Clean is Green

Maintenance supervisor Scott Corso admits he had a hard time believing that washing an engine could have such big results. Scott Corso says "they proved to us on the charts and graphs here's the bottom line guys you're saving a lot of money, a lot of fuel."

Data is what you make of it.

A/A has 4000 flights per day.........typically two engines per flight...........typically two hours per flight.

Total it for a year and you get close to 6M engine hours per year.

The process claims to save 1 gallon of fuel for each flight hour for each engine.

Considering that a typical large turbofan consumes 600 gallons per hour, you'd need a hell of a lot of data to make a case for that "wash" and a saving of less than .2%.

Furthermore, if the aircraft hits any heavy rainstorms in the six month period before the wash, the engines are going to ingest far more water than what that 3/4" hose can possibly piss.

Yes, I know..........it's hot water...........but the compressor has a running temperature of over 500F. near the rear stages...........so, it really doesn't matter...........it all goes to steam anyway.

It's likely BS..........analyzed to death by people who don't know what they're reading.

I think they meant by washing down the entire plane they are saving fuel. I bet washing the plane take off pounds of dirt, dust and soot. Look what happened when AA removed the paint from their planes, it was a significant fuel savings. I agree that hosing down a jet engine seems like a waste of time... unless they are using a high pressure spray on the fuel injectors and the turbine and doing it when the engine is cold enough that the water does not just turn to steam, I don't see how spraying the compressor gets you anything. Any jet mechanics out there to weigh in?

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From Aviation Week

United Airlines signed a multi-year agreement with Pratt & Whitney to use the EcoPower engine wash system on its entire fleet of engines by the fall. This will cover 360 aircraft after United retires its Boeing 737 fleet and four 747s. United plans to save 3 million gallons of fuel annually from washing its powerplants.

United plans to start offering the EcoPower engine wash service at San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. (Dulles) to its third-party customers once the service is operational. The agreement calls for United to do some of the washes and Pratt & Whitney to perform others.

United did not disclose financial terms of the agreement.

Southwest Airlines hopes to save $20 million in fuel costs annually by washing its CFM56-7B engines. The airline started cleaning the engines, which power its Boeing 737-700s, in April with Pratt & Whitney's EcoPower engine wash system. Southwest's EcoPower contract spans three years.

Southwest's engines are getting washed at Pratt & Whitney's service centers in Oakland, Calif., and Orlando, Fla. The Oakland facility plans to wash four engines per night. Depending on the engine, they each can get washed multiple times. For instance, a recent Southwest engine that had been on-wing for 10 years needed five washes to reduce the particulate.

EcoPower sprays water into the core of the aircraft engine and collects water and contaminants. The closed-loop system takes 60 to 90 minutes and costs between $3,000 and $5,000 per wash at list prices. Pratt & Whitney recommends washing engines twice year, depending on the operating environment in which they fly.


The aviation equivalent of "Martinizing" or "transmission flush"?

This airline, with significantly less engine hours than A/A claims to save the same amount of money as A/A via this method.

And, that's after spending $3.2M plus operating fuel for the privlege.

Good luck with that.

I’m not going to get into the actual numbers.
But, I can assure you that a clean jet engine runs smoother, accelerates quicker, and burns less fuel than a dirty one.
And quite noticeably so.

We clean ours with a water/detergent solution and a fine abrasive such as ground nut shells. It’s actually kind of fun.

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Water washing is an old technique for recovering some jet engine performance. AA would save alot more fuel if they got rid of their old low bypass powered aircraft

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I wonder what the cost would be to replace that many MD-80 series aircraft. (JT8's are more like med. by-pass engines)

And, with what?
CFM56 powered 737's?

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1980 300D - Veggie Burner !

A/A's replacement for the MD-80 is the 737-800. They get 15-20 per year for the next 10 years or so......IIRC.

The cost of operating the MD-80 is still relatively low, even with the additional fuel. It carries a lot of people for it's weight and it's relatively easy to maintain.

Water washing, as well as "media" washing with stuff like the nut shells previously mentioned, is standard practice for combustion turbines, which are land based jet engines used to generate electricity, to restore performance to near-new conditions.

And land based turbines have huge inlet air filters, which are obviously missing from aircraft jet engines. Of course many land based turbines run 24/7, so they accumulate significantly more operating hours than their aviation counterparts.

A 747, by the way, uses an engine which, in its land based counterpart, produces about 25 MW (megawatts) of power. Take 4 of those, you have 100 MW of power, which is a significant sized land based power generation plant, enough power for 50 - 100,000 households, depending on where you are. 100 MW is about 134,000 HP. That's what it takes to get a 747 up off the ground... More HP than the largest container ship in the world has, which is about 108,000 HP.

Rgds,
Chris W.

I use to test engines for Pratt & Whitney and we would wash engines to restore lost performance. The washing was done by spraying a water/soap solution into the compressor while the engine was "motored" by the starter. A good wash would work wonders on a dirty engine.

I'm more curious about the numbers - especially BC's assertion that they won't be making any money on this.

I wonder- Are those "list" prices not very accurate ? - At my old company, for some parts (since we bought so many) we paid 15% of "list" price for them. - if cost goes from $3000(list) to $450 (we-love-you-AA-discount) - that might sway the equation pretty heavily.

-John

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