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Russia's Irkut Corp. has shown, in its Irkutsk factory, the first completed MC-21 jetliner. It may be built in versions that carry about 130 to 211 passengers.
The company hopes to commence flight testing by the end of the year. As shown, the aircraft had a pair of Pratt & Whitney PurePower PW1400G-JM geared turbofan engines, but when manufacturing begins in earnest, it may be equipped with the Russian-built Aviadvigatel PD-14, which is still in testing.
The aircraft is scheduled to mark its first flight in 2017 and is planned be handed over to its first customers in 2019-20.
The МС-21 family includes two aircraft with a high degree of design commonality. МС-21-200 designed for 132 to 165 passengers and МС-21-300 designed for 163 to 211 passengers.
Coverage:
- Business Insider
- TASS (owned by Russian government)
- Air Transport World
- Aviation International News
- Sputnik News (sponsored by Russian government; has video)
- Defenseworld.net (Tor-friendly copy)
- ChannelNewsAsia
- Pravda.ru
(Score: 3, Interesting) by toygeek on Thursday June 09 2016, @07:13PM
Geared turbofans are kind of a Holy Grail of jet engine design as far as I can tell. Simpler, lighter, 10-15% better fuel economy, and because the main fan spins 3x slower, 75% less noise. That's a lot of win right there.
There is no Sig. Okay, maybe a short one. http://miscdotgeek.com
(Score: 2) by WillR on Thursday June 09 2016, @07:43PM
/s
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09 2016, @08:12PM
Apparently it's feasible. According to a Pratt & Whitney press release [aviationpros.com], the PW1400G-JM is their third geared turbofan design to receive FAA approval. Aviadvigatel is working on a geared turbofan engine, too ( the PD-18R).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Thursday June 09 2016, @08:34PM
Surely that is how turbo props already worked?
I have to admit I am not an expert in this field, so I might be missing something. However this sounds like the same set up as a turboprop engine, except instead of a 4 blade prop they stuck a fan on it, making it a geared turbofan.
Is there something novel about this design that I am missing, which made it impossible to produce before? Or is this more just the application of old technology in the face of more stringent noise restrictions?
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Thursday June 09 2016, @09:26PM
Yes, turboprops also have gear reduction like this, and already had some of the benefits listed for the geared turbofan. There's not a lot of difference between a high-bypass geared turbofan and a turboprop except for the ducted fan on one and open blades on the other.
The situation is probably that no one had done it yet on a turbofan, not that it was impossible. It just took a while for someone in the turbofan group to look across the aisle at the designs from the turbofan group and have an "I could have had a V8" moment.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Friday June 10 2016, @12:32AM
If Wikipedia is to be believed, the first turbofan engine to be flown was a geared turbofan, the Turbomeca Aspin, which was first flown in 1952.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbomeca_Aspin [wikipedia.org]
With the same caveat, the turboprop was patented in 1929 and first ones were built around 1937.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboprop#History [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by subs on Friday June 10 2016, @01:25AM
Geared turbofans have been in service for a long time (see Garrett TFE731 [wikipedia.org]). It's more a matter of scale, rather than type of construction.
(Score: 4, Informative) by subs on Friday June 10 2016, @01:32AM
It's not really novel in concept, geared turbofans have been around for a while now [wikipedia.org], as have large, high-power turboprops [wikipedia.org] (the effective thrust output of a Kuznetsov NK-12 is roughly equivalent to a 50-60 kN jet engine). The real innovation is the power scale. The NK-12, when it came out, was considered a marvel of gearbox engineering and until the new breed of geared turbofans have sprung up, the most powerful geared turbine engine ever flown in service. The new breed of geared turbofans coming along now provide the equivalent of 2-3x more power through that gearbox than the NK-12 did. That's the real deal.