Pratt & Whitney recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of its PT6 engine family, which has amassed more than 500 million hours on a broad variety of aircraft missions in every region around the world.
Since Dec. 12, 1963, more than 64,000 PT6 engines have been delivered to power nearly 21,000 aircraft, company officials report.
The engines power a variety of missions, including:
Firefighting: PT6-powered, single-engine firefighting aircraft help extinguish forest fires around the world at a time when the number and intensity of wildfires is increasing globally.
Agricultural application (Ag): When the PT6 engine team began designing engines for this market, it boosted productivity by 60% over the piston engines it replaced, company officials noted. Since then, eight PT6A engine models have been designed for ag aviation.
Emergency Medical Services: The PT6 engine powers both fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters used by emergency medical services organizations.
Humanitarian Missions: PT6-powered aircraft carry humanitarian aid all over the world, from remote villages using a dirt runway to rural communities.
Pilot Training: PT6-powered trainer aircraft have been used for more than four decades to train future pilots.
The company continues improving the engine, company officials noted. For instance, the recently launched PT6 E-Series is the first engine in general aviation to feature a dual-channel integrated electronic propeller and engine control system, company officials added.