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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: 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.