and could calculate super-fast with them. They also did sines, cosines, etc.

So when the first portable electronic calculators came out, they were a huge deal and expensive as crap. It was cutting-edge technology. A Rockwell calculator was like $350 in 1975 dollars. Rockwell was a well-regarded brand, and they had a radio ad that I still remember, which went something like:

Rockwell calculators
I think they're really neat
They have big green numbers
And little rubber feet.

My girlfriend in college, who was a worldly, highly-refined ballet dancer but part-time nerd, used to sing that jingle regularly.

So RIP Rockwell...

I think the telling point here is that Pratt put a zillion dollars into making sure they got the gearbox right, and proof is in the pudding that they did.

Where they ran into problems was perhaps a little arrogance about developing the other "easy" stuff, and testing it, leading to the issues they have had. The issues also arose from supply-chain failures or failures of suppliers. But those are not cutting-edge technology, and they seem to have handled it.

As I understand it, engine assembly -- operating the factories -- was a goatrope, but they brought in an experienced executive who consulted with the rank-and-file a lot as to practical, shop-floor solutions, and got things moving and the workers energized.

So should be smoother sailing from here.

wjcandee wrote:

I think the telling point here is that Pratt put a zillion dollars into making sure they got the gearbox right, and proof is in the pudding that they did.

Where they ran into problems was perhaps a little arrogance about developing the other "easy" stuff, and testing it, leading to the issues they have had. The issues also arose from supply-chain failures or failures of suppliers. But those are not cutting-edge technology, and they seem to have handled it.

As I understand it, engine assembly -- operating the factories -- was a goatrope, but they brought in an experienced executive who consulted with the rank-and-file a lot as to practical, shop-floor solutions, and got things moving and the workers energized.

So should be smoother sailing from here.

The planetary gear system has not failed so far but a premature failure can't be ruled out yet. When the fleet leader reaches 20.000 hours without a gearbox failure, we can say that they got the gear right.
It's too soon to cheer.

Also, considering that the BAe-146 also had GTF engines, with a resilient gearing mechanism, it's not like PW reinvented the gear.
The first GTF's came out in the 1950's, so have been around si ce the early days of jet propulsion.

AirFiero wrote:

Has there been any consideration that adding gears to an engine increases complexity and therefore maintenance costs and an added failure point?

Reduces turbine stages.

AirFiero wrote:

Has there been any consideration that adding gears to an engine increases complexity and therefore maintenance costs and an added failure point?

Reduction gearing is nothing new to PW, they have been making turboprop engines for a long time... similar concept, a turbine engine that has reduction gearing. I know, I know, not the exact same thing, but the experience exists in PW.

http://services.pwc.ca/en/engines/turboprops

LDRA wrote:

AirFiero wrote:

Has there been any consideration that adding gears to an engine increases complexity and therefore maintenance costs and an added failure point?

Reduces turbine stages.

Gearbox adds $250,000 to engine costs, but removes $500,000 of turbine.

Complexity? :no:
Maintenance is less than the removed turbine.

Whittle proposed GTFs for a reason.

Could read it just fine. Comprehensive. Need to read and re-read.

Hostage comments make me smile - that's how many aircraft owners feel post-buyer's remorse, where those cheap to buy engines become expensive to maintain. With fixed price ownership and maintenance deals, now it's seller's remorse.

wjcandee wrote:

A Rockwell calculator was like $350 in 1975 dollars.
...
So RIP Rockwell...

Rockwell ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_International ) was the biggest defense contractor in the 80s, and in that time frame, mostly remembered for the B-1 Lancer bomber. They were lucky that Reagan ordered a fleet of 60 B-1B, but we will never know what would have happened had Carter ordered the B-1A as a B-52 replacement.

