Engine Performs As Expected On 747 Test Bed

Rolls-Royce announced Tuesday a flawless performance by its Trent 1000 engine during its first flight on the company’s Boeing 747 flying test bed. The first phase of the flight test program for the launch engine of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner is now underway in the skies over Waco, TX.

"We gave the engine a hard time for its first flight, but it did everything we asked," said Rolls-Royce Chief Test pilot Phill O’Dell. "It was very stable and predictable. Normally at this stage we would have expected to leave the engine at fixed thrust, but we gained confidence so quickly that we used it to maneuver the aircraft. We will now move quickly to aggressive operability testing."

Dominic Horwood, Director for Boeing Programs at Rolls-Royce, added: "We’re delighted with this result. This is a fantastic team performance involving the Rolls-Royce and L-3 partnership with the support of Boeing. In addition to our certification program, which is on track, this is a further step to demonstrating confidence in the engine ahead of first flight on the 787. We have only a few tests over the next few weeks to complete the certification validation program."

The flying test bed, a 747-200 aircraft, was converted by L-3 Communications at the company's Waco base. This included removing one of the original Rolls-Royce RB211-524C engines to accommodate the Trent 1000. The modification also involved installing equipment to dissipate the half a megawatt of electricity produced by each Trent 1000 in flight. The 787 will use this energy -- rather than the alternative of drawing surplus air from the engine -- to power the aircraft’s control surfaces and cabin systems.

The reason for using the flying test bed at this stage is to validate the interface of the engine with the airframe and intake. Sufficient altitude test data has already been gathered for engine certification purposes through ground-based testing, which is able to simulate altitude conditions.

The Trent 1000 has completed its altitude test phase at the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) in Tullahoma, TN. This has included complete icing compliance, engine operability and in-flight restarts across the flight envelope. The engine has performed excellently throughout altitude testing and the quality of data from the controlled environment at AEDC has met altitude certification requirements.

In recent development work, Rolls-Royce also reports it recently successfully completed the fan blade containment test. A Trent 1000 was accelerated to full speed before a fan blade was released at its root by an explosive charge. The engine’s behavior after the event was as expected, according to the company, and was well within certification requirements.

As ANN reported, Rolls-Royce recently delivered the first set of Trent 1000 engines to Boeing, which are currently being installed to support the 787 Dreamliner’s roll-out next month.

Later this year, Trent 1000s will begin flight testing on four 787s as the program moves towards entry into service with launch customer All Nippon Airways in 2008.

FMI: www.rolls-royce.com, www.boeing.com