Rolls Royce - The Magazine Issue 143

the magazine ISSUE 143 DECEMBER 2014

Warp speed All new Citation X+ Support mission

Service centre for RB199 engines

Farm fuel

Electricity from biogas

ALPS in the desert

Testing new fans in Arizona

for customers

Rolls-Royce is a global company providing integrated power solutions for customers in aerospace, marine and industrial markets. We support our customers through a worldwide network of offices, manufacturing and service facilities.

Welcome to the December issue

Testing new technology in Arizona; taking a rail journey around the globe; steering a ship from an ergonomic bridge and, flying in the world’s fastest civilian jet, you can do it all in this issue.

For over 30 years the magazine has been highlighting how Rolls-Royce works closely with customers all over the world.

Providing power systems for use on land, at sea and in the air.

Seeking to be ‘trusted to deliver excellence’ in all we do.

We hope you find this latest issue both informative and entertaining.

David Howie Editor

rolls-royce.com

the magazine CONTENTS

inside the magazine

Editorial Board Tom Bell, Ian Craighead, Lawrie Haynes, Andrew Heath, Peter Morgan, Colin Smith, Tony Wood Editor: David Howie david.howie@rolls-royce.com Design & Production: Hubert Burda Media UK LP Print: Pureprint Group Printed in England ISSN 0142-9469 © Rolls-Royce plc 2014 the magazine December 2014 Rolls-Royce plc 62 Buckingham Gate, London SW1E 6AT England www.rolls-royce.com

2 Warp factor ten plus

Powered by two Rolls-Royce AE 3007C2 engines, the Citation X+ is billed as the world’s fastest civilian jet.

8 Trainspotting

Via MTU, Rolls-Royce is now in the rail power industry. However, MTU engines have been synonymous with this market for 90 years.

10 Support mission

RB199 engines for Tornado aircraft are being supported by Rolls-Royce at a new Service Delivery Centre. Based at RAF Marham, it represents an important partnership between Rolls-Royce and the RAF.

14 ALPS in the desert

Flight testing of the new ‘Advanced Low Pressure System’ (ALPS) has been conducted in the Arizona desert. The system was fitted to a Trent 1000 “donor” engine and flown on a Boeing 747 testbed.

22 A lease partner for the long term

For 25 years Rolls-Royce & Partners Finance has provided financial solutions to help airlines acquire the spare engines they need in order to keep their fleet flying.

25 Sweet smell of success

Down on the farm in Chile, MTU Onsite Energy is providing compact and highly efficient power.

Electricity is being generated from biogas produced by pig slurry.

28 Knowledge is power

Colin Cadas explains how to think creatively, acquire knowledge, manage it and employ it. He explains: “It’s not technology, it’s not processes and it’s not people – it’s a combination.”

30 Age of the jet

We are living in a jet age. Air travel first became popular in the 1960s and 70s, but it is now very much part of modern life. Follow the story from Concorde to today’s smooth and efficient airliners.

19 A bridge to the future

Front cover: Rolls-Royce AE 3007C2 engines power the new Cessna Citation X+.

Man and machine interface completely in a remarkable new ship’s bridge, designed by Rolls-Royce and now installed in two new UT 776 offshore platform supply vessels.

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If ever there was a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ it’s the Citation X+ (ten plus). Don’t be fooled by the stylish, sleek lines of this stunningly attractive aircraft – when you put the hammer down it goes like a rocket.

Warp fa B

The ‘Keeper of the Plains’ is an iconic statue in Cessna’s hometown of Wichita.

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illed by its maker, Cessna, as the world’s fastest business jet, the Citation X+ is the aircraft you choose if you want to get there fast, really fast.

It will carry 12 passengers over a maximum range of 3,408 miles. It will climb to 51,000ft and cruise there at Mach 0.935. Power is delivered by its two Rolls-Royce AE 3007C2 engines. The -C2 version is a new upgrade of the powerplant to increase output and at the same time reduce fuel consumption, but more of that later.

The Citation X+ is the new and improved version of a flagship aircraft that lifted Cessna into a whole new aviation world and that stunned the sector when it first appeared.

When Cessna first introduced the Citation X to an astonished market in 1996, it seemed to be a seismic shift for a company that had been better known primarily for producing smaller aircraft for private owner/operators.

The Citation X changed all that. It signalled an intention to move up market into territory Cessna had never before competed in. And the niche it sought was to take busy corporate executives where they wanted to go, faster than

the magazine AVIATION

actor ten plus they imagined they could get there. This was the corporate jet for those in a hurry, people who sought to combine style and speed. Cessna wanted to make a statement and they did.

The design team won aviation’s prestigious Collier Trophy a year after the Citation X entered service.

It looked amazing in 1996; it still does, even though Cessna has actually left very little unaltered in the new Citation X+ version.

The lines of the Citation X+ have remained faithful to the original and the big AE 3007 engines at the rear still give it a sneer of raw aggression. It’s beautiful and it has bite.

Its highly swept wing design is about the only area unchanged but even here winglets have now been added as standard to improve climb, increase range and cruise speed.

The rest of the aircraft has not just had a makeover but a major investment in design improvements. These include a longer fuselage to increase cabin space. Cessna was careful here to balance the desire to give more passenger room with the need to retain the distinctive and much admired

appearance of the jet.

Overall, the fuselage is 15-inches longer. That may not sound like much, but the increase is not a bolt-in plug but a newly designed longer fuselage. In business jets, space is at a premium and it has delivered a noticeable increase in legroom in the forward club and the ability to increase the space between and behind seats so that they can comfortably recline in all areas.

That small change of just over a foot in length meant that Cessna had to redesign the aerodynamic fairing between the body and the wing. This is an area of the aircraft that gives it its distinctive belly as the wings flow under the fuselage. It’s where significant aerodynamic forces are experienced and so the structure had to be altered to ensure the integrity, speed and operation were not compromised but improved.

So, although to the untrained eye the external design may appear to be the same as the original, in fact, much has changed. Inside the aircraft the upgrades are much more visible and nowhere more so than in the cockpit.

Here, the Cessna team worked closely with avionics

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provider Garmin and also industrial design experts. The neatness of the new avionic display package provided the opportunity to re-think the styling of the cockpit. Cessna is quick to point out that functionality was primary but it’s clear that the pilots have been given a modern office environment to work from.

They now enjoy ergonomic seats and a temperature control system separate from that of the cabin. The new Garmin 5000 avionics package has four colour touch screens with LCD control panels. No longer banks of switches and dials, they select the screen they need and information is offered to them immediately in an easily digestible format.

There are three 14-inch high resolution displays and fully integrated auto-throttles to help reduce pilot workload. The Garmin flight display also gives the pilots a virtual reality view of runways, terrain, traffic and obstacles.

Sleek and fast, Citation X+.

Below The advanced Garmin 5000 system in the cockpit.

Flagship

According to Michael Pierce, Cessna’s Manager of Technical Marketing: “We needed to give the Citation X+ a cockpit befitting our flagship product. Form has to follow function in this part of the aircraft but we knew there was a lot we could do to modernise it.

“We also wanted to try and make it as timeless as possible so that it looks good, but the main thing is the pilots get clear information from systems that function well and are easy to manage. In the cabin you can afford to be a bit more fashion conscious but the cockpit is a workspace.”

Even so it certainly has a wow factor and a simplicity that pilots will appreciate.

