This milestone has been announced at the FEINDEF defence trade fair together with authorities from the Spanish Ministry of Defence. Within Feindef, the International Defence Exhibition being held in Madrid, ITP Aero has announced today that during 2023 it will deliver, from its Albacete facilities, new GE CT7 engines, which power the NH-90 helicopter of the Spanish Ministry of Defence, tested with SAF (sustainable aviation fuel). This milestone is part of ITP Aero’s commitment to the decarbonisation of aviation, and was announced during an event attended by representatives of the Spanish Ministry of Defence.

Álvaro Santodomingo, Director of Defence at ITP Aero, said: “This milestone is a further step in our commitment to continue advancing the use of SAF on Spanish Ministry of Defence platforms and is in line with our commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Together, we are positioning Spain as a major player in the use of SAF, and we are proud to be able to do so now hand in hand with the Ministry of Defence.

General Coll, Head of Rotary Wing Air Systems at the DGAM’s Sub-Directorate General for Programmes, said: “The fact that ITP Aero can carry out bench tests on the engines that will be installed in our NH90 helicopters using SAF fuel is undoubtedly a very important first step towards standardising the use of this type of fuel in our aircraft engines, which will have an impact on reducing harmful emissions into the atmosphere and, consequently, on preserving the environment, an objective with which the Armed Forces are aligned and committed”.

General Gómez Blanco, Deputy Director of Fighter and RPA Engineering at MALOG, said: “The use of Sustainable Fuels in Aviation is the most solid option to boost the decarbonisation of the aeronautical sector in the short term. The trials announced today by ITP are a significant boost to the engineering activities that will consolidate the use of these fuels in Armed Forces helicopters. These activities are fully in line with the tests being carried out by the Spanish Air and Space Forces in collaboration with the most important Spanish companies in the sector, including ITP, of course”.

This milestone joins other projects for the use of SAF that ITP Aero is promoting in different platforms of the Spanish Ministry of Defence. In this regard, it should be noted that ITP Aero is part of the Air and Space Army’s BACSI (Connected, Sustainable and Intelligent Air Base) programme with the aim of increasing the effectiveness, productivity, efficiency and sustainability of air bases. As part of this project, the Eagle Patrol flew for the first time with SAF during the air parade of the last Columbus Day. ITP Aero designed an instrumentation system to help validate the use of SAF in the engines that power the Eagle Patrol’s C-101 aircraft. The technology developed by ITP Aero was able to automatically measure the temperature of the engine gases, helping to validate their proper operation with SAF.