Celebrating 50 years of the PT6 Engine

[Avion8]

Well who would have thought that the venerable PT6 is 50:

Celebrating 50 years of the PT6 engine - YouTube

Some great footage & some interesting aircraft.

Cheers Nigel

[Chucaro]

Thank you for the post, the Pilatus PC12 with the PT6 engine is a nice combo :)

[Graz]

A versatile design. Started out as a power plant for pumping oil on an Alaska crude oil pipeline.
A person showed real foresight in developing it as an aircraft power plant.
Also has an excellent reliability history. Only know of a dozen engine failures or precautionary shutdowns in the 35 plus years I have been working on them.

[Avion8]

Hi Chucaro,

The PC12 -67B combination is also one of my favorite combinations, as is PC9/A & the -62. We had fun making the Single engine IFR Night RPT submission to CASA back in 1998, but I think it has worked out well. Also love the Caravan especially on floats, and the Ag variants.

Graz it started out life as a Helicopter engine (Hiller) first flight ever, then Beechcraft King Air 90 first fixed wing.

Interesting timeline from Aviation Week:
PT6: A Timeless Turbine (http://www.aviationweek.com/Portals/aweek/media/pt6/pt6.html)

[dromader driver]

if you ever get the chance to see the centrifugal governor it will really show you how old the technology is.