Move inside the cabin and you have a high-tech, touch screen control system that can operate everything from the cabin temperature and window shades to in-flight entertainment.

Lighting comes from a single system which runs down the centre of the cabin and which can be controlled for the whole cabin and also to provide individual reading lights at any seat position.

The seats themselves were designed by Cessna rather than a contractor. They were two years in development to maximise the space, pitch and comfort. The arms fully stow into the body making access along the aisle easier and footrests come as standard on forward-facing seats.

Cabinets, tables, stowage and even drinks holders have all been given novel innovations. Interiors can be tailor made to customer specifications in terms of the seating layout, colour scheme, choice of materials and entertainment options, including global satellite Wi-Fi. All developed to improve comfort and functionality for passengers as they get whisked to their destinations at just below the speed of sound.

Delivering that speed is of course the job of the two Rolls-Royce AE 3007C2 turbofans. These are an upgrade to the AE 3007C engines on the original Citation X. “The Citation X+ is as much a Rolls-Royce product as it is a Cessna one. The Rolls-Royce engine defines the aircraft visually and performance-wise,” says Jeff Johannsmeyer, Project Engineer Citation X+. “We knew that if we wanted

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The plush interior.

Designing the new version.

The production line at Wichita is now assembling the Citation X+.

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It is built for efficiency, not just speed.

Kevin Schmitz, Senior Program Manager for Cessna.

to make a change – which started out as a gross weight change – we must maintain performance. We told Rolls-Royce – look we need a bit more thrust but that can’t be at the expense of efficiency.

“This is a programme about powering the world’s fastest civilian jet. I think the Rolls engineers working with us on this aircraft love that kind of thing. They responded and brought in a design and some new ideas which worked as an excellent product match to the airframe.”

Smoother

Those changes included a new high-flow fan design that reduced the number of blades from 24 to 22. Software improvements in the upgrade also provided smoother starting and other benefits. Together the changes delivered a four per cent increase in take-off thrust, nine per cent at climb and seven per cent at cruise. In addition, and significantly, fuel consumption was reduced 1.4 per cent.

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“When you are working with an expert team things tend to run smoothly. The engine partnership was a big part of the programme but frankly it gave us a very small percentage of the headaches – it went really well,” adds Jeff.

So although the new aircraft is bigger and heavier, it is faster and has a slightly extended range.

At the recent NBAA business aviation show in the US, Cessna drove home the point by announcing several new speed records captured by the Citation X+. The company announced it had achieved four new city-city records over a two-day period, including Seattle to Miami, a 2,375 nautical mile trip in 4 hours 52 minutes.

Even during the aircraft’s flight development programme the speed of the aircraft meant that some rather specialist help had to be employed.

Michael Pierce takes up the story: “When you expand the envelope of an aircraft, you have to verify the stability and control. Part of doing that is providing very accurate

The Rolls-Royce engine defines the aircraft visually and performance-wise.

Jeff Johannsmeyer, Project Engineer Citation X+.

air speed and data calibrations. That requires a chase plane to help.

“The problem we had is that there are no civil aircraft capable of chasing the Citation X+. In dive testing in particular you need something that can keep up, as we will get very close to Mach 1. We contacted NASA and were fortunate enough to have them provide an F-18 fighter jet to chase us in the air tests. The NASA pilot had a good time and said he enjoyed it because he did not have to slow down as much as he usually does!”

There is no doubt that the Citation X+ is fast and Cessna is unashamed at promoting it as such, but this latest version has also been designed with economics in mind.

Kevin Schmitz, Senior Program Manager for Cessna makes the point: “There is a lot we have designed in the aircraft to ensure it is built for efficiency, not just speed. Why? “Because you may choose not to fly this jet just for speed.

If you fly fast then inevitably you burn more fuel, but if you

operate the Citation X+ at the same speed as other corporate jets, then it is equally efficient.

“That makes it a very flexible aircraft. You can fly efficiently but if you want to drive it like a Ferrari and go superfast then you can – it’s up to you – you have the option.”

Since the original Citation X was introduced, Cessna has sold over 300 of the type and they naturally have high hopes that this new even racier version will have an equal impact on the market. The aircraft was certified in June of this year and entered service that same month. It’s just the beginning of the next stage of this aircraft’s high-speed journey in the corporate aviation sector.

Author: David Howie is Director of Brand for Rolls-Royce.

He joined the company from a marketing consultancy and prior to that was a press officer.

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Trainsp 90 years ago, Karl Maybach presented his first high-speed diesel engine for rail traction. He was probably unaware that this was to be the opening chapter of a huge success story.

T

oday, MTU engines are used all over the world to drive trains and railcars – from Asia to Africa, from Siberia to Argentina, and even in the Australian Outback. Over the past 90 years, MTU has sold over 20,000 rail engines. And if you would like to know more, go to www.mtureport.com/ worldmap_rail to read about exciting MTU rail projects all over the globe.

1 Madagascar

MTU engines power goods and mainline trains in the island republic of Madagascar.

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australia

Extreme workers Locomotives made by the Chinese manufacturer CSR Ziyang pull freight and iron-ore trains from Adelaide to Coober Pedy in Australia. They are powered by 2-cylinder MTU Series 4000 engines.

New ZealaNd

Kiwis from China New Zealand was the first country in the Western civilisation in which locomotives from China were used. Since 2010, the rail operator KiwiRail has been using freight train locomotives from Dalian Locomotive, which are driven by a 2,700kW 20-cylinder MTU engine from the 4000 series.

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potting

the magazine rail

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usa

Medium-pacers out, fast runners in The American locomotive producer Knoxville Locomotive has repowered an existing shunter with a 2,250hp, fast-running MTU Series 4000 diesel engine.

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gerMaNy

When trains could fly Travelling from Hamburg to Berlin in 2 hours and 18 minutes was a sensational achievement in 1933. It was accomplished by the Fliegende Hamburger, an innovative aerodynamic railcar powered by a Maybach GO-5 engine.

8

spaiN

World-record holder With a top speed of 256 kilometres per hour, the “Talgo� is the fastest diesel-powered train in the world.

The multiple unit train set the record during test runs between Madrid and Barcelona in 2002 – powered by two 12-cylinder MTU engines.

argeNtiNa

Network expansion in argentina Locomotives made by the Chinese manufacturer Dalian Locomotive & Rolling Stock are to be used to modernise mainline services in Argentina.

eNglaNd

Fast and flexible The high-speed trains operated by British operators First Great Western, National Express and Cross Country are driven by 16-cylinder MTU Type 4000 R41R engines. They have an impressive availability rate of 99.5 per cent.

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swedeN

Green machines Type T44 locomotives operated by the Green Cargo logistics company in Sweden have been powered by MTU Series 4000 diesel engines since 2009.

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support

mission

Although it is more than 30 years since Turbo-Union RB199-powered Tornado aircraft entered service with the Royal Air Force, Rolls-Royce is still delivering innovative new ways to support the RB199 engines.

A

Service Delivery Centre (SDC), the first in the country, was opened at RAF Marham – home of 138 Expeditionary Air Wing and its three Tornado squadrons – in early 2013 to deliver tailored support services for the RB199.

Since the first contract was signed just over a decade ago between Rolls-Royce and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to provide a specified level of RB199 module availability, the level of support has developed to the point where Rolls-Royce now undertakes the provision of full engine availability.

