Sikorsky provided more details about the newly-announced 1,200-pound (544 kilogram) gross weight expansion (GWE) for the S-92 at a program update at Heli-Expo 2015 on Wednesday — and revealed that test flights have begun on a new variant of the General Electric CT7-8A engines used to power the aircraft.
The GWE will be offered as an option on new aircraft entering production in 2015, and available as a kit for S-92s already in operation.
“[We’re] making it very simple to retrofit the gross weight expansion, so for an increase of 1,200 pounds, it’s simply a 10-pound kit for the aircraft in the field,” said Audrey Brady, director of S-92 programs at Sikorsky. “[It involves] a series of doublers and stringers, clad to the aircraft, to get it structurally available for the higher gross weight.”
The kits are scheduled to be available around the third quarter of 2015.
News of the GWE certification from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was announced at the same time as FAA certification of the S-92’s integrated traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) II. “TCAS II increases the already outstanding safety of the aircraft and enhances the previous TCAS I option capability by providing resolution advisory,” said Brady.
She also revealed that Sikorsky was involved in a program to certify the GE CT7-8A6 engine on the S-92, with flight tests beginning on one of the company’s aircraft at its facility in West Palm Beach, Fla., at the end of 2014.
The engine itself was certified in May 2012, at the same time as the CT7-8A7 variant used to power the military variant of the aircraft — the CH-148 Cyclone.
“[The CT7-8A6] helps us in the high, hot environments where our customers want to take full advantage of that new increase in payload,” said Dan Hunter, director of Sikorsky’s commercial programs. “It’s also got a significantly increased one engine inoperative performance — and that, as you know, is a very important thing these days in terms of the regulatory rules and what our customers’ customers are looking for.”
Brady said the certification of the engine in the airframe would take about 18 months to two years to complete.
“Then we’re looking at what’s next for the S-92,” she said. “We want to go longer range, we have to look at more fuel, we have to look at a quieter aircraft — both internally and externally — so we’re looking at reducing vibrations.”
Finally, she said Sikorsky was working on something that would allow it to predict the degradation of components. “We actually have an algorithm that has been written using [health and usage monitoring system] data,” she said. “You can see and predict if there’s any indications as a part of this tool. So, it’s very powerful, we’re using this data in a whole number of new ways, and we’re getting smarter with the aircraft.”
