The Enormous UltraFan! A Rolls-Royce story.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
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I recently made a video about how the CFM RISE and Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan, could compete to power the planes that will replace some or all of the single-aisle aircraft that we know today.
But in the comments of that video, one, or maybe two of you, wrote asking: what about Rolls-Royce? Could Rolls-Royce’s UltraFan engine, also be a part of this “engine war”? Well, the answer could well be yes, but… it’s complicated!
Stay tuned!
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Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode.
• Greener gas turbine en...
• CFM RISE program Tech ...
• Pratt & Whitney GTF™ E...
• SHRF: The Eagle Engine
• Men Bet Their Lives on...
• The Pegasus Engine and...
• John Coplin and the Ro...
• Rolls Royce Production...
• Rolls-Royce | Our mark...
• Building A Boeing 737-...
• Rolls-Royce shares lea...
• Rolls-Royce | How we a...
• How does a CFM56-7B wo...
• New Embraer KC-390 Mil...
• C-390 Millennium. Righ...
• Rolls-Royce Deutschlan...
• Pratt & Whitney’s Gear...
• How Delta Fixes $32 Mi...
• Rolls-Royce | How Engi...
• Rolls-Royce | Trent 10...
• How coronavirus has af...
• Rolls-Royce | UltraFan...
• The Pratt & Whitney GT...
• Rolls-Royce | Our targ...
• Greener gas turbine en...
• Rolls-Royce | ALECSys ...
• GE9X engine soars
• Boeing 757 - Rolls Roy...
• Rolls-Royce | Advance ...
• Capital Vickers Viscou...
Try free for 7 days, and get a 60% discount if you join the annual subscription speakly.app.link/mentournow
you are the best.the next is Kelsey.
Haha. KeI's is a character!
Something is weird with this discount. When I go to their page directly, the yearly price is 48 euro. When I go via that link above - the price is... 48 euro, though saying that it is a 60% discount!
@@PavelKostromitinov That is indeed strange, let me check with the brand.
The RB 211 could just finished in development under public ownership-support. Natural logic over profit.
A system, that brought humans into space, on the moon. And could better onto Mars, if...^^
When I was 19, a man called Harry came to work with us. He was retired and just wanted to keep himself busy.
He taught me almost everything I know about practical engineering, as it turns out he was the chief production engineer at Rolls Royce aerospace.
He helped develop the broad spread fan blade design. They gave him a Gold Rolex... thanks Harry, you were (and remain) a legend...
A great example of the wasteful practice of just retiring experienced and knowledgeable people just because of age or number of years working... People like him should have been kept at providing consultancy and advicing, albeit at reduced working hours, but not wasted!
@@alfredomarquez9777 ❤
❤
@@alfredomarquez9777 I do agree with you! When I was working in S. Africa, they had a simple saying about this: "You should die empty" - which means that you should continue to pass-on your valuable skills for your whole lifetime, or as long as your health (in old age) will allow. Sad that many academics in retirement feel that they are on the 'Scrapheap' when they could teach for many years AFTER retirement age.
@@peterduxbury927hello from Cape Town...
When I was studying aerospace engineering at school less than two decades ago, my propulsion class professor thought that a geared turbofan would probably never enter into production in the foreseeable future. Jet engines make so much power that no matter how efficient you make the gearbox, you're still turning enough energy into heat to melt or at least soften the gears. It's cool to see these companies doing what was thought impossible just a few years ago.
What “engineering topics” were your professor proficient in? Maybe they didn’t stay in their lane, turbine gearboxes are just extremely difficult but not impossible to design and be reliable. If the professor was mostly in aerodynamics, the power density and tribological issues of gearboxes would probably not be in their “wheelhouse”. But that is a very interesting example that you mention, as one of my professors actually designed jet engines and I mentioned something about dynamically controlling tip clearances and he said “NO” but there is now work being done in that area. Anything to chase that last percentage of efficiency increase.