The heart of this operation is the SDC, located in a former hangar that now contains the central control desk that is manned from 8am until 2am the following morning, with a field service representative on call in the out-of-hours periods.

At present there are nine Rolls-Royce employees at RAF Marham in Norfolk, with two more located at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland, which is the home of the Tornado GR4 Operational Conversation Unit.

Wing Cdr Peter Daulby, Officer Commanding, Depth Support Wing, is responsible for allocation of RAF resources and Lorna Yuill, Service Delivery Centre Manager, is responsible for the output of the SDC, in line with contractual requirements. Lorna operates as a deployed member of the Bristol-based RB199 Programme Team, who are responsible for running the RB199 Operational Contract for Engine Transformation (ROCET) contract. The MoD’s Defence Equipment and Services unit is responsible for ensuring that Rolls-Royce meets the contract Key Performance Indicators (KPI) requirements and for ensuring the airworthiness of the product.

The first ROCET contract was awarded in 2005 and then renewed as the ROCET 2 RB199 engine availability contract in 2010.

Wing Cdr Daulby says: “The SDC people understand our

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the magazine DEFEnCE

operations, and it’s better having Rolls-Royce here on the station. They know what we are trying to achieve, how we are trying to adapt and they respond to our tasking at short notice. We are building confidence in the SDC, knowing that they have the subject knowledge.”

Lorna Yuill adds: “The SDC concept is still at an embryonic stage and the contract can incorporate new aspects as the relationship develops. One example is that we can jointly monitor oil burn, which can be the main limiter on sorties, so that we know which engines can be used for extended-range sorties. We can, with the RAF, take an engine out of the aircraft, resolve the issue and replace the engine. We also analyse engine rejections.

During the 2000s, RB199 engines were assembled at RAF Marham under a ‘pulse line’ contract. The ‘pulse line’ had a build capacity of 340 engines per year.

The last RB199 to be assembled and tested at Marham was passed off in 2011, the year after the Bristol ‘pulse line’ was completed.

Today, Marham is able to strip, rebuild and replace Module 15, the exhaust module. This ability began three years ago.

The SDC can also work on external accessories and replaceable units. But engines are returned to Rolls-Royce at Bristol for deep maintenance.

AVAILABILITY

For the RAF, the SDC also provides a more direct link to the engine manufacturer, as specialist Rolls-Royce engineers based at RAF Marham work alongside their RAF counterparts and the centre also has live video links to the Rolls-Royce Operations Centre at Bristol, which enables real-time decision-making on engine issues to further increase aircraft availability for missions.

Flight information is recorded by the engine’s mechanical engine control unit. This is downloaded after a mission and then transmitted to the Operations Centre, where it can be analysed and any potential engine issues highlighted and fed back to the SDC, which carries out performance monitoring on behalf of the RAF. Two subcontractors to Rolls-Royce are onsite – SERCO and Chemring – and are able to perform a limited workscope on the MECU, which provides the capability to recover MECUs in the SDC or incorporate modifications into the unit. Similarly, they can carry out repair work on engine harnesses, which enhances support at the customer base. The SDC also has a training floor and delivers original equipment manufacturer (OEM) training courses. There is a parts store staffed by SERCO Logistics technicians, and an out-of-hours parts store that the RAF can access.

Rolls-Royce is also able to apply technology from other parts of the business. ‘Boroblending’ is an innovative technology developed for the Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace business in which a boroscope is used to enable engineers to carry out repairs on engine blades while the engine is still installed in the aircraft. This has resulted in significant savings for the RAF in time and cost.

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By being based at Marham, Rolls-Royce is invited to attend the daily ‘Four Worlds’ stand-up meeting for all the support squadrons and services, which is led by Wing Cdr Andy Gilbert, Officer Commanding the Engineering and Logistics Wing, Operations Wing.

Wing Cdr Rob Connor, Officer Commanding Operations Wing, is, in effect, the customer at this meeting. He says: “This means we are talking to Rolls-Royce daily, although when we get to the ‘Four Worlds’ meeting we are probably already working on an issue. It means we get direct access and direct support so that I can close issues with an expert to get an aircraft flying again.”

Rolls-Royce is also a member of the Station Command Group, which meets every Monday morning, comprising RAF officers and industry – Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems – as a good example of the ‘Whole Force’ concept that Britain’s defence forces are being encouraged to adopt to meet the demands of the future under the Strategic Defence Review.

PARTNER

The development of these closer relationships clearly requires a strong element of trust. As Lorna Yuill explains: “If we go to these meetings and there are discussions about operationally-sensitive material, it’s an advantage to be on the base, to be part of the base, and to be part of the ‘Whole Force’ approach.

“It feels as if Rolls-Royce is a partner, working directly with the RAF – and we have that partner here on the base,” says Wing Cdr Connor.

This is echoed by Wing Cdr Andy Gilbert: “The SDC offers an extra layer of manufacturer advice and brings other advantages. The first is through the Propulsion Support Team

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(PST), which is a mix of industry and RAF. It means that when we have a specialist task to carry out we can do it on-wing, rather than having to drop an engine. If the engine had to have been removed from an aircraft that was deployed overseas, then this would have meant Rolls-Royce bringing the engine back to the UK. “The second advantage is that of the SDC as a role multiplier. I am referring to the FOD (Foreign Object Damage) activity which is led by Rolls-Royce and actually began in 2011 before the SDC but under a previous arrangement, and shows the real advantage of having a close relationship with Rolls-Royce.”

As the home of the RAF’s frontline squadrons of Tornado GR4 aircraft, Marham’s squadrons are no strangers to operations in Afghanistan. All three squadrons have been deployed to that country.

Number II (Army Cooperation) Squadron is actually the oldest fixed-wing squadron in the world, having been formed in 1912 and operated the first airborne cameras in 1912.

Today their role is reconnaissance and attack.

IX (B) Squadron became the world’s first operational Tornado GR1 squadron in 1982 and 17 years later became the first operational Tornado GR4 squadron.

31 Squadron ‘Goldstars’ was the first Marham squadron to be deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 when the fast-jet role was assumed by the Tornado following five years of Harrier operation. It will also be the last squadron to deploy to Afghanistan. The squadron will be hoping to replicate its performance during the most recent deployment to Afghanistan, when it achieved a 100 per cent sortie launch rate during 400 sorties.

Its Officer Commanding, Wing Cdr Rich Yates, says that

Above Rolls-Royce is on hand at RAF Marham to provide complete support.

Above right Wing Cdr Rich Yates, Officer Commanding 31 Squadron.

having the PST with the squadron gives them the benefit of the expertise of both industry and the RAF. Afghanistan is a harsh ‘hot and high’ operating environment where heat is a constant problem, and the RAF prefers to send high thrust engines to this country.

Rolls-Royce can monitor engines in service in the UK to be able to provide the engines that the RAF would like, and also offers advice on how to modulate the engines to make them last longer.

“Speaking as an aircraft operator, it means that I can fly the aircraft when I want to. It’s very useful having this support in Afghanistan through the PST and then through to the SDC. The PST gives us the benefit of both our own experience and that of the industry. We are always looking for anything that can de-risk a deployment.

“Rolls-Royce is very much part of the RAF Marham team.

This partnership between the RAF and Rolls-Royce is a massive benefit. We are all speaking the same language, but it’s much more nuanced than that. It means that when the right thing needs to be done it can be done quickly.

