GE Aviation's Peebles test operation opens new US$40m indoor jet engine test facility

GE Aviation’s Peebles Test Operation celebrates 60 years of operation with the opening of a new US$40m indoor jet engine test facility. The new indoor test facility, which will begin testing production engines by year end, was built to accommodate the growing volume of GE90 and GEnx engines as well as the new GE9X and LEAP engines. The new site is the eleventh test site at the 7,000-acre Peebles Test Operation, located near the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in southeastern Ohio. GE Aviation’s Peebles Test Operation began as a GE rocket engine test facility in 1954. After a year of operation, GE mothballed the site until 1965 when it helped with certification testing of the TF39 engine for the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy military transport aircraft. The site continued to grow during the next five decades and has seven outdoor and four indoor test sites today. “Since 2006, GE has invested more than US$160m in facilities expansion at Peebles to manage our growing volume of development engine and production engine testing as well as final engine assembly of GE90 and GEnx engines,” said Brian De Bruin, plant leader at GE Aviation’s Peebles Test Operation. “This year, the Peebles site will test 1,600 production engines along with 70 development engines and will assemble and ship more than 500 engines from our assembly area thanks to the efforts our 340 employees.”