The Only Manufacturer of the Dreamliner Auxiliary Power Unit In
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AIRCRAFT ENGINES Raoul Popescu, the Vice-President of the Management Board of Pratt & Whitney Rzeszów for APU service and repair, the managing director of the engine and repair plant - plant no. 2 Photo PW AeroPower Pratt & Whitney AeroPower Rzeszów The only manufacturer of the Dreamliner auxiliary power unit in the world! Jerzy Gruszczyński was talking to Raoul Popescu, the President of the Board of Pratt & Whitney Aero Power Rzeszów, about the potential of the company in the field of auxiliary engines construction, perspectives and the place on the map of the Aviation Valley Association. Pratt & Whitney Aero Power Rzeszów is an "PZL-Rzeszów" S.A. plant and in 2009 it was Poland Sp. z o.o. (now Pratt & Whitney interesting company, dealing with modern decided that not only aviation parts will be AeroPower Rzeszów), which was supposed to technologies for auxiliary power units intended produced in Poland, but also the whole power operate in the field of the assembly and repairs of for aviation; however it is not widely known in units. We have decided to begin with the APU, auxiliary engines. Poland. How did your business in Poland because all the processes related to assembly, Who are your clients? begin? quality monitoring and procurement are similar to In 2011, we handed over our first engine. It had Our company is a part of the United Technologies the ones applicable to the main engines. We started great results and the clients were satisfied with the Corporation (UTC) group, which used to be in a building belonging to WSK "PZL-Rzeszow" quality and on-time delivery. Since then, our final manufactured auxiliary engines in factories in San S.A. (now Pratt & Whitney Rzeszów), as an recipients are Airbus, Boeing and Embraer. When Diego, California. In 2002, UTC acquired WSK independent company Hamilton Sundstrand it comes to our operations in the area of repairs, we Hamilton Sundstrand Poland Sp. z o.o. was set up in 2009, where it was entered and registered maintain contact with airlines across the world- in the Register of Entrepreneurs of the National Court Register. The production of auxiliary power wide. We have capability for servicing APU in units in Rzeszów was launched in 2011. Photo PW AeroPower terms of facility and certification. We are authorised to operate on the e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Omani, Qatari market... virtually across the world. What about the designing process? We created Research and Development Office- using the EU funds granted by the National Centre for Research and Development. In 2014, the UTC Group began the process of shutting down the plants in San Diego and transferring the significant part of the auxiliary engines programme to Poland. To be specific, it refers to 90% of the programme of axial engines. Radial engines are still manufactured in West Palm Beach, the USA. What did the transfer look like? When we were transferring the production and responsibility related to auxiliary engines to Poland, we received the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certificate. It is the first time when UTC has a facility being under European 46 Aviation Aviation International SEPTEMBER 2016 Aviation ENGINES What percentage of your production goes to Boeing aircraft and what percentage goes to Airbus and Embraer? Boeing and Airbus purchase approx. 35 percent of all APU auxiliary engines each. Embraer the remaining 30%. This division does not change as our production volume increases. If you had to increase the production, to what extent are you able to raise it, taking into account the current potential? We have capability reserve for the implementation of the third shift. The production would increase by 30%. We are currently working two shifts and we rarely switch to three shifts, only in case of a production peak on the given day or week. And how is your cooperation with China? COMAC C919 passenger aircraft has been constructed there recently... Have any orders been placed for APU engines? We have been selected and we are waiting for the orders; however, we do not know the volume. This programme is a bit delayed, but I believe that the cooperation is good. The Chinese make progress and we are approved Production Organization for The APS 2300 auxiliary engines are manufactured in Rzeszów for Embraer E170/E190 commuter this APU model, because they do not have bilateral airliners. They supply the aircraft with both the compressed air and electrical energy. The factory in Rzeszów is the only APU engines manufacturer for this kind of aircraft. Photo PW AeroPower cooperation with the European Aviation Safety Agency. Thank you for the conversation. regulatory. Pratt & Whitney Canada is responsible the assembly and tests department, 60 in the for the entire project from business perspective. engineering group, 120 people deals