“Rolls-Royce opened up their knowledge and let us in.

There’s a definite belief that Rolls-Royce is fully committed to the squadron and are fully part of my output,” says Rich Yates.

The Tornado fleet will leave RAF service in 2019. However, while the Tornado GR4 aircraft are still flying, the SDC will continue to demonstrate how the ‘Whole Force’ concept can continue to deliver RB199 engines to the squadrons who use them.

This partnership between the RAF and Rolls-Royce is a massive benefit.

RAF Marham will be the future home of the F-35 Lightning Force, the station is now planning extensive infrastructure changes across the base in anticipation of the arrival of the UK’s first ever 5th Generation, multi-role, stealth fighter.

No decision has been made yet on how the F-35’s engine and LiftFan™ system will be supported. But the SDC concept is clearly a success at RAF Marham and it is unlikely that the RAF will want to go backwards in capability.

Author: martin Brodie is a freelance writer/media relations consultant following a career as a journalist and as a member of the Rolls-Royce Corporate Communications department, holding senior roles in defence, civil aerospace and corporate headquarters.

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Preparing for take-off. The team get the aircraft and engine ready for the test flight.

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the magazine AVIATION

alps in the desert

Flight testing of new carbon and titanium fan blades for future Rolls-Royce engines has taken place on a Rolls-Royce Boeing 747 flying testbed at Tucson, Arizona.

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hen Rolls-Royce announced its Advance and UltraFan™ engine designs in February this year, it looked to a timeframe of 2020 and 2025 respectively for availability for service.

For many people that may seem a way off in the distance, but Rolls-Royce has spent the rest of this year making real, tangible progress towards its goals.

One of the most striking advances has been testing of the composite fan that will be incorporated into both engine designs.

The CTi (Carbon and titanium) fan blade and associated composite engine casings will replace the hollow titanium blade and its casing – to deliver a weight saving of around 1,500lb on a twin engine aircraft, the equivalent of seven or eight passengers travelling “weight free”. Composite panels containing electrical harnesses and pipework fit around the fancase, and will further reduce weight and simplify maintenance.

It is just one technology that will help the Advance engine design deliver a 20 per cent fuel efficiency improvement, and a 25 per cent improvement for UltraFan™, compared to the first generation of Trent engines.

Testing in 2014 has gone smoothly – from first testbed runs in Derby, UK, to crosswind testing at the Rolls-Royce facility at the John C Stennis Space Center, Mississippi, and most recently full flight tests on a Rolls-Royce Boeing 747 flying testbed at Tucson, Arizona, where one

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Above Everything has to be checked and monitored on board.

Below The new fan system is airborne for the first time.

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of the four RB211 engines was replaced with a Trent 1000 “donor” engine with CTi blades.

A total of six flights took place over 11 days in October.

“We had two main aims in testing – proving flight dynamics and the performance of the fan. This has involved approaching the limits of the aircraft’s operating envelope, recording data at altitudes up to 40,000ft and speeds from Mach 0.25 to 0.85,” says Mark Pacey, Rolls-Royce Chief Project Engineer, Advanced Low Pressure System (ALPS).

“The blades have delivered everything that we expected of them, we are extremely pleased

with the results. The European Commission Clean Sky initiative has supported the ALPS programme from the beginning and we would like to thank them for helping us to progress the technology to this stage.”

The ALPS programme continued with noise testing of a second composite fan engine at the Stennis site in November.

While the blades, manufactured by Rolls-Royce at its CTAL facility in the Isle of Wight, UK, made a highly visual impact, the composite case that completes the fan system is also making progress. Manufacture is now underway and the two elements are due to come together for ground testing by mid-2015.

Other technology elements of the Advance design are being progressed – the lean burn combustor system and ceramic matrix composite material has continued testing both in the UK and Germany and has validated emissions predictions. Flight tests are planned for next year and 2016 on the Rolls-Royce 747,

also supported by a €4.5m grant from Clean Sky. Key to the Advance design is the redistribution of workload between the intermediate and high pressure shafts to achieve the highest ever commercial turbofan overall pressure ratio of more than 60:1 and a bypass ratio of more than 11:1 while also reducing parts and weight.

This core architecture will be incorporated into an engine demonstrator that will run in 2016, provided a grant application to the UK’s Aerospace Technologies Institute is successful.

The conceptual design for this has now been completed, and long-lead time components are under manufacture. A Trent XWB engine, minus its high pressure and intermediate pressure spools, will be a “donor.”

“With Advance we are making great progress in ensuring all our technology elements are in place and proven to meet our 2020 timescale.

That means we will be ready, whenever the call comes from an airframer, to be able to respond

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rapidly,” says Alan Newby, Rolls-Royce Aerospace Chief Engineer, Future Programmes.

“There is a real sense of excitement, the design is coming together to form a whole and that is really motivating our teams.”

The UltraFan™ engine design has a longer timeframe but real progress is being made in the investments that are required to bring it to market.

One of the key elements is the introduction of a power gearbox to deliver a bypass ratio of 15:1. Testing of power gearboxes will start at the end of 2015 in a bespoke facility at the Rolls-Royce site in Dahlewitz, Germany.

Construction of the testbed began just a month after the engine design was announced.

The actual testing, in which gear units and oil systems will be tested at a variety of angles, will be supported by the Clean Sky 2 and German national LUFO programmes.

Ultimately, a complete UltraFan™ engine will be tested on a flying testbed around the end of the decade, again ensuring that the technologies are fully proven in time for its availability for service date.

Author: Bill O’Sullivan is a former industrial editor of the Newcastle Evening Chronicle and worked for several years on other regional newspapers.

He is now a member of the civil aerospace communications team for Rolls-Royce.

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Technology readiness Bypass ratio Overall pressure ratio Efficiency relative to Trent 700

Advance

UltraFan™

2020 11+ 60+ 20 per cent+

2025 15+ 70+ 25 per cent+

Above Job done.

Celebrating a successful first flight.

the magazine MARINE

A bridge to the future

One of the latest technologies developed by Rolls-Royce is its Unified Bridge system, an advanced system which ensures a ship’s crew has total control and visibility of the vessel’s complex systems. the magazine ISSUE 143 19

Man and machine in harmony on the advanced bridge design.

Below Some of the ergonomically designed controls.

F

or four decades, the Rolls-Royce UT Design vessels have been the benchmark for the oil and gas industry, enabling ship operators and oil companies to safely ply their trade, often in some of the harshest conditions on the planet.

The design has continually evolved, and today, like the very first ships, the Rolls-Royce UT Design perfectly blends experience and innovation, to provide highly advanced and capable ships suited to the changing demands of offshore operations.

Having to cope with heavy seas, strong currents and gale force winds, while loading and unloading valuable cargo is not only a challenge for the ship, but also the crew. So, ensuring the judgement and reactions of those in charge of the vessels are in tune with those of the ship itself are paramount.

This year, the first ship to feature the Unified Bridge, joined the growing fleet of innovative Norwegian company Simon Møkster Shipping, and is now hard at work in the North Sea. The Stril Luna, the first of a pair of ships built by the Astilleros Gondán shipyard in Spain, now operates from their hometown port Stavanger in Norway.

This offshore platform supply vessel (PSV)

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was designed by Rolls-Royce and is a UT 776 WP design which, as well as being the first in the world with the Unified Bridge, also features an advanced hull form and wave-piercing bow and is equipped with a Rolls-Royce power and propulsion package.

