GE Careers Blog.

New GE #Aviation Plant Will Use #Lasers to Build #Jet #Engines

Workers at a brand new GE Aviation plant in Auburn, Alabama will be using lasers to drill tiny cooling holes in super-alloy blades for jet engines. “This is one of the most critical and sophisticated components in our jet engines,” says David Joyce, GE Aviation CEO. “We consider them a work of art.”

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has partnered with Intel and GE to change the status quo through a targeted set of grants whose projects take creative approaches in engaging and retaining undergraduates in engineering and computer science. Both fields are dynamic, encompassing areas of focus that didn’t even exist a couple of decades ago–from green energy and advanced robotics to cybersecurity. Engineering and computer science also offer good careers with salaries that can make a life-changing difference, especially to first-generation college students and their families.

Messier-Bugatti USA LLC is completing a $50 million expansion for its wheels and carbon brakes facility in Walton. The expansion increases the existing carbon brake production facility’s footprint by 40 percent. Messier-Bugatti USA is adding the capacity to accommodate the increase in the plant’s production volumes and refurbishment activities of carbon brake disks for the commercial and military aircraft industry. The Walton facility, which employs 225, is expected to increase employment by 10 percent as a result of the expansion. Messier-Bugatti-Dowty makes aircraft landing and braking systems. It is part of France’s Safran Group. Safran is also the parent of Snecma, a partner with GE Aviation in the Evendale-based aircraft engine joint venture CFM International Inc.

GE Aviation is opening two new advanced manufacturing plants this week, a composite factory in Ellisville, Mississippi and a “super-alloy” plant in Auburn, Alabama. GE has invested $130 million in the plants and plans to hire 550 workers by 2017. Much of the aircraft growth will come from single-aisle planes built by Boeing, Airbus, COMAC and other aircraft makers. This market needs next-generation jet engines like the LEAP, which GE Aviation makes in a joint-venture with France’s Snecma.

Trifon Laskaris is in rarefied company within the General Electric Co. The GE Global Research chief engineer, a pioneer in imaging technologies, recently was awarded his 200th U.S. patent. The last GE lab employee to reach that milestone — and the only other one for that matter — was Thomas Edison.