Turbomeca offers partnership

French engine maker Turbomeca, a part of Safran Group, is ready to extend its ongoing partnership with Russian Helicopters to the level of global industrial co-operation, the company’s CEO Olivier Andries told Show Observer. The OEM is currently developing a family of new generation engines in 2,500-3,000 shp class, the first member of which is the RTM322 now in the works. It is also developing a perspective technology demonstrator Tech3000, which is a new compressor and hot section to be later integrated into the future engines. Turbomeca aims at offering a new engine for heavy helicopter (above 10 tons) market by 2020, Andries said. “We are proposing such engine for Russian applications. And we are ready to cooperate with the Russian industry – the ODK, Russian Helicopters – on the development, production and support of that engine on typical 50/50 partnership basis,” he said. During HeliRussia-2014 Turbomeca top managers expect to discuss their proposal with the Russian delegation. “If we move forward this is going to be a very big step in the industrial co-operation with Russia” – Andries commented, noting that Safran Group has a successful history of such co-operation, namely the SaM146 engine developed jointly with NPO Saturn.