The GE27 was developed in the early 1980s under the "Modern Technology Demonstrator Engines" (MTDE) program sponsored by the United States Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate. Sporting a 22:1 pressure ratio, which was a record for single-spool compressors at the time, the GE27 was GE's unsuccessful submission to power the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. The GE27 also had a compressor air flow of and a turbine temperature of . The GE27 first ran in late 1984, but it unexpectedly lost the V-22 engine competition to the Allison 501-M80C, which was not a participant in the MTDE program.
