General Electric T700 The General Electric T700 and CT7 are a family of turboshaft and turboprop engines in the 1 , 500 - 3 , 000 shp class . Design and development . In 1967 , General Electric began work on a new turboshaft engine demonstrator designated the " GE12 " in response to US Army interest in a next - generation utility helicopter . The Army effort led , in the 1970s , to development of the Sikorsky S - 70 Black Hawk , powered by twin GE " T700 " turboshafts , the production descendant of the GE12 . The T700 was initially bench - tested in 1973 , passed military qualification in 1976 , and went into production in 1978 . The initial " T700 - GE - 700 " is an ungeared free - turbine turboshaft , with a five - stage axial / one - stage centrifugal mixed - flow compressor , featuring one - piece " blisk " axial stages , with the inlet guide vanes and first two stator stages variable ; an annular combustion chamber with central fuel injection to improve combustion and reduce smoke ; a two - stage compressor turbine ; and a two - stage free power turbine with tip - shrouded blades . The engine is designed for high reliability , featuring an inlet particle separator designed to spin out dirt , sand , and dust . The T700 - GE - 700 is rated at 1 , 622 shp ( 1 , 210 kW ) intermediate power . The T700 - GE - 700 was followed by improved and uprated Army engine variants for the UH - 60 Black Hawk and the AH - 64 Apache helicopters , as well as marinized naval engine variants for the SH - 60 Seahawk derivative of the Black Hawk , the SH - 2G Seasprite , and the Bell AH - 1W Supercobra . T700s are also used on Italian and commercial variants of the AgustaWestland EH101 / AW101 helicopter , and Italian variants of the NHIndustries NH90 helicopter . These are all twin - engine machines , except for the three - engined EH101 . The commercial version of the T700 is the " CT7 " , with the engine used on the Bell 214ST ( an enlarged version of the Huey ) , commercial Black Hawks , and the Sikorsky S - 92 derivative of the Black Hawk , all of which are twin - engine helicopters . The CT7 turboprop variants use the same core as the turboshaft variants , with a propeller gearbox fitted forward of the core . CT7 turboprops are used on variants of the Swedish SAAB 340 airliner , the Indonesian - Spanish Airtech CN - 235 cargolifter , and the Czech Let L - 610 G airliner , all twin - turboprop aircraft . The baseline CT7 - 5A provides 1 , 735 shp ( 1 , 294 kW ) on takeoff . In the late 1980s , GE also proposed a much larger turboprop , the T407 / GLC38 , with a five - stage axial / one - stage centrifugal mixed - flow compressor ; an annular combustor with 15 burners ; a two - stage compressor turbine ; a three - stage power turbine ; and max takeoff power of 6 , 000 shp ( 4 , 475 kW ) . The YT706 is based on the CT7 - 8A engine . Compared with the T700 currently powering H - 60 helicopters , the YT706 has a larger compressor , hot section improvements and a full authority digital engine control . The YT706 provides up to 30 percent more power than the current T700 - 701C and will increase the hot - and - high mission capability of the MH - 60M Black Hawk procured by the U . S . Army for its Special Operations applications . Variants . T700 : Military turboshaft engine . CT7 turboshaft : Commercial version of T700 . CT7 turbprop : Turboprop version of CT7 .