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Sometimes you have to be more than super to be No. 1. For four decades, Sikorsky’s CH-53E Super Stallion ruled the American sky as the nation’s largest and most powerful helicopter. But the next-generation version of the chopper, the CH-53K King Stallion, is now champing at the bit.
Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky Aircraft unit is building the new helicopter for the U.S. Marines. Today, GE Aviation took the wraps off a brand-new engine that will allow the King Stallion to claim the top spot.
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Top Image: The first flight of the CH-53K King Stallion. Above: Marines assigned to the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit conduct insertion exercises from a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter into a combat rubber raiding craft. At 7,500 horsepower, the new engine will provide 57 percent more power and use 18 percent less fuel, compared to the engines used by the Super Stallion. The new engine also has 63 percent fewer parts. Images credit: Sikorsky Aircraft
GE spent nine years developing the new GE38 engine. It will allow the CH-53K to carry as much as 27,000 pounds of external load — some 27 real-life stallions — over a mission radius of 110 nautical miles in hot-weather conditions, nearly triple what its predecessor could manage. At 7,500 horsepower, the new engine will provide 57 percent more power and use 18 percent less fuel, compared to the engines used by the Super Stallion. The new engine also has 63 percent fewer parts, making maintenance easier.
GE has so far produced five factory test engines. They have completed two flight tests and spent 5,000 hours on the test stand. Two of the engines will be “consumed by live fire testing performed by the U.S. government,” GE says. Ouch.
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CH-53K will be able to carry as much as 27,000 pounds of external load, nearly triple what its predecessor could manage. Image credit: GE Aviation
Even though GE Aviation won’t start delivering production engines to Sikorsky until 2018, the company is developing new technology so fast it is already thinking about future improvements. One of them is the Future Affordable Turbine Engine, or FATE. The design pulls together the latest advances from other GE businesses — GE calls this the GE Store. One of them is a new supermaterial called ceramic matrix composites (CMCs), which were originally developed for gas turbines by scientists at GE Power and GE Global Research. FATE also includes 3D-printed parts, another technology several GE businesses have started using.
GE says the FATE design is 35 percent more fuel-efficient and delivers 40 percent more power at the same weight, compared to engines like the T64, which is currently powering the Super Stallion fleet. GE is currently building the first FATE demonstrator in Lynn, Massachusetts, at the same factory where it built and tested the first American jet engine.
Lockheed said a week ago that the CH-53K helicopter has achieved its first “external lift flight” by successfully carrying a 12,000-pound external load.
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The new GE engines have already completed more than 1,000 engine hours of powering the U.S. Marine Corps’ CH-53K Heavy-Lift Ground Test Vehicle in Florida. Image credit: Sikorsky Aircraft
The new helicopter will have fly-by-wire flight controls, fourth-generation rotor blades with anhedral, or drooped, tips that make it more quiet and other latest technology.
The Pentagon plans to buy 200 King Stallions for the Marine Corps’ eight active duty squadrons, one training squadron, and one reserve squadron to support operational requirements.
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The King Stallion sports fourth-generation rotor blades with anhedral, or drooped, tips that make it more quiet. Image credit: Sikorsky Aircraft