As part of ongoing US Army fleet maintenance and upgrade efforts, General Electric Aircraft Engine in Cincinnati, OH received a $177.9 million firm-fixed-price contract to continue overhaul support of T700 engines at the Corpus Christi Army Depot (CCAD) and convert engines to the T700-GE-701D configuration (GE notes that in 2004, The U.S. Army announced plans to convert to the T700-701D to power its entire AH-64 Apache and H-60 Black Hawk helicopter fleet). Based on estimated workload at CCAD, GE estimates the potential value of this contract over the next five years at $1.5 billion.
The award follows a five-year, $668-million CCAD contract that was initiated in 2000. This particular program has an impressive list of success metrics during that time frame:
* Overhaul turntimes have been reduced by 80%
* Production capacity has tripled from 500 units per year to 1,600.
* The GE-CCAD teaming arrangement has been instrumental in eliminating all engine backlogs during the Iraq conflict, while sustaining a 3X-operating tempo during follow-up missions.
* Based on this success, GE received the US Army’s 2004 Material Readiness Contributions Award for a Major Contractor.
T700-powered aircraft accounted for nearly 70% of the U.S. Army’s flight-hours in Operation Iraqi Freedom. They power the ubiquitous Black Hawk/Seahawk family of helicopters (UH-60, MH-60, SH-60, HH-60), other utility helicopters (SH-2G Super Seasprite, Bell UH-1Y Huey, US101 Marine One), and attack helicopters (AH-1W and AH-1Z SuperCobra, AH-64 Apache).
Rated at 2,000 shp, the T700-GE-701D features improved hot-section components that provide twice the hot section durability, lower life-cycle costs, and 5% more power than the current T700-GE-701C engine.
This was a sole source contract initiated on Aug. 25, 2005 by the Army Aviation and Missile Command in Redstone Arsenal, AL (W58RGZ-06-C-0038).