That was his personal opinion, my professor claimed that diesel engine would never reach 100,000HP mark beacouse they are unefficent and so on, 100,000HP is "turbine teritory" ....
Wartsila has proven him wrong 15 years later, and now they say that they can make bigger one, if someone is willing to pay for it.
Financing is biggest obstacle in engineering, narrow mindset is close second.
When I was training to become an AME our teacher taught us that Bernoulli’s principle sucked a wing into the air. I asked how a cambered airfoil can fly upside down? He said sustained inverted flight was impossible for a cambered airfoil. The next day I brought in an electric Slow Stick and flew a whole battery inverted around the hanger. I then flew a shock flyer with a totally flat plank wing. He had no explanation for how they flew. Fast forward a few decades and it is now common knowledge that Bernoullis principle is only one factor acting on a wing. Always question “common knowledge” and those teaching it.
@@gpaull2
So true, but how a wing “actually provides lift” is a complex topic that has a surprising number of explanations, some of which are complicated and at times a bit in contention. It is an area that I prefer to not to have any definitive “opinions” on.
@@sinisatrlin840
AND those 100,000 HP ICE engines are very close to 50% efficient with a single cycle. With a bottoming cycle they are 55% efficient and have been in use for almost a decade in another type of application. In that application the ICEs are as efficient as the best combined cycle turbines but can come up to full ICE power significantly faster than a gas turbine which happens to be important in this application.
“When it does not exist, design it.” - Sir Henry Royce
Thanks for this video!❤
Glad you liked it! 💕
@CaliforniaHigh-SpeedRail shrug off pooh-pooh
@@MentourNow Looking at this reminded me of how in years past there WERE aircraft designs that either had the engine embedded in the fuselage(usually tail mounted) or inside the wing.
BUT, that's not a hot swap design. You can't just pull off the mounting pod, and put on a different one. You need to build the airframe with a specific engine in mind, and for the wing, that's pretty demanding. i really have to wonder HOW someone would even use an engine with a 12 foot ducted fan at all. Well, unless they go with an under-wing pod on a design with a high wing design... which has not been used for passenger planes.
The Rule 34 of engineering.
@@Sonny_McMacsson ofcourse
I've been retired from RR at Derby for nearly 30 years so I very much enjoyed this treatment. My job was in designing instrumentation/measurement on test-beds and rigs - blade off tests were fun and blade untwist measurement interesting. Royce's are also heavily involved in small nuclear reactors - also Derby-based,
Considering how much pressure was put on blade containment in case of fan blade failure, the idea of huge blades spinning in the open I find disturbing.
btw, no-one I ever worked with referred to the company as 'Rolls' it was always 'Royce's' because, after all he was the designer/engineer and Rolls was the backer who died quite early in the life of the company.
Thanks for that clarification 💕
@@MentourNow Hi Belper, Petter. The reactor angle was turbine blade design, or something deeper? I cannot look into this right now, but it's pretty interesting.
Yes, those uncontained blades made me wonder too, having seen film of engine failure testing.
@@RobBCactive I designed the control system to test fan blade containment using 3 wraps of Kevlar at Hucknall in the late 1980s IIRC. I saw the resulting high speed camera film (so slow motion!) and it was amazing how far the 3 turns of supposedly of non-stretch Kevlar actually stretched as the detached blade was very successfully contained. There's a lot of energy to dissipate.
@@belperflyer7419 I'm pretty sure that film was made public and the way the containment deformed but held was amazing!
Used to walk a dog on a path with sight onto Hucknall aerodrome, so I know exactly where you mean.
The way Peter prepared , produce and presend a story is always amazing ! I can sit and watch a 3 hour documentary of him presenting the way ants reproduce with the same excitment .
Not sure he'd put so much effort into insect pr0n tho tbh
@@2lefThumbsmust be an expression lost in translation lmfao
@@2lefThumbsmust be an expression lost in translation lmfao
@@greaseman01 "pr0n" is an obfuscation of "porn", heavily used in the 90s onwards to avoid swear filters, mainly by people who use "LMFAO" , oddly👍
Ants are very sexy! 🙂
It's unfortunate that aviation related companies practically have to risk their company's financial existence every 20 years or so trying to determine which direction the industry will go. A wrong decision could potentially doom them. It's one field that I definitely wouldn't want to be a CEO.
