By Mike Boyer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

GE Aircraft Engines is teaming up with Honda Motor Co. to develop a new, compact jet engine that someday could bring jet flights to small, community airports.

David L. Calhoun, left, president and CEO of GE Transportation, and Takeo Fukui, his counterpart at Honda Motors. (AP photo)

A framework agreement was signed Monday in Tokyo between Dave Calhoun, president of GE Transportation, and Honda president Takeo Fukui to bring to market Honda's new HF118 turbofan engine. No financial terms were disclosed.

Honda, the No. 2 Japanese automaker, has been working on the jet engine since 1986 and developed an experimental aircraft, the HondaJet, which began flight tests in December.

The HF118-powered HondaJet has accumulated more than 200 flight hours since beginning initial flights at Piedmont Triad Airport in North Carolina.

A spokesman said it was too soon to say where the new engine would be produced or what impact the partnership would have on GEAE's operations in Evendale.

Details of the partnership won't be worked out until later this year, when a definitive agreement is signed. But the companies said the framework accord calls for joint certification of the HF118, joint marketing under the GE and Honda name to aircraft manufacturers, and continued talks on a business structure to mass-produce the engine.

The partnership with Honda allows GEAE to enter a new market for small business jets without having to develop its own engine from scratch.

"There are tremendous benefits to Honda and GE entering the business jet engine market together,'' said Calhoun, who is also president of GEAE.

The immediate goal is to win government certification for the HF118 to power small, four- to eight-passenger business jets. GE and Honda said they see a potential annual market of at least 200 such jets.

GE chairman Jeff Immelt and others have talked about the potential of these so-called "micro-jets'' as unscheduled "air taxis'' which could bring jet service to small community airports now limited to propeller and turbo-prop aircraft.

United Technologies Corp.'s Pratt & Whitney Canada and Williams International are now the primary engine makers for small jets, which are built by Textron Inc.'s Cessna unit, Raytheon and Learjet, among others.

The HF118 operates in the 1,000- to 3,500-pound takeoff thrust class. Right now, the smallest jet engine built by GEAE is the CF-34, which generates 8,000 to 9,000 pounds of thrust.

Developed as a business jet engine, the CF-34 has grown to become the primary power plant for the increasingly popular regional jets such as those flown by Cincinnati's Comair.

GEAE spokesman Rick Kennedy said a timetable for getting flight certification for the HF118 would hinge on winning a launch customer for the engine. That can be a long process.

He pointed out that CFM International, GEAE's successful marketing partnership with Snecma Moteurs of France, was launched in 1974 but didn't win its first contract until 1979.

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