As for chips:

The company developed a desktop calculator based on a MOSFET chip for use by its engineers. In 1967 Rockwell set up its own manufacturing plant to produce them, starting North American Rockwell MicroElectronics Corp. (called NARMEC). This would later become Rockwell Semiconductor. One of its major successes came in the early 1990s when it introduced the first low-cost 14.4 kbit/s modem chipset, which was used in a huge number of modems.

In the late 1990s / early 2000s the Rockwell modem chipset was the Cadillac of its industry.

If you had a USR Courier back then, it was rocking a Rockwell chip set.

Unfortunately most of what it did was digital signalling processor algorithms that were easy to clone, so it wasn't able to hold its market share very long.

Waterbomber2 wrote:

Also, considering that the BAe-146 also had GTF engines, with a resilient gearing mechanism, it's not like PW reinvented the gear.

Yeah, because engines in the 7,500 lbf (33 kN) class are the same as those in the 33,000 lbf (147 kN) thrust class...

lightsaber wrote:

LDRA wrote:

AirFiero wrote:

Has there been any consideration that adding gears to an engine increases complexity and therefore maintenance costs and an added failure point?

Reduces turbine stages.

Gearbox adds $250,000 to engine costs, but removes $500,000 of turbine.

Complexity? :no:
Maintenance is less than the removed turbine.

Whittle proposed GTFs for a reason.

That’s interesting. It’s quite the opposite on a piston engine. The Cessna 421 uses gear reduction and maintenance is MUCH higher and complicated.

Revelation: Thank you! Very cool!

wjcandee wrote:

Revelation: Thank you! Very cool!

No problem!

It's also cool that Rockwell was the company that acquired North American Aviation in the 60s, inventor of such cool aircraft as P-51 Mustang and F-86 Sabre, yet sold that part off to Boeing in 1996:

North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer, responsible for a number of historic aircraft, including the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F-86 Sabre jet fighter, the X-15 rocket plane, and the XB-70, as well as Apollo command and service module, the second stage of the Saturn V rocket, the Space Shuttle orbiter and the B-1 Lancer.

Through a series of mergers and sales, North American Aviation became part of North American Rockwell, which later became Rockwell International and is now part of Boeing.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Aviation

For those of us with a background in ham radio Collins is a very respected brand, and they also have done great things in avionics. I suppose avionics is why they are the surviving brand.

Revelation: Thanks, again! I remember North American Rockwell and its involvement in the Apollo period of the space program. I also seem to recall that an FM radio station that I worked at in the late '70s to early '80s had some Collins equipment (pretty sure including our control board, that I can visualize like it was yesterday ). What you say about the company makes sense.

If I understand the history - and I may not - western firms were & are far ahead of the Soviets regarding single crystal alloys and turbine cooling techniques, as well as / and hence in hot section reliability. If you cannot compete on T4 (combustor exit temp) because of those factors then your core & overall cycle efficiency is limited (= fuel burn, and overall engine size & weight).

On a conventional turbofan, raising bypass (=fan diameter) adds some efficiency, but requires more LPT stages. A GTF adds a gearbox to allow the LPT to go faster, thus cutting the LPT stage count (the LPT operates at a happier design point).

Given two cores, low and high performance (low and higher T4), then using the low performance core in a GTF might - maybe - match the performance of a conventional turbofan using a higher performance core. But only if the lower performance core was pretty close to the higher performance core.

And that's what has happened. GE claims they can beat the GTF, by employing a higher performance core (ceramics, reducing cooling flows) together with a conventional fan & LPT. Pratt says their GTF beats the Leap, by using advanced cooling techniques and a higher bypass fan. Who do you believe? But, the difference in core efficiency between those firms is probably pretty small.

In other words, the Soviet experience with gearboxes wouldn't outweigh the deficit in advanced turbine materials and cooling. If I understand the history correctly.

Stephan

I find it interesting that six months after this article is written, Pratt loses its biggest customer with IndiGo (the biggest customer for the A320neo) switches to CFM.

The Forbes article reads somewhat like an advertisement