Madness. Doesn't help any manufacturer or airline at this point
CEOs almost never pay for their mistakes. The worst that seems to happen, is to be fired, with a big wad of money as a parting gift.
It is only means, that current engine-tech is on the very edge of its characteristics (like in the end of 1940s) and the world need something totally NEW
@@runalongnowhoneyyup. A golden parachute so big and so expensive that the CEO feet will never have to touch the ground. American corporations do not monopolize stupidity.
@ OP: Unfortunate for aviation *companies* ?
Well, isn’t it then a conundrum that governments - who we vote for to stay out of business - historically and today rush in to save said companies if and when they struggle?
We have something called “political economy”, and at this scale it does not adhere to the “small state” political narrative. A scale where nations after all compete (or co-operate) in the global economy.
I wish RR and aviation well, but as said - our governments are definitely taking part in “the economy” all the time, even if we think (and they say) they shouldn’t. Perhaps we could take that to heart, if a “state economy” can take losses that a privately held corporation obviously can’t? 😅
One reason to go big on a demonstrator engine is that, while building the first few, you are working on the manufacturing processes. The absolute tolerances at a big scale are more forgiving than they will be on a smaller variant of the same design, so it makes sense to go big first, then scale down as the manufacturing gets more precise.
I am very happy to hear this video end on a positive note. I am so weary of all the negativity being pumped out by social media. Thank you for a great video.
I really value the background context to the actual theme of the video. It is really important to understanding to know why RR have done what they have done.
I would love to have seen a 747-8 or A380 with just two of these massive engines slung under the wing. Imagine the efficiency of that many passengers on a twin engine aircraft!
The fin and rudder would be pretty impressive!
Or an A340
Sorry, just have to point out a small mistake: The fighter banking away being labeled P-51 is actually a P-40 (which did have the Merlin in a variant)
Same. Just a little more rechecking should remedy this. And yes, the P-40F, P-40L both had Packard Merlin engines. 👍🏼
Definitely not a P-51. Don’t know why he couldn’t have gone with the Spitfire, but then there were variants that had a Griffin (built by RR). And even if it was a “Mustang / Apache” it could have an Allison. Probably would be safe with using the de Havilland Mosquito as example.
@@Mentaculus42 Because he wanted to show that the Merlin went WAY beyond just being used by British planes and designs. Pre-Merlin P-51s with the Allison also generally didn't have the bubble canopy, so it's pretty easy to tell them apart.
@@Jimorian
I was just trying to suggest an airplane that was only Merlin powered so if a picture is shown there is no doubt that it is Merlin powered. I believe that the only Mustang that had a bubble canopy and an Allison were some Twin Mustang’s. I do not know of any North American A-36 (listed in some sources as "Apache" or "Invader", but generally called Mustang) that had a bubble canopy. You have to look for details to differentiate between A-36 / P-51A vs P-51 B (which is Merlin powered). Saw a P-51 D that was Griffin powered once.
A family member was the 1st person hired by North American (Employee #6) and worked on part of the design of the P-51. Got to check out Tom Cruise’s P-51 K (which they were reluctant to say was a K model) during the filming of his movie.
The post war version of the BF109 built by Spain the HA-1109-M1L
prototype of HA-1112-M1L. A single aircraft modified with a Rolls-Royce Merlin 500-45 engine in it. Some were painted as German planes for the filming of the Battle of Britain.
I'm not just a huge fan of this channel... I'm an UltraFan.
I used to be a fan of tractors, but not anymore. Now I'm an Ex-tractor fan.
It's okay, I'll see myself out...
No mention that RR won the the contract to re-engine the B-52?!?!
And won it with an incredibly small diameter turbofan.
@@Lost-In-Blankdesigned and developed in the US...
