© 2024 New Atlas
Aircraft

World's largest jet engine, the GE9X, makes maiden flight

By David Szondy
March 16, 2018
World's largest jet engine, the GE9X, makes maiden flight
The GE9X is the world's largest jet engine
The GE9X is the world's largest jet engine
View 3 Images
The world's largest commercial jet engine, the GE9X, fitted to a test aircraft
1/3
The world's largest commercial jet engine, the GE9X, fitted to a test aircraft
The GE9X on the wing of the 747 test bed
2/3
The GE9X on the wing of the 747 test bed
The GE9X is the world's largest jet engine
3/3
The GE9X is the world's largest jet engine
View gallery - 3 images

The world's largest jet engine has taken flight for the first time in the skies over the Mojave Desert in California. On Tuesday, GE Aviation's GE9X powered into the air on the wing of the company's "Flying Test Bed" based at an airstrip in Victorville, California, on a four-hour test flight to check essential engine functions as the start trials for official certification for service.

The world's largest commercial jet engine, the GE9X, fitted to a test aircraft
The world's largest commercial jet engine, the GE9X, fitted to a test aircraft

Developed for Boeing's 777X next-generation wide-body passenger jet. The GE9X is a monster compared to its predecessors. Due to the extensive use of composites in building the fan blades and the fan case, 3D-printed nozzles, new light- and heat-resistant ceramics, and reducing the number of fan blades from 22 to 16, GE was able to lighten the engine and expand its size so that its fan is now 134-inches (341 cm) across and the entire engine is as wide as a Boeing 737 fuselage. In addition, it can push 100,000 lb of thrust and is 10 percent more efficient than the GE90 engine used on the current generation of 777s.

GE Aviation says it has over 700 orders on the books for the GE9X from customers that include Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Lufthansa, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways. Currently, the company is working on the backup electrical system for the 777X while the GE9X continues with several more months of flight tests to determine altitude performance as well as during other flight phases. So far it has undergone ground-based icing tests at GE Aviation's facility in Winnipeg, Canada, and is conducting crosswind testing at the Peebles Test Operation in Ohio.

The GE9X on the wing of the 747 test bed
The GE9X on the wing of the 747 test bed

The company expects the GE9X to be certified sometime next year.

Source: GE

View gallery - 3 images

Tags

AircraftBoeingAircraftGeneral Electric
8 comments
David Szondy
David Szondy
David Szondy is a playwright, author and journalist based in Seattle, Washington. A retired field archaeologist and university lecturer, he has a background in the history of science, technology, and medicine with a particular emphasis on aerospace, military, and cybernetic subjects. In addition, he is the author of four award-winning plays, a novel, reviews, and a plethora of scholarly works ranging from industrial archaeology to law. David has worked as a feature writer for many international magazines and has been a feature writer for New Atlas since 2011.

Most Viewed

Load More
8 comments
guzmanchinky
WOW! It makes the (what I thought were already huge) engines of a JUMBO look small!
MatthiasPaschke
Will we see a 2 engine 747???
Bob Flint
Assuming the smaller engines were along for the ride in case of a failure of the test engines, so the whole aircraft & crew isn't lost.
MarylandUSA
"Will we see a 2-engine 747"? No, because the world already has three jumbo twin-engine commercial airliners: Boeing's 777-x and 787 and Airbus's A380. https://www.aviationcv.com/aviation-blog/2015/top-largest-passenger-aircraft
frogola24
the ge90 still has the title for the most thrust, at 127,900 pounds of thrust.i wonder if the ge9x could do more without the 10 percent efficiency.
lindsey10
With the declining sales of the Boeing 747's mainly because of the operating costs and fuel consumption. Why don't the Boeing engineers equip the 747 with two engines instead of the four smaller engines for their passenger and freight versions
clay
Seems like the efficient version of the GE90.
Imagine four of these babies (or their brother, the GE90) on a 747-8! :-) Almost fighter jet numbers. Four GE90's on a 787-8 would give 500,000 pounds of thrust to a 675,000 pound bird, just under 1:1 (0.74)! that is a no-cargo weight. Even bagged out, we are talking better that 1:2 (0.513).
Choosing the *sensible* economy model with the miserly GE9x power-plants still puts that million pound bird well into the high performance range. :-)
Grunchy
If you put some mesh or something across the front of it, maybe shaped like a pointy shape, then the chickens cant get inside of it.