Rolls-Royce now expects to achieve an 80% time-on-wing improvement for all its in-production widebody engines by the end of 2027 – a significant increase over a previous 40% target.
Last year, the UK-headquartered engine maker disclosed a £1 billion ($1.26 billion) investment to improve durability across its Trent portfolio, including the 40% time-on-wing improvement target.
But Tufan Erginbilgic, Rolls-Royce chief executive, said feedback from testing and analysis of “millions of hours of operational data” had led the propulsion specialist to conclude that it “can achieve double the time-on-wing improvement within the same period”.
There is “no technical risk” to the new goal, he told analysts during a full-year results briefing on 27 February, “otherwise we would not share with you the other 40%”.
Erginbilgic says the bulk of the improvement will be delivered by enhancements to the Trent 1000-TEN – an option on the Boeing 787 – and the Trent XWB-84, the exclusive powerplant for the Airbus A350-900.
For the latter, a stronger compressor blade root and deep analysis of in-service data – including “high-fidelity understating of speed, temperature and pressure of the engines” – have enabled Rolls-Royce to “increase the cyclic limits of critical [life-limited] parts”, he says.
On the Trent 1000, Rolls-Royce is confident that it has finally resolved a long-running issue with the durability of high-pressure turbine (HPT) blades.
While Erginbilgic claims the powerplant “is as reliable” as the competing GE Aerospace GEnx, “the main issue has been time on wing”.
Flight tests of the enhanced blades aboard a 787 wrapped up in January – around two months later than planned due to the strike that hit Boeing last year – and Rolls-Royce expects to receive US Federal Aviation Administration certification in the second quarter.
Erginbilgic hails the success of the flight tests but says “this was not a surprise”, with the company having already delivered a similar improvement to the Trent 7000 for the A330neo.
This has “been performing better than we expected over the last two years”, where time-on-wing has doubled. “Even in an environment like Kuwait it is performing brilliantly.”
New Trent 1000s are already receiving the improved HPT blades and Rolls-Royce expects to roll out the update across the in-service fleet over the next two years, he adds.
A further improvement, also for the Trent 7000, delivering another 30% boost should become available by year-end. Testing will begin in April but, crucially, flight testing is not needed to achieve the engine-level certification.
“We are making good progress. By the end of this year it is going to be a totally competitive engine in terms of time-on-wing.”
Initial enhancements to the seal segments and new blade coatings on the A350-1000’s Trent XWB-97 are also “performing well”, he says, with a further durability improvement to arrive by the end of 2027.
Meanwhile, work continues to “further improve” the design of the UltraFan demonstrator, says Erginbilgic. “We are progressing the development for both narrow and widebody aircraft.”
Ground tests of the initial demonstrator engine concluded in 2023 but last year the manufacturer disclosed plans to flight-test a second-generation version in collaboration with Airbus.
Rolls-Royce continues to seek partners for any narrowbody application for the geared architecture, he adds: “Everybody is talking to us and we are talking to everybody. Our preference is partnership.”
For the year to 31 December, Rolls-Royce saw revenues for civil aerospace – including its business jet engine portfolio – rise 24% to £9 billion, with operating profit at £1.5 billion, a 79% increase.
A total of 278 widebody engines were delivered during the period – 221 to airframers and 57 spares – plus 251 business jet engines, of which 174 were from the Peal family.
This performance came despite “a supply chain environment that remains challenging” – a situation likely to persist for another 12-18 months.
Rolls-Royce took in orders for 494 large engines in 2024, pushing its backlog to 1,843 units.
Large engine flight hours rose 17% last year to 15.8 million – 103% of 2019’s total.
Overall, Rolls-Royce grew underlying group operating profit to £2.4 billion on revenue of £17.8 billion. The respective figures for its defence unit – which also includes naval propulsion – stood at £644 million and £4.5 billion.
