General Electric : GE Wins $143 Million Deal To Power The King Stallion, America’s Next Largest And Most Powerful Helicopter

Sometimes you have to be more than super to be No. 1. For four decades, Sikorsky's CH-53E Super Stallion ruled the American sky as the nation's largest and most powerful helicopter. But the next-generation version of the chopper, the CH-53K King Stallion, is now champing at the bit.

Lockheed Martin's Sikorsky Aircraft unit is building the new helicopter for the U.S. Marines. It's powered by a brand-new engine with 3D printed parts and other advanced components that will allow the King Stallion to claim the top spot. Lat week, the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command awarded GE Aviation, which developed the engine, a contract to build 22 of the engined valued at $143 million.

GE spent a decade building the new GE38 engine. It will allow the CH-53K to carry as much as 27,000 pounds of external load - some 27 real-life stallions - over a mission radius of 110 nautical miles in hot-weather conditions, nearly triple what its predecessor could manage. At 7,378 shaft horsepower, the new engine will provide 57 percent more power and use 18 percent less fuel, compared to the engines used by the Super Stallion. The new engine also has 63 percent fewer parts, making maintenance easier.

GE has so far produced five factory test engines. They have completed two flight tests and spent 5,000 hours on the test stand. Two of the engines will be 'consumed by live fire testing performed by the U.S. government,' GE says. Ouch.

Even though GE Aviation won't start delivering production engines to Sikorsky until 2018, the company is developing new technology so fast it is already thinking about future improvements. One of them is the Future Affordable Turbine Engine, or FATE. The design pulls together the latest advances from other GE businesses - GE calls this the GE Store. One of them is a new supermaterial called ceramic matrix composites (CMCs), which were originally developed for gas turbines by scientists at GE Power and GE Global Research. FATE also includes 3D-printed parts, another technology several GE businesses have started using.

GE says the FATE design is 35 percent more fuel-efficient and delivers 40 percent more power at the same weight, compared to engines like the T64, which is currently powering the Super Stallion fleet. GE is currently building the first FATE demonstrator in Lynn, Massachusetts, at the same factory where it built and tested the first American jet engine.

Lockheed said a week ago that the CH-53K helicopter has achieved its first 'external lift flight' by successfully carrying a 12,000-pound external load.

The new helicopter will have fly-by-wire flight controls, fourth-generation rotor blades with anhedral, or drooped, tips that make it more quiet and other latest technology.

The Pentagon plans to buy 200 King Stallions for the Marine Corps' eight active duty squadrons, one training squadron, and one reserve squadron to support operational requirements.