Turbomeca is pressing ahead with a radical design for a new generation of helicopter engines to deliver a quantum leap in operational efficiency. “If we do not shoot for a 30- to 50-percent improvement in fuel burn for 20 to 30 years from now, the helicopter will be no more than an airshow attraction and will no longer be a business tool,” the French company’s president Pierre Fabre told AIN. “Also, we have to reduce pollution and noise if there is to be a future for vertical flight.”
According to Fabre, Turbomeca hopes to be able to deliver by 2015 new engines that offer a 14-percent improvement in fuel burn. It then intends that further engines available from 2030 should achieve a 35-percent improvement. He believes that the technology available in the 2015 engine will represent the performance limit of the existing gas turbine and that beyond that Turbomeca will need to offer technology as advanced as the open-rotor powerplants now being considered for fixed-wing aircraft.
