GE9X begins assembly

The new GE9X engine, for the 777X family has begun assembly, with the core coming together at the GE facility in Ohio. This engine is going to be a beast when complete. The fan will increase from 128 inches, on the current GE90-115B, while decreasing the number of fan blades to only 16. Each blade will be 5 feet long. The high pressure core was assembled in 2015, and exceeded the goal of a 27:1 pressure ratio, and redline speeds. Ground tests start in the second quarter.

General Electric is gearing up for test runs of the first GE9X turbofan as components of the initial engine come together at its Evendale, Ohio, facility.

The engine is in development for Boeing’s 777X series and will be the largest turbofan ever produced in terms of physical dimensions. The overall fan diameter will measure 134 in.; the GE90-115B, currently the world’s biggest and most powerful engine, is 128 in. The GE9X will be equipped with only 16 fan blades, with each individual blade measuring more than 5 ft. in length.

aviationweek.com...

Sometime ago I watched a documentary "How to build a Jumbo Jet engine" although it was a Rolls Royce Trent engine the level of Engineering they put on those Turbofans is incredible

a reply to: manuelram16

The tolerances are incredible, but it doesn't take much to damage them. We used to have to have a sweeper clean the ramp around the F-16s when they were leaving, because they'd pull everything up off the ramp, through the engine. A small rock can damage a fan blade.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That's interesting. And makes sense. The amount of air going into the engine is incredible.

I wouldn't want to be in front of that when it gets up to speed.

a reply to: grey580

It's fun driving behind them at power. We used to have to go in close behind our C/EC-135s with the TF33 engines, while they did power runs, doing leak checks as they ran. Makes a teeny bit of noise inside the vehicle. Used to love that smell too.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Used to get pushed nicely along the apron on a pushbike up to H85 at Mascot if you caught a plane taxiing out of dom cargo at the right time.

a reply to: Blackfinger

Our normal run spot was on the asphalt ramp, so every two years or so they'd have to redo the asphalt, because the exhaust would eventually tear chunks out of it and send it flying. Especially with C-130s for some reason.

We had to move our power run spot out to the AMC ramp, because it was concrete. They put a -135 on the run spot below the ground tower, and did a power run one day. The guy in the tower watched the windows flexing as they were running, and suddenly there was a pop, and one of the windows was just gone, and went crashing down to the ramp, next to the airplane. I'm not sure who it scared more, the guy in the tower, or the crew guys standing around on the ramp.

a reply to: Blackfinger
Boy you are old Blackfinger. They haven't allowed pushbikes there in at least 10 years and H85 was bulldozed last year for the new Domestic exit road. Of course these days its even more fun crossing the live taxiway between H271 and H96 next to Dom 1 as a 737 is pushing back or a Dash 8 appears out of nowhere. Talk about buffeting on the van!

LEE.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Can you imagine doing a fan blade lube on that sucker? You will damn near need a hoist to get the blades off the hub! At least there would only be 16 of them as opposed to nearly double that number on older engines I guess.

LEE.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Actually I am amazed by the damage they will take as well. I have seen whole rabbits ingested at takeoff power and only a couple of blades were bent enough to warrant changing. having said that I once saw a Starling that entered the front end of a CF-6 and wrote off 3 IGV's and a T/R blocker door in one go. Not bad for a bird that weighed only probably 150 grams.

LEE.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah, paying attention to where you park seams sort of important.

a reply to: Zaphod58

What are we looking at in terms of Horsepower and Thrust as compared to the previous record holder engine on the 777

a reply to: BigTrain

They initially decreased it to around 90,000 pounds, but concerns were raised about warm area departures, so they bumped it back up. Currently it stands at 102,000 pounds. The big gain comes in terms of fuel consumption, and emissions. It will have a 10% improvement over the -115B, and 5% over any twin aisle aircraft in 2020. It will also have an 8db improvement over Stage 5 noise requirements, and a 30% margin over CAEP 8 emissions requirements.

These were taken in April near Edwards of the Rolls Royce 747 with the test engine mounted in the #2 position. They had to angle the engine 6 degrees to get enough ground clearance, due to the inlet size.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Clearly chemtrail production is vastly improved on the new engine.

totally awesome output of airborn horsepower

in that pic

It would be an interesting hypothetical engineering exercise to see what the fuel burn gains from re-engineering the 748 wing to take 2 GE9X engines in place of 4 legacy RR, P&W or GE engines of either the 744 or 748 would be. I suspect performance would improve markedly all round. Total wetted area would likely decrease as would frontal area even with the much larger fan. Weight would also be down I suspect even with the need to beef up certain parts of the wing box and spar structures. I would love to see the per hour fuel burn rates in comparison as I suspect you could see north of a 25% improvement.

a reply to: thebozeian

A two engined 747 is something of nightmares. It's just immoral and wrong, and unnatural.

Could they use something like this on the A380?

That aircraft needs to be the future because I hate cramped aircraft, if they could make it super efficient that would be awesome!!

Imagine the A380 being profitable at 3/4 full with everyone having space!

a reply to: C0bzz
You sound like some of the old time 747 lovers I work with. Next you will be telling me how much you hate AIrbus.