When Wright Brothers dreamed of flying like birds; a powered, heavier-than-air flying machine, known as the Wright Flyer, powered by a 12 Hp gasoline engine; effectively enabled them to realize their dream in 1903 while also ushering in the 'Age of Powered Flight' for humans. That rudimentary machine & engine paved way for the development of larger piston engines & propeller-powered fighters, which proved to be instrumental during the World War I & II and later gave way to the emergence of turbojets & ultimately turbofans by the 1950s.

This is the analysis-based chronicling of the story of the complex strategy choices, decisions & moves made by leading engine OEMs of the era, while facing the heat of raging battles and the myopic errors caused by fog-of-war; and their eventual outcomes & repercussions. The analysis also factors-in the critical & pivotal role played by prevailing market forces, macroeconomic trends and, lastly, chance; all of which, collectively proved to be the ultimate determinants of outcomes & market successes or failures with their judgments & verdicts ultimately determining the fates of most key engine programs and the destinies of the engine OEMs producing them.

It is also the story of path-breaking innovations, products & technologies and of brilliant minds, who actually pursued and produced them. Some of those technologies, aided by market forces, actually disrupted the market fundamentally and went on to create virtual market dominance and a lasting legacy. However, some others, despite of being disruptive, were ultimately rejected by market forces, owing to being out of alignment with prevailing market realities, but are only re-emerging now, being reincarnated in an entirely new avatar as the chosen ones, to be resurrected, ironically, by the very same market forces, who had once sealed their fates…

Key Excerpts:-

Decryption of how GE actually usurped Pratt & Whitney's market leadership & virtual monopoly in the commercial aviation market in the late 1960s with a technological innovation-led market disruption strategy?
How GE1 was the true game changer, as the technological fountainhead and building block in the 1970s, which ultimately became the core building block for almost over a dozen GE engines over the subsequent decades and, thus, became the greatest GE engine ever without having powered even a single aircraft?
How the brilliant move to introduce CF6 engine; derived from the high-bypass military TF39 engine, developed for the USAF's C-5 Galaxy, and based on GE1; was truly a masterstroke which scripted GE's success story in the global wide body aircraft market for decades to come, given that the CF6 is still in operation today, after more than over half-a-century of its original certification and EIS in the late 1960s?
CFM56's almost rags-to-riches story, rising from the depths of obscurity, as the engine, which was way ahead of its time in the 1970s but with no takers for years, to becoming an industry icon as the most successful turbofan engine in aviation history with almost 23,000 CFM56-5B/7B engines still in active service globally in 2024.
Pratt & Whitney's remarkable comeback to the global narrow body aircraft engines market spearheaded by a two-pronged product strategy, led by the V2500, under IAE, at the top-end of the spectrum, as the true challenger to CFM56's market dominance, and the JT8D-200 at the bottom-end, as one of the most cost-effective propulsion solution.

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