US Army begins testing GE ITEP engine for Black Hawk, Apache, FARA helos

The T901-GE-900 engine will power the US Army's fleets of Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian, Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, and Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft helicopters. (General Electric)

The US Army has begun tests of the General Electric (GE) T901-GE-900 engine that will power the service's Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian, Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, and Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) helicopters.

The army announced the milestone for the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) on 23 March, saying it had conducted the first ‘light off' of the GE T901 First Engine to Test (FETT), meaning that fuel had been ignited to produce power.

“In turbine engine development, FETT is a critical milestone. It is the culmination years of engineering design work that will verify and validate engine performance models through engine testing,” the service said.

For its testing phase, the T901 FETT is instrumented with more than 700 sensors to capture performance data over 100 hours of run time for the next two months as the engine undergoes a gradual break-in process that builds up to maximum power runs. As noted by the army, this test phase will be followed by engine qualification.