S.S. White Technologies, a supplier of flexible rotary shafts for the aerospace, medical, industrial and automotive industries, with manufacturing facilities in the US, UK and India, is supplying flexible rotary shafts to Honeywell Aerospace. The shafts are specifically designed to transmit rotary torque for the manual override of the Honeywell Starter Air Valve on the new GE9X turbofan engines being developed to power the Boeing 777X aircraft.
The Honeywell Aerospace Air Turbine Starter (ATS) consists of two components, the Starter and the Starter Air Valve. The Starter Air Valve controls air flow from the engine bleed, APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) or ground supply to the ATS, and has significant built-in operational and protection features. One of the many features incorporates an S. S. White flexible rotary shaft that allows ground crews to manually actuate the Starter Air Valve in case of an operational failure, thus enabling the aircraft to still be dispatched avoiding flight delays and cancellations.