Pratt & Whitney Canada is celebrating the accumulation of a billion hours on its PT6A engine in the 60th year of the engine’s production.
The company says more than 64,000 PT6s have been produced since 1963, accumulating more than half the hours flown by all the P&WC engines.
The total number of P&WC engines made over the past 100 years is 110,000, of which 66,000 remain in service. According to P&WC, more than 155 different aviation applications are powered by PT6 engines.
The PT6 design was started in 1958 and first ran in February 1960, first flew on 30 May 1961, entered service in 1964 and has been continuously updated since.
It consists of two basic sections: a gas generator with accessory
gearbox and a free power turbine with reduction gearbox.
‘The original PT6A is in a museum in Canada.’
It is mounted backwards in an aircraft in so far as the intake is at the rear
and the exhaust at the front.
Many variants of the PT6 have been produced, not only as turboprops but also as turboshaft engines for helicopters, land vehicles, hovercraft, and boats; as auxiliary power units; and for industrial uses.
“Today’s PT6 is up to four times more powerful, has a 50 percent better power-to-weight ratio and up to 20 percent better specific fuel consumption compared to the original engine,” said P&WC president Maria Della Posta.
“Aviation has the power to change the world. Our engines power aircraft that benefit millions of people every day. Every second, a P&WCpowered aircraft takes off or lands somewhere on the planet, whether they are driving commerce, reuniting families, or powering humanitarian missions, emergency medical services, or search and rescue missions,” she concluded in her statement.
