Development and Testing of a Commercial Turbofan Engine for High Altitude UAV Applications

A High Altitude Test Program has been recently completed by Pratt & Whitney in conjunction with NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and MTU (Motoren-und Turbinen-Union, Munchen GmbH) to test an instrumented, “off-the-shelf”, commercial turbofan engine to altitudes >65,000 ft for suitability for high altitude applications.

The two-phase test program has been conducted at the Propulsion Systems Laboratory of the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The 1^st phase (Aug ‘99) investigated the basic performance and operability characteristics in order to identify any shortcomings. The 2^nd phase (May ‘01) investigated the response to inlet distortion and high power off-takes, and included extensive steady state and transient instrumentation in the low pressure turbine for the correlation of analytical predictions.