@@barracuda7018No, the BR 700 family of RR engines was developed in Germany in the 1990’s. The BR 725 engine that powers the Gulfstream Jets are more or less the same engine that gone power the B-52’s, it has the military designation F130
@@barracuda7018Nope, British design of old. Indiana plant is assembling, not designing.
I'm looking over at my 20" box fan: "Buddy, you've got some catching up to do."
😂😂
Although this was about RR, this made me think of my own experiences almost working at GEs engine overhaul plant in Cardiff on the CFM family line.
Unfortunately just like the pandemic affected RR, it left me without a university placement year at GE, I do wish I could have experienced a year there as a complete plane geek.
Thank you for for providing an extensive account of some of UKs engineering history ❤. We are proud of the contributions made by RR (areo)
Rolls Royce have their fingers in many pies, UltraFan engines on this scale have applications beyond the airline industry. The shipping industry is under immense pressure to clean up, power plants like this have the power to run ships cleaner, more efficiently and faster, it is always good to look at the holistic picture.
With regards aviation - I'll bet there will be a smaller scale UltraFan made available for single aisle aircraft in the not too distant future.
Remember, RR Aero Engines is also investing heavily in electric and hydrogen propulsion systems.
True that!
As far as large ships go, there has been very little interest in the use of turbines in future plans. Where gas turbines are used in marine applications is in a different segment of the marine industry that require a different duty cycle than traditional cargo ships. The example shown in the video ALSO HAS 4 TRADITIONAL ICEs and there is a reason for that!
Many of the latest ships are fueled on LNG which is incrementally cleaner, while in the medium term, conventional ICEs running on methanol or ammonia appear to be the direction. As far as overall system efficiency, the gas turbine is only comparable to the traditional large marine ICEs and both can and do use additional cycles to increase efficiency. Maybe if the cost of “clean” fuels is sufficiently high, the additional cost of a gas turbine with a bottoming cycle can be justified to capture an additional couple of percent efficiency. As far as future ship speed goes, most are optimizing for “slow cruising” hull designs.
@@Mentaculus42 Whilst I do not disagree, someone I know who designs ultra large commercial ships has been speaking recently of gas turbines being used in design proposals - including gas turbines powered by alternative fuels.
It has been my impression that huge ship ICEs come as close to the Carnot cycle as possible. It seems strange that gas turbines previously known for their thermodynamic inefficiency should now supersede them.
Not to mention their nuclear naval propulsion contracts, and development of new Small Modular Reactors* for far cheaper nuclear power generation, the first of which is currently going through the licence approvals process.
*Technically the RR design doesn’t meet the recognised criteria for an SMR, being slightly more powerful than the standard, but it is close enough to be of little difference to the casual observer.
I’m surprised that you did not mention the B-52 Bomber re-engine contract that is going to Rolls-Royce.
Perhaps you can dedicate a program entirely about how that process came about and why Rolls-Royce was selected.
They are also developing small modular reactors. Diversification outside the commercial aviation industry is probably wise as there still seems to be an appetite amongst some for repeating the lockdown madness. If only we were all as sensible as the Swedish.
@@harryf1ashman The Swedish approach ended up being a disaster. No one refers to that approach as being "sensible" in any definition of the word.
You forgot to mention the 600+ engines for the B52 re-engine project. Rolls Royce won that contract, I believe. Good shows, BTW!
I keep marvelling at how you can present a complicated story with intricately linked factors so cohesively and so understandable. Kudos to you and your team, and you are one hack of a story teller.
Thank you!
Great analysis as usual! As a side-note, you should ask your video editor to deinterlace any interlaced source videos before mixing them into the final product. The Rolls-Royce clips in this video have combing artefacts because of missing deinterlacing.
If we get the attention of the editors, may I also point out that linked videos don't appear for me? Like, Petter pointed to his left at 15:15 to indicate where a link should be but it was missing for me. The ones at the end of the videos show up, though.
