A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Business Aviation Services Editor

Curt Epstein

While Gulfstream eagerly awaits certification of its G500, so too does Pratt &amp; Whitney Canada (P&amp;WC, Booth O115A), which will see the entry-into-service of its Pure Power PW800 series engine on the large-cabin jet. The G500 is powered by the 15,144-pound thrust PW814GA, while its larger sibling, the G600, which is expected to enter service by the end of the year, mounts the 15,680-pound thrust PW815GA.

 


“We’re very pleased with the performance that we’ve seen in flight test,” said Scott McElvaine, the engine maker’s vice president for the PW800 series. “We’re pretty close to 22,000 hours of total test time. That’s combined between the 500 and 600. That’s also combined with the test work that Gulfstream has done, as well as the test work we’ve done in both ground tests and flight tests.”

 


Like Gulfstream, P&amp;WC is putting the finishing touches on its service preparations with at least 150 people dedicated to supporting the PurePower platform, and its online health monitoring service portal. The company has completed all of its related technical manuals, and has established its customer training programs, with the first courses already scheduled.

 


McElvaine noted the company is currently busy establishing an inventory of spare parts to be distributed to locations around the globe, and has spare engines ready for eventual loaner swaps. “Suffice to say we’re in a full production ramp-up right now,” he told AIN.

 


The new Gulfstreams will not require P&amp;WC's FAST (flight acquisition storage and transmission) engine monitoring system, as the aircraft ﻿will be equipped to transmit its engine sensor data through its own system. But according to Bjorn Stickling, the engine maker's director of diagnostics, prognostics and health management, the G500 and G600 will downlink to the FAST ground stations to relay full flight data consisting of more than 300 parameters.

 


That will allow the company to make the same kinds of prognostic service recommendations on the PW800 as it does on other platforms such as the PW300 series, reducing unscheduled maintenance events and driving dispatch reliability. "We're proud that we can move with that full experience right into entry-into-service on the 800," Stickling told AIN.

 


As development work on the Gulfstream applications winds down, another project is spooling up as the PW800 was selected earlier this year for the Dassault Falcon 6X, the replacement for the 5X, which was canceled due to problems with the Safran Silvercrest engine. “At this point, we’re still very much in the design phase with them, what’s called the joint-definition phase,” said McElvaine, adding that following on the heels of the PW814 and PW815 will speed the Dassault application. “The good news is that it’s a relatively rapid program and also a mature program.”

 


He described how P&amp;WC began working on the PW800 series in 2010, with it finally entering service in 2018. By contrast, Dassault has indicated a 2022 EIS for the 6X. “You can get to the build faster, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can cut time out in the test phase itself, because you still have to make sure that you meet your performance targets,” McElvaine stated. “However, because Dassault is a very well known customer to us and the Falcons are very well known architecture to us, just that understanding of how each other would like to work, means that...we go through that process with a high degree of confidence.”

 


The PW800-series engine was designed with an eye toward the future with regards to optimum fuel efficiency and the environment in mind according to McElvaine. “With the Talon X combustor technology that we have in the engine, it really allows us to get not the current generation of emissions, but to the next generation of emissions, with double-digit improvement,” he explained.

 


“When you go and look at the new generation of standards, it’s really about nonvolatile particulate matter and it's about your carbon footprint as a whole. Not only do we do well against the more traditional measures, but we size up very well against some of these new standards.”

News and developments about aircraft engines, including turbofan, turboprop, turboshaft and piston.

P&WC PW800-series Ready for Service Duty

While the engine maker prepares for the PW800's entry into service on the Gulfstream G500 and G600, the Dassault Falcon 6X is waiting in the wings.

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Essential news and analysis on the defense aerospace business. Your trusted source for new and ongoing programs and requirements in military aircraft (manned and unmanned), engines, avionics, weapons and associated systems, including ground-based air defense.

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News and developments about airplanes, helicopters and unmanned air vehicles used in all varieties of operations, including airlines, military, business, commercial, general aviation and private.

News about environmental issues relating to aircraft operations, including noise issues, emissisions, and regulations. See Fuel for biofuel.

News and issues relating to the aerospace industry that are related to the science, engineering and business of flight in space involving civil, industrial and military applications, and similar topics related to flight in the atmosphere of the Earth that are not covered more directly by other AINonline subject channels. In other words, both astronautical and aeronautical subjects, except for those aeronautical topics that are specifically covered elsewhere on this website.

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News and information on safety procedures and concerns.

News and issues concerning general aviation, specifically airplanes and helicopters powered by piston and alternative engines (i.e., non-turbine powered aircraft). Subjects include aircraft, engines, personnel, acquisitions, accidents, safety, security and training.

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