GRAND RAPIDS, MI – When Boeing’s new 777X takes flight in 2017, the computer platform that controls the aircraft and its “black box” flight recorder will trace its roots back to GE Aviation’s Grand Rapids operations.
“These kinds of programs don’t come along very often and it’s just huge for our business,” said George Kiefer, vice president and general manager of GE Aviation’s North American Avionics in an interview with MLive and The Grand Rapids Press.
“From a West Michigan perspective, this continues to keep us on the map and prominent in fielding this kind of technology.”
GE Aviation, which employs about 1,500 at its operations in Cascade Township, announced it will build the key components for Boeing’s newest platform after successfully building a similar system for Boeing’s 787. Kiefer estimated about 100 employees will be assigned to the program.
“This is a critical win for GE to supply the avionics computing system for the Boeing 777X, building on the success of our common core system on the 787,” said Alan Caslavka, president of Avionics & Digital Systems for GE Aviation, said in a Dec. 15 news release.
“With the 787 and now the 777X, we have made future civil and military programs more affordable by resetting the avionics cost curve and doing away with escalating software development costs.”
As an updated version of Boeing’s current 777, the 777X has 300 orders and commitments from customers Lufthansa, Etihad, Qatar, Emirates, ANA and Cathay Pacific, the news release said.
The latest systems technology for the 777X, including the common core system and the enhanced airborne flight recorder, will be built in Grand Rapids while the remote data concentrators will be built in Cheltenham, United Kingdom, according to GE Aviation.
With the design of the 777X currently underway, production is set to begin in 2017 with the first delivery targeted for 2020. The 777X family includes the 777-8X and the 777-9X.
The 777X will be the largest and most efficient twin-engine jet in the world, with 12 percent lower fuel consumption and 10 percent lower operating costs than the competition, according to the GE Aviation announcement.
GE Aviation also will be the engine supplier for the updated aircraft. The GE9X engine will be greater than five percent more efficient than anything in its class.
GE Aviation’s “common core system” is often referred to as the “central nervous system and brain” of the airplane and hosts the aircraft’s avionics and utilities functions, eliminating several boxes and reducing hundreds of pounds of wire.
GE’s system for the 787 and 777X share common components and technologies and can be scaled up or down depending on customer needs. The open system architecture reduces the cost of modifying software so that the developer may only be required to test and certify functions that have been altered.
Kiefer said the success of the 787 system prompted Boeing to replace a competitor's system with the GE Aviation system in the latest upgrade of the 777.
The flight recorder for the 777X will record flight crew audio, parametric flight data, and data link communications. This data is stored in non-volatile, crash-survivable memory located within the recorder and can be retrieved and analyzed for maintenance or in the event of an aircraft issue. GE’s flight recorders are on thousands of military aircraft as well as on the Boeing 787.
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