@@bordershader I think the missing videos are just a TH-cam thing. I get that in most videos and sometimes pressing the little (i) icon in top right corner can be used to workaround the issue.
Brilliantly explained, taught me a great deal. I just hope RR are going down the right road on this.
Thank you, I hope so too!
I am particularly impressed by the RR Trent engines that power the A380 and the A350, and now I understand also at least one Boeing.
I saw a twitterclip where an A380 started to spool on a runway, and it almost sounded like music.
That Trent 900 is a monster and pilots love to run them at near max at takeoff. I worked on that engine especially the TBCs and making sure the IP vane (of which all of the services run through) performed. Awesome work!
Interesting vlog.
I always found the RB211-535E4 a very impressive engine for the B757.
They have certainly had their financial challenges which is a shame.
A powerplant for both narrow body & wide body a/c,Interesting indeed.
I think one of the blades was on display at the National Gallery - just an incredible piece of art.
Hi Acro. This is "it", at least for now. Unbelievable engineering meets art. Who knows what's coming down the pike, but this is special. I can understand why those blades could be on display in a gallery. I could stare at them all day. Cheers.
My late grandfather worked in quality at RR during the RB211 development. My dad worked on the Tay though to the Trents. I’d love a video on the Tristar. My grandfather was not surprisingly a fan of the Tristar. A very clever plane for the time. Sadly RRs problems probably caused it to fail with the delays.
If you ever get to Bangkok, there's a restaurant in a Tristar there, if actually flying on one isn't possible.
I flew on the Tristar a few times as a passenger, and was invited into the cockpit once. Grrreat Airplane!
I had a tiny part flight testing the RB211 on a VC10 at Bristol.
You may not realize what a rare aircraft is included in the clip at 10:12. I believe the Lufthansa 737 seen taxiing by is a 737-100, one of only 30 produced. At a time of expansion Continental Airlines purchased 11 of the Ex-Lufthansa Boeings and put them into domestic service in the United States. Added to the ragtag, mongrel conglomeration of aircraft fleets, variations and versions then operated by Continental, the 737-100s were just another complication in a maintenance world where no one, mechanics, engineers, pilots or provisioners knew what parts went on which airplanes or how various features operated. May such chaos never exist in aviation again.
Well spotted!! 😳
My father happened to be working for Packard on a temporary basis when the US entered the war. They immediately switched to wartime production and he spent the next three years machining supercharger parts for Merlin engines. He finally let his deferment slip so he wouldn't have to "work another g-damned twelve hour shift!" He joined the Navy for the last year of the war.
You need to do a story on the GE9X (hey, it's my day job!!) 3.4 meter fan. Quite impressive to see in person. I asked for a fan blade for home decor, they declined!
The GE9X is my favorite engine and I got to see it in person at Everett while Boeing was testing the 777X.
When the decor is worth more than the home!
I guess they didn't want the geometry to get stolen after a 3d scan
@@oadkait will be for sale to anybody who wants to pay for it
I'm an Enormous UltraFan of your channel, Mentour!
You've gotta feel sorry for Rolls-Royce because of all the bad timings.
I'm happy your finally saying Rolls-Royce correctly 🙂
great video, engine industry is fantastic and you explain it so well!
Glad you liked it! 💕
Thank you so much. Aviation history is amazingly amazing, from aircraft type evolution to new tech and material sciences revolutionizing aviation; and as you said, all happening within a hundred year.
Semi-related, when you talk about the turn-down in 2020, I traveled in 2021 and went through Hong Kong Airport, I have a photo of me alone with no crowds, not a single other person in sight on their massive walkways from the main airport building and the gates. It was an eerie but awesome experience, kinda like the fact I also saw Nashville TN without crowds and under 9" of snow, that trip was full of crazy one-offs.
It would be interesting to see him do an engine video on the Iroquois engine. Built in the 1950s, it was meant to be used in the CF-105 Avro Arrow, the infamous Canadian interceptor that was abruptly cancelled in 1959, and the cancellation basically destroyed the A. V. Roe company. The engines were notoriously powerful for the time, but they never got to be tested in the Arrow itself (a pair of Iroquois engines were installed in prototype 206, but the plane never made it to a test flight before the program was cancelled and the plane was destroyed).
