The T901-GE-900 prototype engine installed at General Electric's test facility. (General Electric)
Delivery of the General Electric T901 engine to the US Army is now scheduled for boreal fall of 2023, General Electric said in a statement, delayed from spring 2023.
The delivery has been delayed several times; the spring 2023 date was a delay from a then-projected November 2022 delivery.
The army intends to test the engines and simultaneously deliver one engine each to Bell Helicopters and Sikorsky in early fiscal year (FY) 2024. Both companies will use the engines for their Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) demonstrators, the Bell 360 Invictus and Sikorsky Raider-X, neither of which can take flight without the engine.
Both demonstrators are nearly complete, aside from the engine. The contractors have used inoperative, 3D-printed plastic engines to test how the engine fits with their aircraft in anticipation of T901 deliveries.
“We are laser-focused on execution and working closely with the army to deliver flight-test engines this fall to support the FARA competitive prototypes,” General Electric said in a statement.
The company said the delay was caused by “a small number of components that were impacted by industry-wide supply chain delays”.
The army does not anticipate delaying the service's downselect between the Invictus and Raider-X, the service told Janes . A draft request for proposals (RFP) is expected to be released in the coming months, with a full RFP following input from the FARA contestants. After the RFP, “source selection to a single vendor will occur after thorough technical evaluations are completed on the submitted proposals,” said an army spokesperson.
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