For the Stril Luna and her sister ship, the new bridge improves the whole working environment for the crew, enabling them to

perform safer and more efficient operations.

The two UT 776 vessels are being equipped for northern operations, which means operation moving more towards the Arctic and out of the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. The vessels are designed to be ready for those future missions, and that will mean travelling further in transit mode to get to the rigs and therefore spending more time away from port. With the future in mind, the result is they are multipurpose, more fuel efficient and able to go faster while carrying more payload.

The bridge itself is built up from a series of modular consoles with controls and screens. For Stril Luna it is optimised for PSV operations and tailored to the owner’s requirements and preferences. But this is just the visible face of a high level of system integration.

“A ship is a complex assembly of systems and items of equipment, all of which have to be controlled and monitored,” says Ludvig Kåre Øyen, Rolls-Royce Technical Manager – Automation and Control.

“The role of the Unified Bridge is to provide the operator with a functional and easily used human/machine interface with ergonomically placed control levers, touch screens to call up and control the systems and logically presented on system status.

Our key aims in designing it have been to offer the operator performance, simplicity and safety with proximity, with an improved view of the aft deck.

“Our key aims in designing it have been to offer the operator performance, simplicity and safety with proximity, with an improved view of the aft deck.

“We have not only focused on providing a variable working position but a clear and simplified graphical user interface, where only the data needed by the operator for the task in-hand is displayed, using a philosophy of ‘what you see is what you need’. Data not required for the decisions being made is not on screen, which reduces the potential for human errors.”

The level of integration achieved by the Unified Bridge covers Rolls-Royce and thirdparty equipment and systems – everything from propulsion controls to the fog horn. The system

collects the control and status information for all these systems and presents them to the crew responsible for operating the ship in a clear and logical way. This helps to reduce fatigue, prevent mistakes and misunderstandings and so improve safety at sea.

The first ship entered service in September, following successful commissioning in Spain, where the second ship is progressing fast.

Stril Luna is currently on contract for state oil company, Statoil, supporting various rigs in the North Sea.

Author: Craig Taylor is Head of Communications – Marine for Rolls-Royce. He has previously worked in communications roles in the nuclear power and public transport industries.

FACTs AbouT sIMoN MøksTER sHIppINg

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simon Møkster shipping As is a supplier of modern offshore support vessels with high quality specifications.

The company’s head office is located in stavanger, Norway, and main operational areas are the North sea and the barents sea.

The company has a fleet of 23 vessels and around 550 employees working onshore and offshore. simon Møkster shipping is 100 per cent owned by the Møkster family, the company’s motto is ‘Always Ready’.

The company provide clients with a diversified service, which includes: rescue, oil recovery, firefighting, towing in addition to supply, anchorhandling and multi field service.

A strong focus on health, safety, environment and quality are fundamental for all of Møkster’s activities.

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the magazine ISSUE 143 21

A lease partner

for the long term

25 years ago Rolls-Royce formed a subsidiary to help finance spare engines and ensure that airlines could secure the spare engines they require operationally through long-term financing agreements.

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oday, Rolls-Royce & Partners Finance (RRPF) is one of the largest lessors of spare engines in the world. RRPF manage the largest portfolio of Rolls-Royce and IAE V2500 spare engines in operation today and their business looks set to grow significantly in the coming years.

Bobby Janagan, General Manager for RRPF, tells us about their origins, their approach to the market and his plans for this ambitious business.

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Why did Rolls-Royce create an engine lease financing arm? It was started in 1989. The airline market was very different then. For example, many of the larger airlines at the time were state-owned and they had implicit or explicit state backing. However, small airlines with only a few aircraft had no such backing and found it harder to access funding, or secure good financing deals for their aircraft and spare engines.

Major engine maintenance, which happens every four-six years, requires the installed engine to be removed from the aircraft. Airlines therefore need spare engines to ensure that they are able to continue to fly their aircraft while this work is undertaken.

The formation of the business coincided with Eastern Airlines in the US going out of business resulting in a large number of RB211-535E4 powered Boeing 757s becoming available in the used aircraft market. Most of these aircraft were most likely destined to find a new home with smaller operators.

Rolls-Royce saw an opportunity to build the initial foundations of the RRPF business by supporting these airlines which, in most cases, were unable to purchase engines through their own cash flows. This is a capital hungry business, so Rolls-Royce decided to do it in partnership with a small group of banks. A business case was made and Rolls-Royce & Partners Finance was formed – hence the ‘partners’ element in the name.

How has the business developed since? We have been trading under that name since 1989 and in the early years it worked well, but then around the mid-90s, discussions were held with the partners and some changes ensued. Many banks have a different mindset to an aero engine

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the magazine AVIATION

OEM (original equipment manufacturer) in terms of economic cycle (when to invest and when not to, and speed of return on an investment).

Rolls-Royce felt it would be better to have a partner who understood the long-term nature of the business and so the company bought out the bank partners and brought in a new partner, GATX. GATX came on board in 1998. They are a company that understands asset values, investment conditions for long life capital equipment, and long-term aviation cycles – they remain our partner today.

What engine types were you financing in the beginning? In the early days RRPF focused on leasing RB211-535E4s for 757s and Tay 620 and 650s for the Fokker 70 and 100s. These engine types made up the majority of the portfolio, but there were also a few RB211 -22Bs supporting L1011 TriStars. Through the 1990s we started financing the V2500 for the A320 family, which was followed by the early Trents for 777 and A330s and smaller engines such as the AE 3007A for the Embraer 145 family of regional aircraft Were the other aero engine OEM companies offering engine lease financing too? At the time it was quite a pioneering thing for an OEM to do. There were independent companies but from an OEM point of view Rolls-Royce was the first until GE acquired a similar business around ten years later.

Has the business model changed much? In the early days the thought process was very much about helping small airline customers by providing them with the financial support required to secure the spare engines they needed, which helped keep their Rolls-Royce powered aircraft in operation.

Today, the market is very different. Now many of our customers are household names, such as British Airways, Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa and many others. There has been a notable shift in mindset over the years. Airline customers used to think it was important to own the equipment themselves, but now they see the wider benefits of leasing key equipment. Today, around 45 per cent of the worldwide aircraft fleet is leased as are around 35 per cent of the world’s spare engines, but this number is expected to increase to match the aircraft market.

Why is that and how does it work now? Airlines lease aircraft and engines for three reasons: Firstly, some big carriers will look to replace their fleet with different aircraft every 12-15 years, we see this trend particularly with Middle East and Asian airlines. Therefore, some airlines have opted to lease 50 per cent of their fleet and own 50 per cent. They do this because it gives them fleet flexibility – meaning they can adjust the lease duration and the return of their aircraft and engines to lessors, to seamlessly match the introduction of the new replacement aircraft types and engines. Secondly, today airlines don’t like to tie up so much capital in their assets (aircraft and engines). Leasing provides airlines with a source of funding to finance their fleet, leaving their general bank facilities and overdrafts to fund the day-to-day business.

And thirdly, airlines lease a proportion of their fleet in order

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to mitigate their risk to the long-term value of the aircraft and engines. If a programme (aircraft/engine combination) is successful and values remain high, the operator may see a benefit in owning their equipment. If a programme is not so successful then the opposite is true. With leasing, this risk sits with the owners of the equipment such as RRPF. Are market dynamics shifting, what about additional growth in the industry? There are lots more opportunities in the new and emerging markets like Asia.

