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GE Marine Engines Honors U.S. Navy During 1,000th LM2500 Marine Aeroderivative Gas Turbine Ceremony

May 25, 2000

EVENDALE, Ohio - GE Marine Engines presented a plaque to the United States Navy today to recognize the NavyÂ’s receipt of the 1,000th GE LM2500 marine aeroderivative gas turbine produced at its Evendale, Ohio manufacturing facility. The U.S. Navy is GE Marine Engines' largest single customer worldwide.

Russ Sparks, Vice President, GE Military Engines Operation and Bill Millhaem, General Manager of GE Marine Engines led the ceremony, with Alan Weyman, Deputy Program Executive Officer, Theater Air Defense and Surface Combatants Command accepting the recognition for the U.S. Navy. Accompanying Mr. Weyman were CAPT Fred Parker and Mr. Randy Fortune, Program Manager and Deputy Program Manager, AEGIS Shipbuilding, respectively.

"Our relationship with the U.S. Navy began more than 30 years ago when the first LM2500 was used on the U.S. Navy's GTS Callaghan in 1969. Today the LM2500 can be found on the DDG-51, the most modern warship in the world. The engine is also a candidate to power the U.S. Navy's next generation DD21 destroyer," Sparks stated.

GE's continuously infuses new commercial and military aviation technology into this engine. These advancements have enabled the LM2500 to play a significant role in U.S. defense and security interests by powering U.S. Navy ships through every recent major military conflict, and will continue to for many years into the future. In fact, more than 300 Component Improvement Program and Six-Sigma initiatives, plus high quality workmanship from GE's Evendale facility, have added to the LM2500s industry-leading overall reliability and availability.

"We continue to take advantage of the many technological improvements GE employs to keep the LM2500 on the cutting edge of gas turbine technology. These enhancements have enabled the U.S. Navy to grow it's fleet of LM2500s to more than 600 gas turbines in service on a variety of surface combatants, Sealift and supply ships," said the U.S. Navy's Weyman.

The LM2500 has proven to be a highly reliable engine for the U.S. Navy, logging more than five million hours at sea.The LM2500 has served on nine classes of ships and is adaptable to a broad range of ships.

Table 1 provides an overview of the U.S. Navy's LM2500 experience.

Worldwide Applications
The simple-cycle, two-shaft LM2500 gas turbine is rated at 33,600 shaft horsepower/ 25,050 kilowatts. The gas turbine continues to be the preferred choice with both military and commercial marine customers throughout the world in mechanical and electrical drive applications. To date, the LM2500 has been selected by 27 international navies who employ 366 engines to power their fighting ships, and for 12 commercial marine vessels for five customers.

The LM2500 has gained strong international navy recognition. Most recently, the LM2500 was selected by the South African Navy for use in a combined diesel and gas turbine-waterjet and refined propellers configuration on four next-generation MEKO^® A-200 corvettes. The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces will also use the LM2500 for its 09DD, 10DD and 11DD Murasame-class destroyers.GE Marine Engines has made significant headway over the past two years in the commercial marine market, especially for cruise ships. The LM2500 will be used on four new Holland America Line cruise ships. The more powerful LM2500+, derived from the LM2500, is being used on new Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises cruise ships.

The LM2500 is also used on the world's largest and fastest ferries. Two LM2500s provide the main propulsion for the new Austal-built fast ferry H/F Villum Clausen, Hull 96, which recently set a new record for the longest distance traveled in a 24-hour period by a commercial passenger vessel. The fast ferry is operated by Bornholms Trafikken.

There are an additional 1,800 LM2500 gas turbines that have logged 33 million hours in various power generation and mechanical drive applications throughout the world.

GE Marine Engines is part of GE Aircraft Engines and is headquartered in Evendale, Ohio.
GE Marine Engines is the world's largest designer, developer and manufacturer of aeroderivative gas turbines for a variety of commercial and military marine propulsion applications. Visit GE Marine Engines at Marine Propulsion section of our website.