Pratt & Whitney has some good news to celebrate regarding its Geared Turbofan™ (GTF) engine, along with its customer Embraer: the jet builder’s new E190-E2 regional aircraft that features the PW1900G engine has earned “type certification” from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the European Aviation Safety Administration (EASA), and the Brazilian Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil (ANAC.)
"Today is a day for celebration for all parties involved in the E2 program: Embraer's employees, our customers and suppliers,” stated John Slattery, Embraer Commercial Aviation president and CEO.
Type certification is an inspection and evaluation process that the aviation regulatory agencies conduct in order to establish the air-worthiness of aircraft. The process reviews both the airframe and its flight systems to ensure an aircraft meets all criteria for safety and airworthiness.
The E190-E2 is one of the three Embraer E-Jets narrow-body, medium-range twin-engine aircraft that will have a commercial debut this year. Widerøe, a Norway-based regional airline, will be the launch customer for E190-E2. It’s scheduled to receive the first E190-E2 in April, and regular service is expected to follow that date, reportedly on April 24 in a flight from Bergen to Tromso, Norway.
The E2 jets include the E175-E2, E190-E2, and E195-E2, announced in 2011 as an expansion of the already established E-Jet platform, able to carry 100-150 passengers, with improved fuel economy and lower maintenance costs. It was intended to compete with the Bombardier C-Series aircraft.
For Pratt & Whitney the certification serves as a reaffirmation of its GTF engines, which were the subject of some performance-related issues on Airbus A320neo aircraft in February. Now resolved, the problems related to a redesigned knife-edge seal attached to thePW1000G’s high-pressure compressor aft hub.
When the Airbus incidents emerged early last month, the European Aviation Safety Agency issued an emergency airworthiness directive regarding the Pratt & Whitney engines.
Slattery continued: “In programs with the level of complexity of the E2, to receive type certificate perfectly on schedule is a testament to outstanding teamwork. In that context, I want to especially recognize Pratt & Whitney's central role and support in this process and congratulate our friends there on the outstanding capabilities of the GTF engine which will power the E2 for decades to come."
