Aerion chooses GE for supersonic engines

Aerion AS2 flying

Aerion has chosen General Electric (GE) as its engine partner for its new supersonic AS2 business jet.

The announcement ends two years of evaluations, with Aerion believing that the aircraft program has become a lot more credible now that the engine selection has been made.

GE will now work on taking the core from an existing engine that powers a commercial aircraft, and adapt it for use on the AS2.

Both companies made the decision to adapt a currently available engine rather than design a new one to reduce the amount of time and costs of developing a completely new engine.

“We have thoroughly evaluated over two dozen civil and military engines from all leading engine producers over the past two years and believe that working with GE Aviation will help us meet the challenging specifications needed to meet our performance objectives, as well as the high expectations of our customers,” said Doug Nichols, CEO, Aerion.

Aerion are now hoping to formally launch the aircraft in 2018, following the results of the engine study.

This will be needed before the design freeze on the airplane, with Aerion saying that the appearance of the aircraft could change, although they aren’t expecting it to change too much.