Countries like China, India, Thailand, and Indonesia for example, are likely to offer great opportunities in the future as a third of the world’s population lives in Asia and they are in early stages of route liberalisation if you compare against Europe, for instance.

The new airlines in these areas need capital, and lots of it.

Lessors can help them with this by borrowing money against their reputation, existing financial strength and providing assets as collateral. It works well for the operator and investor. Investors and banks feel they are not directly exposed to the new airline, they have a firewall intermediary that they know and trust. Following the 2008 financial crisis, lending criteria for banks and financial institutions became very stringent. Their investment is better protected as it is not placed directly with the operator and the operators get the capital and assets they need.

Why do engines need such special financing attention?

Engines are the most technical part of the aircraft and the single biggest dollar investment once the aircraft has been purchased. Even a specialist aircraft leasing company does not look at engines as its core activity. A major aircraft leasing company may have over 1,500 aircraft on its books, but it will own less than 100 spare engines.

Spare engines are our core business, we have around 400 engines on our books – GE has a similar quantity.

How does it work with a customer buying new aircraft and spare engines? The quantity of spare engines required by an airline will be driven by the size of their fleet, but will also be depend on how they operate the aircraft and whether they are operating in a harsh environment, etc.

Generally, for every five aircraft you operate, you will need a spare engine to keep your aircraft flying during the periods that your other engines are being overhauled. So a customer would come to us and say we are buying these new aircraft, we need spare engines and will need to finance them. We would then ask how long the aircraft will be in operation with them, how long is their TotalCare® contract, and we would define our proposal based on these factors.

And for mature engines that have been in service for 10-12 years? When a large aircraft fleet migrates from the original operator to the next airline, you will usually see the fleet start to fragment. So what might have been a fleet of 50 aircraft with the first customer tends to split into multiple smaller fleets with numerous other operators. The original operator returns the leased spare engines in line with their fleet phase-out plan and then we follow the aircraft and look to place the original spare engines with the new operators.

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the magazine ISSUe 143 23

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Looking ahead what is the future for RRPF? There is huge shift in spare engine values now. There is a lot more technical value in terms of better fuel burn, lower emissions and so on, in a new large engine like a Trent XWB. One of these new large engine types will cost an amount that will not be dissimilar to the value of small narrow-body aircraft. Not many airlines have the scale of available cash needed to make such acquisitions, so we envisage that our market and business will grow substantially as deliveries of Trent XWB and Trent 1000 engines come through in larger volumes. On this basis, I see our opportunities coming from two main areas: the market is currently leasing about 35 per cent of its engines and the trend is showing that by 2020, 50 per cent of spare engines will be on lease. Why? Because the new and younger growing airlines tend to lease as their preferred option for the reasons I have outlined earlier.

Then if you look at the Rolls-Royce order book (£60 billion for civil engines) that is important for us. We are best placed to capture the need for spare engines to accompany those new engine orders.

On this basis, we are assuming that we will double our scale in the next ten years.

If we asked your customers to describe RRPF what would they say? I would like to think that our customers would say we are good at listening. We want to accommodate their needs, even though we are a big lessor we still want to be flexible and be a partner. We were delighted when one of our customers recently said that we did ‘not act as a financial counterpart but as a partner’.

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24 rolls-royce.com

We believe that our partnership approach is what makes us different in the market and it is now part of our branding. It is something that we have always stood for but never really talked too much about, or promoted – maybe we never even really recognised it about ourselves until quite recently – but it is how we work with our customers.

Author: David Howie is Director of Brand for Rolls-Royce.

He joined the company from a marketing consultancy and prior to that was a press officer.

Above rB211-535e4 engines were among the first to be supported in the market by rrPf.

the magazine ENERGY

Sweet smell of success In the small town of Pichidegua, Chile, MTU Onsite Energy, in co-operation with the distributor Detroit Chile, has built a modular biogas CHP plant.

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t produces electricity for the local residents. It’s a landmark in the long, thin, South American country that seems predestined for localised energy generation because of its unique geography. One pleasant side-effect of the CHP plant is that the pig slurry no longer smells to high heaven because it is fermented into biogas.

We are on our way south from the capital Santiago. After three hours, we reach Pichidegua, a small town in central Chile with a population of around 18,000. Near here, there are seven pig farms run by the company MaxAgro. On a narrow country road we are looking for the entrance to one of them, Las Pampas, but drive past the gate several times before we spot it. Nothing indicates that thousands of animals are kept here, only a few metres away behind a maize field – no smell, no flies…

That is surprising to say the least, because in 2012 protests by local people living close to a pig-rearing and slaughtering plant in northern Chile with 450,000 animals made big headlines.

The parent company Agrosuper S.A. – one of the country’s biggest meat producers with an annual turnover of US$1.1 billion and around 15,000 employees – eventually had to close down the plant. The reason? Because the local population protested vociferously against the

foul smell of the pigs and the swarms of flies.

The Chilean government labelled the processes a “sanitary disaster.”

Eco-friendly

MaxAgro rears 130,000 pigs in its plants, which have also had their share of headlines over the past year – though in their case not because of protesting locals. The company is the first business in Chile to install a biogas plant and

The electricity we produce from the two plants is enough to supply around 2,500 families in the area.

Cristián Kühlenthal, CEO of MaxAgro

Much of rural Chile lends itself to local energy solutions.

the magazine

ISSUE 143

25

PERU BOLIVIA PARAGUAY CHILE

now generates energy from pig slurry. “We wanted to find an eco-friendly and profitable solution for the production of pork,” recounts CEO Cristián Kühlenthal. “We installed digesters to limit the smell problem as long ago as 2008, but we only used the waste as fertiliser. A biogas plant from MTU Onsite Energy that we can use to generate energy from the gas produced is something entirely new for us,” explains Kühlenthal, adding: “Without environmentally friendly solutions, no business is viable in the long run nowadays.”

Biogas

ARGENTINA

Santiago Pichidegua

Pacific Ocean South Atlantic Ocean

FALKLAND ISLANDS

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As a pig-farming operation, MaxAgro got together with Genera Austral, a Chilean biogas plant operator, to develop a business model.

They installed an MTU Onsite Energy CHP plant not only at the MaxAgro facility in Pichidegua but also in Santa Irene. They are both equipped with a Series 400 engine and produce 400kW of electrical energy and 462kW of heat. “The two plants together generate a total of 6,400MWh of electricity a year that we feed into the national power grid,” relates Kühlenthal. The thermal energy recovered from the engine coolant and the exhaust is used to heat the pig pens in the winter. “The electricity we produce from the two plants is enough to supply around 2,500 families in the area,” Cristián Kühlenthal elucidates.

The system is looked after by Detroit Chile, the MTU Onsite Energy distributor in Chile. “We can monitor the technical parameters of the plant around the clock with a remote control system and so we can respond immediately if there are any irregularities,” explains Cristobal Orcos of Detroit Chile, emphasising that his engineers have been specially trained for the job at MTU Onsite Energy in Augsburg.

The principle of the plant is identical with that of numerous other biogas plants already installed in Europe – solid and liquid waste

A typical MTU Onsite Energy package.

