"It's always a huge milestone when you take your first flight," GE Aviation Czech director Milan Šlapák reported as the aircraft made its first test flight. The machine is powered by a turboprop engine which, its manufacturer based in Prague’s Letňany said, is expected to outperform the competition.
"The fuel consumption is up to 20 percent lower than that of competing engines and, at the same time, the engine power is much higher compared to the competition. Up to ten percent," Šlapák says. The new engine uses technologies and materials more typical of jet engines. For example, there is an autonomous digital system between the pilot and the propeller that continuously optimizes the engine's operation.
The engine was tested in the testing room at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of CTU. "It has 450 pressure sensors, three hundred temperature sensors, fifty accelerometers for measuring vibrations and other special sensors," Michael Valášek, Dean of the faculty, described the engine.
Pilots sat in the control room of the test facility, where they could use a lever to control the thrust of the engine. Its operation and the output from the sensors were monitored not only by engineers on site, but also by forty other experts across Europe thanks to an online connection. CTU is already creating tools for predicting and planning engine maintenance.
The engine should be certified next year. It can also partially burn sustainable synthetic fuel made from waste grease. Determining its appropriate ratio will be the next task for the test facility, which is seeking to join the EU's network of research infrastructures.