Pratt & Whitney Canada, a United Technologies Corp. (UTX) division, will perform flight tests of the Bombardier Inc. (BBD.B.T) CSeries engine within the next month, President John Saabas said in an interview here.
“The flying test bed is up and operational, and we’re working to bring the first CSeries engine to flight imminiently,” he said. “Certainly, in the next month, but hopefully faster.”
The flights will take place at Mirabel, Que., where the company in May opened a new C$360-million jet engine assembly and test facility to assemble and test the PW1524 geared turbofan engine for the CSeries aircraft and the advanced PurePower PW800 family of engines for the next generation of large business jets.
Saabas said Pratt & Whitney Canada has modified two 747 special performance widebody commerical jet aircraft to perform all of the flight testing to validate the CSeries’s new PW1524 engine.
The engine is exclusive to the CSeries, although it shares a common architecture and technology that’s scaleable for other aircraft makers, he said. The Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engine, which is transforming the aerospace industry, will also power the Mitsubishi regional jet, which seats 70 to 90 passengers, and the 150-to-210-seat aircraft being built by Russia’s Irkut Corp.
The Mirabel facility will have the capacity to build 500 engines a year between the CSeries and the PW800, Saabas said.
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