PEEBLES, OHIO – GE Aviation’s Peebles Test Operation celebrates 60 years of operation with the opening of a new $40 million indoor jet engine test facility.
The new indoor test facility (Site 5D), which will begin testing production engines by year end, was built to accommodate the growing volume of GE90 and GEnx engines as well as the new GE9X and LEAP engines. The new site is the eleventh test site at the 7,000-acre Peebles Test Operation, located near the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in southeastern Ohio.
GE Aviation’s Peebles Test Operation began as a GE rocket engine test facility in 1954. After a year of operation, GE mothballed the site until 1965 when it helped with certification testing of the TF39 engine for the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy military transport aircraft. The site continued to grow during the next five decades and has seven outdoor and four indoor test sites today.
“Since 2006, GE has invested more than $160 million in facilities expansion at Peebles to manage our growing volume of development engine and production engine testing as well as final engine assembly of GE90 and GEnx engines,” said Brian De Bruin, plant leader at GE Aviation’s Peebles Test Operation. “This year, the Peebles site will test 1,600 production engines along with 70 development engines and will assemble and ship more than 500 engines from our assembly area thanks to the efforts our 340 employees.”
The site’s expansion includes:
- Large-engine production building for the final assembly of the GE90 and GEnx engines,
- Outdoor test stand (Site 7) that is a unique, one-of-a-kind facility capable of testing, commercial and military engines with Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL) and Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) configurations, and
- Two indoor test facilities (Site 5C and 5D) to accommodate large commercial engines, such as the GE90 and GEnx.
GE Aviation, an operating unit of GE (NYSE: GE), is a world-leading provider of jet, turboprop and turboshaft engines, components and integrated systems for commercial, military, business and general aviation aircraft. GE Aviation has a global service network to support these offerings.
From: GE News Release | November 5, 2014
