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Pratt 7 whitney Relaunches the PW6000
Pratt & Whitney is taking the opportunity of the world stage at Paris to relaunch the PW6000 engine, the smallest commercial turbofan to come from the U.S. company. It once saw it as a silver bullet against the best-selling CFM56, and, as then-Pratt chairman Karl Krapek told Show News just before the Farnborough Air Show in 2000, “we will launch it at any cost” to regain a foothold in the narrowbody airliner market.
The 18,000 to 24,000 pounds thrust PW6000 is now approaching certification more than three years late on its first — and so far only — application on the smallest and least-selling Airbus, the 107-seat A318.
The aircraft itself is a less than optimum double shrink of the A320, and was conceived as a rearguard defense against Boeing’s now-discontinued 717 twinjet. The PW6000 was at that time given top priority when it appeared that the International Aero Engines partnership that builds the V2500 competitor to the CFM56, and in which Pratt has a major stake with Rolls-Royce, might collapse. Rushed into the field, the PW6000 missed fuel burn specs by at least 6%, and was just as quickly withdrawn. While Pratt engineers started again with a redesigned compressor from MTU, the A318 was certified instead in 2003 with less than optimum CFM56 engines, airlines suddenly found they needed larger aircraft such as the A319 and A320, and sales of the V2500 took off.
So what do we have today? A niche aircraft with rather good engines that actually performs better than anything else on tailored missions, says Steve Heath, president of Pratt & Whitney Commercial Engines.
He is working hard to sign Chile’s LAN as the launch customer for the PW6000, “and a number of other customers are looking at it,” he told Show News. “There are certain route structures where A318s with PW6000s are a better fit than anything else.”
The LAN opportunity has a double twist to it. The airline already operates a large fleet of Airbus A319 and A320s with IAE V2500 engines, and a win on the A318 would not only launch the PW6000 but would also prevent CFM getting a foothold with a Pratt/Rolls-Royce fleet. The V2500 is just a shade too big and heavy for the small A318 and is not offered on that aircraft.
So in this case the V2500 and the PW6000 are complementary. “We do not see the PW6000 as confrontational to IAE,” says Heath.
But does Pratt really need a niche engine in its stable?
“One must remember the PW6000 isn’t just another engine,” explains Heath. It is, he notes, latest technology, state of the art, with 35% fewer moving parts and very low maintenance costs. As such it could have a very good future ahead of it.
The CFM56 sat on the shelf for 10 years before it won any meaningful orders, and Pratt was on the verge of abandoning IAE before the V2500 order famine ended. Now both are the workhorses of the world’s narrowbody airliner fleets.
“These programs can be 30 or 40 years long,” says Heath, adding that airframe manufacturers are beginning to knock on the PW6000’s door. “We have had conversations with Bombardier, with Embraer and with the military,” he says, and he expects those contacts to continue as different requirements evolve.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the PW6000 has been chosen as the donkey for NASA’s Ultra Efficient Energy Technology demonstrator program that will test and develop technologies such as a geared fan aimed at achieving astonishing noise reductions in the order of 40 dB below Stage 3 limits, 10-12% reductions in fuel burn and 30% lower maintenance costs. —John Morris
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