Most documentaries about the Arrow focus on the plane as a whole and the program that birthed it, but there is little discussion about the Iroquois engine. I think a video about it would be fascinating
One small point you didn't mention is that Rolls and Royce was a classic partnership of a great engineer and a great businessman, like Watt and Boulton or Wozniak and Jobs. And it was Rolls, the engineer, who was passionate about aviation (in fact he was the first Briton to die in a plane crash). Until WW1 Royce disapproved on the grounds that it would be too hard to make a profit - in the long run he was proved right. Civil aviation is a notoriously difficult business to make consistent profits in. Maybe RR should be thinking hard about military transports for the Ultrafan in the first instance - profit is much more guaranteed with those cost-plus contracts.
Could we get a video on the Vulcan, do you think? Surely one of the most beautiful aircraft ever built. I'd love to see it get the full Mentour documentary treatment.
the brother of one of my friends has been an engineer at Rolls-Royce for fifteen years already.. , he got hired the moment he graduated from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sherbrooke (Quebec).
Plane: "Error processing your existing payment method, engine is now disabled"
Pilots: 😳
as a rolls-royce share holder, i loved this!..buy some shares its not too late! price just recently bouncing back after being dormant.
Perhaps the reasoning for initial megascaling of UltraFan is threefold: 1) Bragging rights 2) Scaling for industrial/marine power-plant applications 3) It has "Ultra" in the name.
I really like how a little bit of the Spanish "LL" pronounciation is sneaking into "Rolls"!
I wish I bought Rolls Royce shares last year when they fell to 67p per share.
Today they are 202p per share.
My hypothesis, as a commercial turbofan designer, is that Rolls went with the big engine first because the added weight of the extra components will have less impact on the all-up weight. They’re probably working on scaling things down but just not there yet. (Gears and added spools require additional structure, bearings, lubricant, etc.) It’s common for the marketing teams to have titanium balls and advertise technologies that aren’t ready yet.
The great use for the Ultra Fan max version is as a freighter for heavy stuff (transformers, etc), military transport and car carrier.
The AN 225 had an MTOW of 640T, OEW 285T, PL max, 190T, FL max 300T, max PL + FL 355T (55.5% of MTOW), PL vol 1300m.m.m, 6x230kN eng (1380 kN), max 460kn (237m/s, M0.80) and cruise 430 kn (221m/s, M0.75) @ 11 km, wing load 663 kg/m.m, T/W 0.234, main gear 28 wheels (23T MTOW/wheel) on 14 axles, 7 axles per side, length 84m, W 88.4m, WA 905m.m.
Given the cruise performance of the AN 225 is OK, we could use Ultra Fan for a larger freighter with:
MTOW 900T, OEW 340T, PL max 340T, FL max 340 T, max PL + FL 560T (62.2% of MTOW), PL vol Xm.m.m, 4x490kN (Ultra Fan), Total 1960 kN, max 460 kN (237m/s, M0.80) and cruise 430 kN (221m/s, M0.75) @ 11 km, main gear 24 wheels (37.5T MTOW/wheel - up from 35T on A350-900) on 12 axles, 6 axles per side, length 100m, Wing 100m, WA 1270m.m, PL area hex cross section floor and roof width 8.0 m, @ mid PL floor height the width is 11.0 m. The main cabin floor is 60 metres long to carry 4xF-35 aircraft, or 4 MBTs, or 200+ autos. The flight cabin would lift up, the tail ramp will drop down. The main floor will have 'feet' locations for support while loading heavy items.
