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ITP Aero commits to SAF for all GE CT7 engine testing
July 27, 2023 By Helicopters Staff
ITP Aero at its facility in Albacete, Spain, tested the new GE Aerospace CT7-8F5 engines for NH-90 helicopters with SAF. (Photo: ITP Aero) ITP Aero completed engine testing using a blend of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) with conventional jet fuel at its Albacete, Spain, facilities with the GE Aerospace CT7-8F5 engine, which powers the Spanish Ministry of Defence’s NH-90 helicopters. Going forward, with the support of GE Aerospace and British Petroleum, ITP Aero plans to use approved SAF blends in all CT7 engines.
“The Spanish Armed Forces are firmly committed to minimizing the environmental impact of air operations and, therefore, they support all efforts to meet this objective while also maintaining a balance between efficiency, costs and safety in their flights,” said Colonel Juan Manuel Sánchez Coello, Chief of the OSC NH90. “Today, the Spanish Armed Forces, and in particular the OSC NH90 as the Military Office for the common sustainment of the Spanish NH90 fleet, welcomes this initiative by ITP Aero to promote the use of SAF fuel in its engines, and it hopes that this contribution will serve to promote that in the near future SAF becomes an affordable and available standard supply in our daily activity.”
With more than 100 million flight hours, GE’s CT7/T700 family of turboshaft and turboprop engines operate in all environments around the globe.
Álvaro Santodomingo, Director of Defence at ITP Aero, said: “This milestone is a further step in our commitment to continue advancing the use of SAF and is in line with our objective to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.”
The milestone joins other projects for the use of SAF that ITP Aero is promoting in different platforms of the Spanish Ministry of Defence. ITP Aero is part of the Air and Space Army’s BACSI (Connected, Sustainable and Intelligent Air Base) program with the aim of increasing the effectiveness, productivity, efficiency and sustainability of air bases. As part of this project, the Eagle Patrol flew for the first time with SAF during the air parade of the last “Hispanic National Day”.
ITP Aero designed an instrumentation system to help validate the use of SAF in the engines that power the Eagle Patrol’s C-101 aircraft. The technology developed by ITP Aero was able to automatically measure the temperature of the engine gases, helping to validate their proper operation with SAF.
