Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with&nbsp;New Jersey Monthly&nbsp;magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.

Senior Editor

Gregory Polek

Pratt &amp; Whitney CEO David Hess doesn't spend time lamenting his company’s decision to forgo a bid for a place on <a href="http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/2012-07-09/conner-boeing-wont-ease-777x-787-10x">Boeing’s proposed 777X. </a>In fact, in an interview with AIN during the company’s April 11 “Media Day” in West Palm Beach, Florida, Hess expressed not an inkling of regret, evidently taking comfort in the narrowbody market’s virtually unequivocal acceptance of his company’s Geared Turbofan.


“Our plate’s pretty full right now,” said Hess. “We’ve got five new development programs and we want to make sure that we execute them perfectly and don’t overstretch ourselves right now.”


Hess said he sees a few years of “tough sledding” as the company launches production and eventually enacts rate hikes, while it waits until the end of the decade to reap any returns from aftermarket activity. Happily for the CEO, the company appears to have built a solid foundation on which to reap those rewards.


Having won positions on the Bombardier CSeries, Mitsubishi MRJ, Airbus A320neo, Irkut MC-21 and, most recently, <a href="http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ain-air-transport-perspective/2013-01-14/embraer-turns-true-believer-pratts-gtf">Embraer’s planned second generation of E-Jets</a>, the PurePower Geared Turbofan line has completely revived a company that a decade ago became better known for the well documented missteps associated with the PW6000 than as an organization steeped in any history of producing “dependable engines.”


Although at the time Hess served as CEO of fellow United Technologies subsidiary Hamilton Sundstrand, he could see as well as anyone the depths to which the company’s commercial aircraft engine business had sunk.


“It was a train wreck, quite honestly,” said Hess. “But it was also a significant emotional event for Pratt and a great learning experience.”


Hess explained that the experience moved the company to completely revamp its engineering “process” to ensure a level of technological readiness in the Geared Turbofan not seen in the case of the PW6000, for example.


“They established a rigorous process for developing and introducing innovation and new technology,” said Hess. “And they’ve stuck to that discipline and that rigor over the last ten years as they’ve brought forward that technology.”


The transformation started with a commitment to “up-front” investment in the now 20-year-old concept that became known as the Geared Turbofan. In all, the company has spent some $1 billion in research and development, but, perhaps more significantly, “hundreds of millions of dollars” in the five years leading to the demonstrator’s first flight on an Airbus A340 testbed in 2008.


“So we changed the engineering process and in some cases we changed people,” explained Hess. “And we invested more money earlier in the program than we had done historically, rather than do it once the development program is launched...We developed the technology first, offered it to the marketplace and then did product development. So it really was a fundamental change in the process.”

Hess Readies Pratt for ‘Tough Sledding’

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