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-   -   Airbus A320neo: Pratt & Whitney engine issues (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/commercial-vehicles/196854-airbus-a320neo-pratt-whitney-engine-issues-10.html)

There was one more incident reported in today TOI print edition. Engine no 2 went off apparently due to claimed bird hit.

As for using P & W engines goes & what i read somewhere, CFM engines are 30-40% more costly than P & W engines.

(1) Indigo have bought a certain configuration of a A320 airframe married to a P&W engine which is quite different where interface is concerned of that the same airframe married to a CFM engine. You cannot fit a CFM on a plane with interfaces for a P&W. Other than the engineering complexity of a thousand and one interfaces there will be a whole year long certification process of a A320 airframe originally designed for a P&W now modified for a CFM.

(2) The rumour of a CFM costing 30% to 40% more seems totally off to me based on my professional experience in engine leasing contracts. Engine acquisition pricing is a complex matter covering hardware, upgrades, liabilities, spares support level, lifetime support level, lease versus no-lease versus part lease etc. Depending on how you pick and choose data you could prove the engine is free even! - literally. A particular P&W engine contract for 100 engines without support on X , Y & Z could be 40% cheaper than a CFM acquisition of 5 engines with all the support only from the OEM at full price.

(3) Indigo cannot just cancel the contract unless they wish to incur penalties that could half shut the airline down. As for P&W I am quite sure this matter will be behind us soon - it is a hardware issue - it should not have happened and is not acceptable and I expect it is only a matter of time for things to get resolved versus that batch of engines as well as P&W completing retrofitting new engines (hopefully without the problems) to the rest of the Indigo fleet. I can understand an engine shutdown being a very frightening prospect for a lay passenger. It does not stop me from flying Indigo as a carrier.

PS: I have no business or personal connection to Indigo

The new engines from P&W, as well as the 737 Max aircraft from Boeing, would have come to the end users only after so many months of exhaustive testing, trials and certification. So why are they throwing up problems at this stage and not during those stages? Were they not exhaustive enough?

Thank you for pasting the full article. I am responding here primarily to help T-BHP readers who are passengers with the nuances of the situation so that each can take a better decision, for themselves, on their flying patterns.

PS: Never would I have thought that in the late afternoon of my life I would write in support of the DGCA!!

When things go wrong the reaction of a typical Govt Dept is to ban without thinking through the nuances of the many shades of grey and the many branches of the citizenry who will be affected in many different ways. The P&W engine issue is one situation where the DGCA has actually thought through how to balance flight safety within limits with availability of aircraft to meet passenger volume demand with fare prices going to the stratosphere if there is a shortage of seats with what is the probability of a fatality if one engine suffers a mid-air problem. Contrary to the very understandable fears of the flying public an engine shut down is not the end of the world in a twin engine machine. In my day when we tested a second hand or even a first hand aircraft for a client amongst other flight tests we would often {though not always} do a one engine shut down test too mainly to check stability and flying characteristics on a single engine.

Coming back to our case - hence the DGCA has said that no aircraft can operate with both engines belonging to the P&W batch which went rogue - i.e. providing a high assurance that in the event of a mid-air problem you still have a normal engine from the 'good batch' to get back to land. And they have added a few more measures elaborated upon in the article. On a single normal engine the A320 IIRC is rated for a 6-hour flight.

Mind you this is not an ideal situation. It is a band aid. But given that Jet Airways is gasping, Spice has a part of its fleet grounded a ban will only make a bad demand-supply-price situation worse. So the DGCA has determined what is a feasible band aid to keep things from collapsing further while P&W sort out the technical issue. No sympathy for P&W from my side, mind you.

Keeping all factors in mind I think the DGCA has taken a sensible decision without resorting to hysteria. I won't comment on the luminaries quoted in the article as my views might be prejudiced.To say that the DGCA is manned by dodos is incorrect. They are bureaucratic and inflexible and at times infuriating but I can think of several genuinely competent and diligent technical officers in the DGCA.

So A320neo engines, have they been fixed or are they forgotten over the 737max issue.

As per news reports, Indigo has dropped Pratt and Whitney engines from their line up and may sign up rival CFM for 280 aircrafts. The deal may be announced during the Paris Air Show in June.

https://www.businesstoday.in/current...ry/352054.html

I feel this is the need of hour. Their aircrafts were getting stuck at many places with danger to passengers. Looking at this, GoAir may follow suit.

As reported earlier, Indigo has placed order for 280 CFM engines for its single aisle A320s and A321s. The deal is worth 20 billion USD. This would come as a blow to Pratt and Whitney and increase the presence of CFM in India after Vistara and Air India which already use them. Earlier report said engines for 280 aircrafts, current one says 280 engines.

https://www.livemint.com/companies/n...777154435.html

An Indigo A320 Neo with P&W engines operating flight 6E-162 from Goa to Ahmedabad on 15th July developed a snag and returned to Goa about 50 minutes after take-off, as per AVHerald

Atleast 50 Swiss flights were grounded due to engine issues in Airbus A220. There have been 3 separate incidents involving Pratt and Whitney engines.

A220

DGCA has issued fresh guidelines to Indigo Airlines and GoAir with respect to their Airbus 320/321 neo aircrafts. A slew of corrective measures have been issued. Although the news says that DGCA has asked them to change the Pratt & Whitney engines on the said aircrafts, the pdf doesn't mention it explicitly.


Link to DGCA notice - Notice

Link to news - News

I just picked this up on Prune:

it is for the A220, but I do not think we have seen major engine problems like these being related to engine management software before:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-a...-idUSKBN1X31ST

Jeroen

Pratt and Whitney have been in news for wrong reasons lately. First it was the 320/321 neos and now the 220.

How good are the new engines by Pratt and Whitney (not talking about the CFM engines) compared to older ones when we take into account the risk-benefit ratio?

Depends on how you want to define benefit and risk.

On the benefits: We are getting hugely more efficient engines, more thrust, less pollution.

On the risk: I do not think we have seen any accidents, let alone fatalities as of yet. Just a string of various issues, all caught in time and handled appropriately.

Serious enough for various groundings and associated limitations on air worthiness.

Not sure how to put it into a ratio. :)

Engines failing midflight to me is more than just 'issues', and certainly not 'caught in time'.

Regards
Sutripta

i am surprised! I have personally worked on this particular engine series (PW1100 series) during its design, development stage and very well remember putting exactly these lines related to "metal chips in oil in sump 3 and LPT 3 bearings and blade issues to be analysed via Boroscopic inspection" into the maintenance manuals for the ground maintenance crew at testing level. I am amused that this problem has still cropped up or is/was not resolved. I am not going to go into any further details on how we came to this conclusion, as I am not authorized to do so nor I am with that company anymore. This was back in 2009. Now 10 years later this comes to light! :Shockked:

Is there any detailed technical report on this? I am very keen to see what exactly happened and understand why/how behind this.