Pratt & Whitney’s new generation jet engine got a boost last week from the Obama Administration. In the Administration’s $2.3 billion tax credit package for clean tech is a $110 million tax credit for P&W to retool the factory that will produce the new engine.

Pratt & Whitney has been developing a geared turbofan jet engine for the Bombardier and Mitsubishi regional jets that will cut fuel consumption by 12 to 15% and cut emissions by 12%. In P&W’s next generation engine design, a big, slow fan pushes air into a small, fast turbine which allows a smaller, lighter engine to produce the same amount of power as a larger conventional one. The P&W Pure Power PW1000G engine, which won the Popular Science “Best of What’s New” award last year, is expected to used on the 2013 and 2014 jets.

While more attention has been focused on new airliner technology such as Boeing’s Dreamliner, the Wall Street Journal notes, that ” . . .the real battleground for aviation over the next two decades could play out among the small, regional jets . . . that play an increasingly large role in air transportation in the U.S, Latin America and Asia.”

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haEBmLskfZg

Copyright 2010 — K.J.Collins