General Electric T700


The General Electric T700 and CT7 are a family of turboshaft and turboprop engines in the class.

Design and development

In 1967, General Electric began work on a new turboshaft engine demonstrator designated the "GE12" in response to US Army interest in a next-generation utility helicopter. The GE12 was designed and conceived by GE's Art Adamson and Art Adinolfi. In 1967, both GE and Pratt & Whitney were awarded contracts to work parallel with each other to design, fabricate, and test the technology. The Army effort led, in the 1970s, to development of the Sikorsky S-70 Black Hawk, powered by twin GE "T700" turboshafts, the production descendant of the GE12.
The T700 was initially bench-tested in 1973, passed military qualification in 1976, and went into production in 1978. The initial "T700-GE-700" is an ungeared free-turbine turboshaft, with a five-stage axial / one-stage centrifugal mixed-flow compressor, featuring one-piece "blisk" axial stages, with the inlet guide vanes and first two stator stages variable; an annular combustion chamber with central fuel injection to improve combustion and reduce smoke; a two-stage compressor turbine; and a two-stage free power turbine with tip-shrouded blades. The engine is designed for high reliability, featuring an inlet particle separator designed to spin out dirt, sand, and dust. The T700-GE-700 is rated at 1,622 shp intermediate power.
The T700-GE-700 was followed by improved and uprated Army engine variants for the UH-60 Black Hawk and the AH-64 Apache helicopters, as well as marinized naval engine variants for the SH-60 Seahawk derivative of the Black Hawk, the SH-2G Seasprite, and the Bell AH-1W Supercobra. T700s are also used on Italian and commercial variants of the AgustaWestland EH101/AW101 helicopter, and Italian variants of the NHIndustries NH90 helicopter. These are all twin-engine machines, except for the three-engined EH101.
The commercial version of the T700 is the "CT7", with the engine used on the Bell 214ST, commercial Black Hawks, and the Sikorsky S-92 derivative of the Black Hawk, all of which are twin-engine helicopters.
The CT7 turboprop variants use the same core as the turboshaft variants, with a propeller gearbox fitted forward of the core. CT7 turboprops are used on variants of the Swedish Saab 340 airliner, the Indonesian-Spanish Airtech CN-235 cargolifter, and the Czech Let L-610G airliner, all twin-turboprop aircraft. The baseline CT7-5A provides 1,735 shp on takeoff.
In the late 1980s, GE also proposed a much larger turboprop, the T407/GLC38, with a five-stage axial/one-stage centrifugal mixed-flow compressor, an annular combustor with 15 burners; a two-stage compressor turbine, a three-stage power turbine, and max takeoff power of 6,000 shp.
The YT706 engine is based on the CT7-8A engine. Compared with the H-60's primary T700 engine, the T706 has a larger compressor, hot section improvements, and full authority digital engine control. The T706 is rated at 2,600 shp and increases the hot-and-high mission capability of the U.S. Army's MH-60M Black Hawk for Special Operations applications.

Variants

T700: Military turboshaft engine.
CT7 turboshaft: Commercial version of T700.
CT7 turboprop: Turboprop version of CT7.

T700/CT7 turboshaft