(slurry) from the pig pens is pumped into a digester housed underneath a dome-shaped roof. “We have nicknamed the dome the ‘concrete cow’ because inside it the process is the same as in a ruminant’s stomach,” jokes Matías Errázuriz, CEO of Genera Austral and operator of the plant. “It is hermetically sealed and all that comes out at the end of the process is the almost odourless residue that runs off into a tank and is used as organic fertiliser for the surrounding fields.”

The digester is seven metres deep with an area of 40 square metres and holds roughly 6,000 cubic metres of biomass. The biomass is mixed and fermented to produce biogas with a methanol content of between 50 per cent and 60 per cent. Before the gas is pumped to the engine, it is passed via underground pipes through an active carbon filter that reduces the sulfur content.

The opening of the new biogas plant in Las Pampas in November last year was attended by Chilean Environment Minister, María Ignacia Benítez, and Energy Minister, Jorge Bunster.

Bunster underlined the massive potential of biogas as an energy source that could reach “up

to 10,000 gigawatt-hours a year and source as much as 42 per cent of its fuel from livestock farming.” Environment Minister Benítez, drew attention to the growing importance of sustainable energy generation and emphasised that the project developed by Genera Austral for MaxAgro was an “important part of meeting the targets of the 20/25 Act.” That legislation requires that the proportion of renewable energies within the overall energy mix must reach 20 per cent by 2025.

Encouraged

At the official opening, Cristián Kühlenthal encouraged other businesses in the industry not only to invest in recycling their organic waste but also to take the extra step into energy generation.

Stretching around 4,300 kilometres from north to south but having an average width of only about 200 kilometres, Chile is one of the most unusually shaped countries in the world. If placed elsewhere on the map, it would reach from Greenland to Morocco. That particular geography predestines the country to invest in the development of localised energy generation.

In the past, Chile attempted to supply its growing energy needs from conventional thermal power plants and gigantic north-south cable lines. But some years ago the Chilean government had a rethink.

Over the next two years, Cristobal Orcos at Detroit Chile is expecting to see more MTU Onsite Energy biogas plants built in this part of South America. Genera Austral CEO, Matías Errázuriz, is also optimistic: “In Chile there is a massive market for generating energy from biogas – not only in the agricultural industry but also on landfill sites, in forestry and salmon farming, in the food industry and in the wholesale grocery trade.” But integrating new technologies in a country takes time.

Genera Austral has already drawn up an investment plan for building more plants of this type in the coming years. After all, doing so solves two problems at once: electricity and heat are produced locally by a clean process.

And the waste from pigs, hens and cattle does not arouse the anger of local residents.

MTU Onsite Energy is now part of the Rolls-Royce Group.

the magazine ISSUE 143 27

knowledge

Is s poweR

If knowledge is power, as Francis Bacon said, how do you harness it in a company creating as much knowledge as Rolls-Royce? “Knowledge management is fundamentally vital,” according to the company’s specialist associate fellow Colin Cadas.

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n an organisation employing over 17,000 engineers worldwide and spending over £1bn on research and development, it is unlikely that someone can sit at their desk and think about a problem that no one has thought about before. The knowledge is almost certainly there. The challenge is to help that someone look for it and make it easy for them to find.

Cadas defines knowledge management as, “the leveraging of the company’s knowledge resources, including that in people’s heads, to give a business benefit.” That benefit can be in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness.

Design engineers spend a significant element of their working lives searching for information which, in many cases, they fail to find. As a consequence they either recreate it or use less appropriate information to come to poorer conclusions, so new product introduction processes will be inefficient.

The Rolls-Royce response is a combination of processes, people, and technology.

Knowledge management can be seen as a process, with “the same sort of life cycle that the development of an engine has,” says Cadas. “You have a set of requirements, a number of different concepts, a scope and different solutions. You have to design your product, make it and look after it. sometimes ometimes when people are creating information artefacts they don’t consider the part beyond the initial creation.”

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the magazine PRoFIle

Career

In designing the knowledge management product improve their social networks is vital. Rolls-Royce there are compulsory processes that apply to uses innovation portals, web based expert search Colin Cadas joined Rolls-Royce leaders in all sectors, functions and businesses. and communities of practice to connect people on completion of an engineering These ask three key questions: what do you need to across business boundaries. degree at Cambridge. His initial know, what you are going to learn and who will you Much of the knowledge captured is turned into work was as a technical engineer tell? secondly, econdly, there is a process to follow to ensure web content and is placed on the Rolls-Royce in what is now the Submarines what is discovered is firmly embedded in the Capability Intranet. The remainder may become business of Rolls-Royce working organisation. Finally, responsibility for the training manuals, or if really sensitive, a document on core meltdown. maintenance of the knowledge created is assigned. held in restricted circulation. “one ne of the key things about capturing and everything on the Capability Intranet has a As his career developed he became exploiting knowledge is ownership. on assuming a maximum review period and all the pages have a more interested and involved in leadership role in the business, managers will be control sheet defining ownership, applicability, expert systems – automating given a list of the knowledge assets they are export control, and intellectual property restrictions. knowledge and computer systems accountable for. A key part of their job is to protect It is very tightly controlled.

– artificial intelligence and neural and develop those assets. Leaders need to know “The next step,” according to Cadas, “is the networks. As a consequence of a what knowledge is critical to achieving their development of a master knowledge source which number of cross sectoral projects he operational goals, whether the company has it, and could capture all the knowledge about how to design found himself developing and if so where, how difficult it was to come by (is it a particular commodity. Then at the touch of a ultimately leading the Rolls-Royce found in a book or learned through experience) button you could find the right knowledge for your Knowledge Management team. and how well it is shared. purpose. For example, in an introductory form for a He describes the best part of “These latter two categories are less experienced designer, and also for a more the job as “getting to see what a perhaps the most important. advanced designer, the same information can be lot of people do and getting to experiential learning which is not automated and used to generate a design.” understand what their problems well shared and perhaps in the This is part of a wider research programme, led by are, meeting a huge variety of possession of only one person is Cadas, in conjunction with sysemia and Cranfield, people and learning from them.” at significant risk of loss. people Leeds and Birmingham City Universities to develop leave, or suffer accidents. This and embed up-to-date knowledge management creates a priority for knowledge capture.” tools and techniques across the organisation.

Cadas and his team don’t operate a knowledge “external research tells us that some Rolls-Royce knowledge capture service. They coach people in how to capture management techniques and understanding are world-leading,” says knowledge and ensure what they capture is valuable.

Cadas. The secret of that success: “It’s a very holistic thing, it’s not That way, the person doing it gains a lot more insight technology, it’s not processes, it’s not people – it’s a combination.” into the topic area than can be written down and Getting that combination right will allow Rolls-Royce to power turned into an artefact. “You cannot write down or ahead of the competition. electronically capture everything that someone Author: Simon kirby consults and lectures in marketing communications knows,” says Cadas. ““experts will only write down about with a particular interest in technology. He has worked in communications roles extensively in both the public and private sector.

20 per cent of what they know and significantly over estimate what their audience knows already.”

This is a problem familiar to anyone who has ever baked a cake and wondered why it looks very different from the one in the picture in their recipe book. “Real expertise comes through dealing with things that are slightly out of the norm and adapting.” A celebrity chef has a lifetime’s experience of fixing problems in the kitchen which cannot be conveyed in a recipe. Recipes also contain concepts which may not be fully explained or understood – how brown is golden brown? part of the process that Rolls-Royce operates involves having someone, often a young engineer new to the organisation, conduct the knowledge capture through a series of interviews. According to Cadas: “Less experienced people often have more time to do something but also take less for granted, asking the questions that really need asking.

