ATEC to design improved helicopter engine for Army Black Hawk, Apache military helicopter fleets

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., 1 Sept. 2016. Advanced Turbine Engine Company (ATEC), a joint venture of Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney in Huntsville, Alabama, won a U.S. Army contract for preliminary design review (PDR) of a new engine for the Army’s fleet of Black Hawk and Apache helicopters.

The two-year contract, part of the Army’s Improved Turbine Engine (ITE) program, will support the design of an advanced 3,000 shaft horsepower turbine engine: ATEC’s HPW3000.

The primary goal of the ITE program is to produce an affordable new engine that will dramatically improve performance over the current engine powering Black Hawk and Apache helicopters. The Army specifications require that the new engine be 50 percent more powerful, 25 percent more fuel efficient, and provide 20 percent longer engine life over the current engine, while also meeting stringent performance goals in high altitude and hot conditions at 6,000 feet and 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

ATEC completed testing of two HPW3000 demonstrator engines, which have already validated various program requirements, according to Craig Madden, president of ATEC.

“The HPW3000 underscores our dedication to developing an engine that will support Army Aviation superiority over potential adversaries,” Madden says. “We are very confident in the engine design and in the results we’ve seen in testing so far. With the extensive improvements in helicopter performance it brings, the HPW3000 will mean greater mission success and safety for U.S. warfighters.”

The HPW3000 features a dual-spool architecture and utilizes many of the latest gas turbine engine technologies. The engine’s dual-spool architecture offers significant advantages, including optimized engine efficiency, decreased maintenance costs, extended engine life, and greater power growth capability – providing the Army with maximum flexibility as mission requirements evolve and change.
When factoring in savings from decreased fuel consumption and lowered operating and support costs, the HPW3000 is expected to offer potential annual savings of $1 billion, compared with the current engine in the Black Hawk and Apache fleets.

“The advantages of the HPW3000 design mean that U.S warfighters can have confidence that the engine will perform as intended and be capable of performing throughout a wider range of operations,” says Jerry Wheeler, ATEC’s vice president for programs. “The American taxpayer can be assured that we are committed to providing the safest, most affordable and capable helicopter engine to the warfighter so that they can accomplish the mission.”

The Army’s development schedule for the engine program calls for the service to select from competing preliminary engine designs in 2018 and then proceed with a sole engine developer.

The ATEC joint venture of Honeywell (NYSE:HON) and Pratt & Whitney, a division of United Technologies Corp. (NYSE:UTX), combines the engineering, manufacturing, and production capabilities of two industry-leading companies perfectly suited for accomplishing the goals of the Army's Advanced Concept Engine program, officials say.

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