with repairs According to the UTC policy, Canadian plants are and about 100 people works in the supportive responsible for small Pratt & Whitney engines and American facilities for the big ones. Yet, we still need 3 to 5 years to transform all engineering and programme management skills to Poland. What do you have in your offer? We started with three engine models. APS 2300 for Embraer 170 and 190 planes. APS 3200 for Airbus A319, A320 and A321 aircraft and APS 5000, which is installed on Boeing 787. We are the only manufacturer of Dreamliner auxiliary engines in the world! The situation is the same with almost all power units we produce. We are implementing new engines now. We are also launching the production of completely new solutions. There are military programmes and an auxiliary engine from 3000 family, the same as on Airbus A320. We have brand new applications for heavy A400M cargo aircraft - APS 3240 engine, and we also have APS 3240E for multi-purpose Embraer KC-390 cargo and refuelling aircraft. We have also new programmes in the 2000 family, e.g. APS 2600A and APS 2600 M engines. What is the scale of the production? How many APUs do you manufacture annually? We manufacture 500 new engines and repair The plant in Rzeszów manufactures the APS 3200 auxiliary power units for the family another 500 a year. It is a favourable situation for of A320 passenger aircraft and A400M military transport machines. They supply both the compressed us since we produce all APU Pratt & Whitney air and electrical energy. On the lucrative market of narrow-body passenger aircraft, the engines from engines in Poland and we repair a half of all Rzeszów are one out of two options for Airbus. Photo PW AeroPower auxiliary engines in the world - about 1000 auxiliary engines need to be repaired every year. This allows us to monitor and improve our APU functions. There is also a department that repairs engines to keep operations satisfied. engine components - more than 100 people work What is your manufacturing excellence? there. After transfer to Pratt & Whitney Canada, we How many components of your APUs are implemented numerous, very specific production manufactured in Poland, and how many come systems. We transformed the quality system, from abroad? because we are responsible for the whole product In Poland, we get the engine parts mostly from now. The first 2-3 months were difficult. The Pratt & Whitney Rzeszów and we have about 10% worst thing at the beginning was the problem with of all components from there. There will certainly APU parts, due to the centralize procurement be more of them in future. processes. Clients had to wait a bit longer during What components are we talking about? that time, but we reacted really quickly. The crew The sheet metal static structures. quickly adapted to this situation. They worked How is your collaboration in the Aviation hard, so after two months we returned to the level Valley Association going? of 80-90% of deliveries on time, and now, after six Our collaboration is great - we are the Aviation months, we have achieved 100%. Customers are Valley Association member. It is an asset, because now very satisfied with delivery time and quality – we cooperate with two other companies belonging the most important aspects for them. to the UTC - Pratt & Whitney Rzeszów and Pratt How many people work in the factory? & Whitney Aero-Power. About 450 people handling APU auxiliary engines work in our factory. There are approx. 50 people in www.zbiam.pl Aviation Aviation International 47 AIRCRAFT ENGINES What is an APU engine? The pioneering technology applied in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner passenger aircraft is based on the concept of maximum usage of electrical systems (instead of pneumatic and hydraulic ones) to power the aircraft... Photo Boeing APU means Auxiliary Power Unit. The commonly used form “APU engine” means a engine may significantly lower the costs of based power source or an on-board accumulator turbine engine. Its basic role is to supply energy petrol, which would have needed to be incurred battery. (electrical energy and/or compressed air) to the to power the aircraft with main engines. This process is automatic. The only thing the aircraft. It should be emphasized that the APU - Supplying power to the aircraft in the event of pilot needs to do is to set the appropriate switch to engine is not an aircraft propulsion engine. emergency during the flight. When the main the "start" position. This complete start-up process There are three basic functions of APU engine: engines stop working (as a result of a failure or takes about two minutes. If the turbine does not - Starting the main engines. The main engines fire in drive units), power source to the aircraft stabilise on the required rotation in 2 minutes, the are supplied with compressed air or electrical controls also does not work since the electrical start-up is automatically aborted.