Southwest Airlines donates turbofan engine to GNTC

Pictured: Drew Ware (left) and Lawrence Peters (right) work on the CFM56-3B1 high-bypass turbofan engine that was donated to GNTC by Southwest Airlines.

Southwest Airlines recently donated a CFM56-3B1 high-bypass turbofan aircraft engine to Georgia Northwestern Technical College’s (GNTC) Aviation Training Center.

The donation of the turbofan engine will provide students with advanced training in troubleshooting, repairing, and maintaining industry-grade aviation equipment and better prepare them to work for the major airlines upon graduation.

“This is our first turbofan engine – the majority of our planes have reciprocating or piston engines,” stated Jon Byrd, director of the Aviation Maintenance Technology program at GNTC. “There are so many different systems we teach that are on this one engine, so we can show students how it all goes together instead of what we have had up until now, which was individual components.

“All of the major airliners have planes with high-bypass turbofan engines on them,” continued Byrd. “This particular engine, which happens to be a pretty popular model, is used on many different airplanes.”

GNTC’s Aviation Training Center is located at the Richard B. Russell Regional Airport in Rome, about 10 miles from the college’s Floyd County Campus. The 30,744 square foot facility consists of five classrooms and eight labs, including a large airframe lab, powerplant lab, five additional Federal Aviation Administration Curriculum labs, and a technical library/reference lab.