I find Rolls Royce's approach interesting. It has some similarities to the development of the RB211. At the time, 2 spool high bypass engines were state-of-the-art, but instead of designing one, RR leapfrogged and went directly to a 3 spool engine. They paid dearly for it at first, but it paid off in the decades to follow. Even the newest Trents have lots of RB211 DNA in them. Likewise PW worked damn hard to get their geared engine to work for narrowbodies. Instead of competing, RR is again leapfrogging and doubling or more the gearbox horsepower required. We'll see how it works out, but RR is certainly willing to push the envelope.
The first available oportunity to get back into the single aisle market would be with the A220-500 and by extension the -100 and -300. Airbus has been open about the fact that it wants a second engine supplier for the airplane. After that, who knows, A321/322 newo with new fiber wing? The A350 neo would be another bet.
Whenever I look out the window and see the RR logo on the engines, I just feel a little more confident about the flight... It's just like seeing the kangaroo livery and hearing an Australian accent from the pilot when I get on a Qantas flight. I get a feeling that everything is going to go fine, that these are people who know what they're doing.
Flying out of Colombo airport, Sri Lanka on a British Airways 747 in 1981 we hit a really severe storm - by far the worst I've ever flown through. It was as though huge buckets of water were constantly lashing every window. The whole plane shook and I remember looking at the RR logo on the engines and thinking if anything can get us out of this Rolls-Royce can.
My dad worked for Bristol Aero Engines (the predecessor of Bristol Siddeley) as a wartime apprentice later worked for Bristol Aeroplane company, British Aircraft Corporation and BAE on planes from the Brabazon, Britannia, via Concord to Airbus completing 50 years in the aircraft industry.
Great onscreen presence, relaxed and engaged style along with easy to understand information presentation style. Great videos.
The Merlin engine was also used in the 70s, early 80s unlimited hydroplane racing boats (along with the Griffon engine).
You do know that is a sore point with Merlin lovers as that application was considered to be wasteful of something that had a definite finite supply.
Great history recap and linking it to the decision--making in present day, you nailed-it.
2:15 thats a p40, but still a great video
Well spotted
Their executives are hallucinating if they think they can scale an engine down that much.
I work for one of the other 2 manufacturers (I'm not going to say which one), but I was directly involved in scaling multiple engines as concepts, and even one that went into service. scaling down is much harder than scaling up, and once you get past about 15%, your changes start becoming so drastic it's no longer on "scaled" engine. perhaps you can still scale the flowpath, but that doesn't translate at all into any engineering savings in scaling any parts
An Ultra Fan powered twin engine 747 freighter could be massively cost effective 😃
There's a mistake at 2:14 of the video. The onscreen text says P-51 Mustang, but the aircraft shown is a P-40 Warhawk.
Rolls Royce continues to get the per house revenue for any engines installed prior to 2012. I hope the UltraFan succeeds. I think there’s a problem when basically every single new product for aviation companies will bankrupt them if they’re not a huge success.
Oh, what a great replacement would two of this for all four of the A380 engines. The A380 would fly very efficiently. Too bad this engine wasn't coming out a decade earlier...
I think Airbus might propose an A350NEO for the early 2030's if the demand for the current A350 begins to drop. They are still half-way their backlog, so it will be interesting how it fares against the 777X competition at the end of this decade or if Boeing goes for a 787 "NG" . That would be the prime time for the UltraFan
America's strongest contribution to the second world war was our ability to like nobody else.
Yes, R-R had massive problems with the development of the RB211, resulting in the bankruptcy on 4 February 1971. I was at work at R-R IMD that morning, involved in the initial project design for a marine version of the RB211, when we realised that they had closed the main gate to the site.
However, it should also be remembered that Boeing almost went to the wall as a result of their own problems and the development cost of the 747, not helped by major problems with the P&W JT9D. I believe that there were completed 747s parked at Everett in 1969 with concrete blocks hanging under their wings instead of engines.
Beautiful thank you captain for always sharing wonderful knowledge ❤❤❤❤❤ safe flight and safe landing kudos❤❤
18:35 something must be wrong with the scale. By numbers, the left engine is 5% larger in diameter than the right one. By drawing, the left one appears more than twice as high and as wide as the right one.
I have another correction for you.