The process also helps them build their professional network which is how the work actually gets done.”

Being able to find the appropriate expert is critical. Giving engineers the encouragement, systems and process to

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the magazine ISSUE 143 29

The Olympus-powered Vulcan entered service in 1956.

From powering the world’s only supersonic airliner to enter service to today’s most successful large aero engine family, we examine two of the highest-achieving aero engines of the past 100 years.

AGe OF the jet J

et power clearly defined the future for aviation in the post-war 1940s as ambitious plans and proposals for new designs of jet engines and aircraft began to emerge in industrialised nations worldwide, with the UK and US at the forefront.

But one major UK engine manufacturer lagged far behind its domestic and global competitors in this race for the future. By the end of 1946 the engine division of the Bristol Aeroplane Company, a

30 rolls-royce.com

powerhouse of production in wartime that supplied tens of thousands of military aero engines, had gained a total of just ten hours of jet engine running experience.

Arch rivals such as Rolls-Royce had already logged thousands.

But from this tiniest of beginnings arose a radical new design that would go on to become a world leader for decades to come – the Olympus.

Bristol lacked jet experience and its project office comprised just three staff, but this is where true innovation blossomed. Charles

Marchant, Sam Robinson and Gordon Lewis, tasked by Bristol’s chief engineer to create a large jet engine for a proposed future long-range bomber, shaped a design that used two rotating spools on concentric shafts, each spool able to rotate independently at optimum speed.

After a slow start to development, the arrival at Bristol (from rival Rolls-Royce) of a mathematician whose name features frequently in the story of UK aero engines, Dr (later Sir) Stanley Hooker, soon energised

progress. Appointed chief engineer in 1950, he quickly realised the potential of the world’s first two-spool engine and reshaped the company’s engineering effort to gain full advantage. Hooker himself controlled the test-cell for the first Olympus run, confidently and successfully slamming the throttle to full 10,000lb power after just a few minutes running.

Once a back-marker in the high-stakes race for superior jet power, Bristol now became the leader, with the highest power turbojet on the market. Flight trials

the magazine hIStORICAL

Olympus engines in assembly at Bristol.

began in a converted english electric Canberra, exploring the engine’s suitability for use in the UK’s high-altitude, high-speed “V-bombers”. These tests proved highly successful and gained worldwide publicity by setting a new world altitude record of 19,406m (63,668ft) in May 1953.

The Olympus entered service in the RAF’s Avro Vulcan in May 1956 but was already fighting to keep its place in the improved Mark 2 Vulcan which would be built in much greater numbers.

Rolls-Royce was pushing its Conway turbofan which had already been chosen for the Victor Mk 2. But by bravely pledging to match Rolls’ promised price with the new 200-series Olympus, Bristol won the day and ensured

the engine’s future.

The Vulcan Mk 2 served the UK in front-line duty until the early 1980s, even taking part in the Falkland’s conflict.

This platform allowed the launch of the successful naval and industrial versions of the Olympus, but it was the final aircraft powerplant that would secure the engine’s fame. In 1959 a new, supersonic, Olympus variant had been selected for the RAF’s future tactical strike aircraft, the TSR2.

Cost overruns caused cancellation of this very ambitious aircraft soon after it first flew in 1964, but by then its engine had been chosen as the basis of the new powerplant for the Anglo-French SST project – the Concorde.

This survived several cancellation attempts and flew in March 1969, some three years after the merger between Bristol and Rolls-Royce. Despite controversy it entered service in January 1976 with Sir Stanley Hooker an enthralled passenger on British Airways’ inaugural flight.

In its ultimate form as the world’s most powerful turbojet, producing more than 38,000lb of thrust with reheat, the Olympus

593 powered the world’s only successful supersonic transport until Concorde’s retirement in October 2003.

By now, however, the aviation world had changed. Powerful commercial and environmental pressures had forced aviation to clean-up its act. To survive, engine manufacturers had needed to develop far quieter and more fuel-efficient products. Rolls-Royce had pioneered the turbofan and by the 1970s was achieving commercial success with its RB211 family of engines, many of which remain profitably in service today.

Proposed

But even by 1987, the Rolls-Royce percentage share of the large civil turbofan market remained stubbornly stuck in single-digit figures. Proposed new commercial transports included twin-engined types such as the Boeing 777 and the Airbus A330, requiring unprecedented levels of engine power well beyond the reach of the RB211 family.

Time for another brave pledge.

Rolls-Royce decided that to survive and prosper in this tough competitive arena it would offer

Concorde, the Anglo-French supersonic airliner.

the magazine ISSUE 143 31

Trent 700 engines have been a great success on the A330 and the new Trent 7000 will power the A330neo.

An early Trent engine on test.

engines for every large civil airliner – a family of engines, based on a common core. The three-shaft concept, proven by the RB211, enabled all three prime engine elements (high-, intermediate- and low-pressure systems) to be scaled individually, tuned and tailored to match specific aircraft requirements. One family, so one name: the Trent.

This new family’s first taste of success came in April 1989 when Cathay Pacific became the first airline to specify Rolls-Royce power on an Airbus aircraft, ordering ten Trent 700-powered A330s. Trans World Airlines soon followed, ordering 20 A330s, and more customers began to join the queue. A Trent 700 first ran in August 1990 and the Trent era dawned in March 1995, when Cathay Pacific launched Trentpowered A330 services.

The family soon began to grow.

The more powerful Trent 800, for the Boeing 777, first ran in September 1993 and

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entered service (again with Cathay Pacific) less than three years later.

By 1996 Airbus had progressed definition of its new super-jumbo enough for Rolls-Royce to be able to begin development of the next Trent version, the 900, which gained FAA certification on the A380 in December 2006.

Chosen

Progress continued apace, with the Trent 500 winning sole place on the two long-range versions of the four-engined Airbus A340 transport in 1997, entering service in July 2002. Trent 1000 followed, chosen by Boeing as the launch engine for its advanced new 787 Dreamliner. It was Rolls-Royce and the Trent 1000 that powered it into service in September 2011.

And to bring history right up to

date, today the latest family member – the Trent XWB – is about to enter service in another advanced and strong-selling twin, the Airbus A350 XWB. Next will come the Trent 7000, chosen as the sole powerplant for future A330neo aircraft and due to run in 2015. It is the most successful large aero engine family in history.

Since its late-1980s inception the Trent has exceeded even the most optimistic contemporary commercial forecasts. each member of the family has been either the market leader, aircraft launch engine, or both. Trent has become the engine of choice for most new widebody aircraft and today Rolls-Royce is a global driver in this sector.

Although from very different eras, the Olympus and Trent families have more than just aviation success as common factors. Both have also proved ideal for use in industrial and marine markets and have achieved considerable success on land and at sea worldwide, with many marine and industrial Olympus still at work today, nearly 70 years since those three Bristol engineers sat down to draft the engine’s pioneering layout. With that sort of heritage behind it, the Trent family is set to continue delivering engineering excellence at sea, on land and in the air for at least as many decades to come.

Author: john hutchinson is an independent writer on a range of topics including technology. he has worked in various corporate and media communication roles, never far from the leading-edge industry of aerospace.

Trent 1000s powered the first Boeing 787 into service.

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