The gearbox in a geared turbofan is not to allow the fan to run slower, which it does because of its larger diameter for a higher bypass ratio. The gearbox is there to allow the LP turbine to run faster, so that it is lighter and has fewer stages.
For example, the Trent 1000 and XWB have six-stage LP turbines, which are turning at the same speed as the fan - obviously. If their fans were made any bigger, they would have to run slower, and their LP turbines would need even more stages to drive their fans.
Without a gearbox, the rotational speed of the LP spool is governed by the tip speed of the fan blades. This means that the tip speed of the LP turbine blades is lower than the optimum that would otherwise be possible, hence the need for more stages to extract the power required for the fan.
R-R's pretty pictures of the Ultrafan show a four-stage LP turbine, which is driving a three-stage IP compressor at the same speed and, via the gearbox, that huge fan. So a four stage LP turbine in the Ultrafan is extracting far more power than a six-stage LP turbine in a Trent 1000/XWB.
Of course, the gearbox is a heavy item, so the weight saving in the LP turbine has to more than offset the weight penalty of the gearbox.
When you spoke about the sponsor it made me think of something I have wanted to ask you for a while now. I would be very interested if you did a video about language use in aviation. For example I know you live in Spain. Do you use Spanish to talk to ATC or English everywhere. I know in Mexico they use English and Spanish. It would be great to get a bit of an overview of how the industry uses language. Appreciate all your videos thanks again.
A bit of a tangent, but as you mentioned marine propulsion, Rolls Royce also designed, manufactured and supported all (except one) the UK Royal Navy's nuclear submarine reactors. The reasons why an interesting story.
I used to have an employee(I always treated him as my senior because he was older, understood our business better than me and he was in 0.00000001% of intelligent people on the planet) that ultimately went to Pratt & Whitney to perform the various modeling tasks on the GTF program.
As for this guy intelligence, it's one thing to understand various mathmatical, engineering and physical formulas. It's far more difficult to actually apply them. This guy looked at the entire world as a Fourier Analysis problem waiting to happen and then explain things in common terms.
Will these new gearboxes be manual shift or automatics? Some pilots may not be able to fly manual transmission.
😂😂
Automatic on Airbus, manual on Boeing (though pulleys and cables).
Hahaha, imaging if the GTF of PW can be gearshifted, the speed of the fan be slow or fast..
All other geared (and non-geared) turbofans that I know of, use the low-pressure spool (i.e. N1) to spin the epicyclic downgears, that power the fan... In those engines the high-pressure spool (i.e. N2) only spins itself and produces the overall pressure ratio.
Rolls-Royce in its Trent and its RB211 engines use three distinct spools; N1 low-pressure N2 intermediate and N3 high.
The Ultrafan is reported as being loosly based on the Trent series of engines, however it is rumored that power to drive the epicyclic downgears that spin the very large fan, is extracted from the N2 Intermediated pressure spool. That RR found that more power can be extracted from its higher RPM operation (with a deeper downgearing), to more effectively drive the huge fan.
The problem I find is a mechanical one... The fan is at the very front of the engine and the low-pressure turbine at the very rear, so they can easily utilize the innermost concentric shaft/spool N1.
But if this rumor is correct; how could have RR utilized the intermediate N2 spool in the Ultrafan, to power the N1 fan?
If this is correct MentourPilot, how was it mechanically achieved?
I am a loss of a feasible solution.
It would be great to see the A380 powered by two of these engines!
Chief spotter here. The HP Halifax picture you showed, was the version using the Bristol Hercules engines.
Dandy. Geared fan complexity paired with variable pitch propellers.
Hopefully, a scaled down version should not suffer the same issues as when you 'push' something that little bit too far.
Of course a passion for aviation was the end for Charles Rolls - he died in Bournemouth England and cemented another unfortunate pioneering note - the first British person to die in a plane crash I believe. Just one correction - Rolls joined the team alongside Royce in I believe 1906 and was not a part of the early company. About 70 years after his death and in collaboration with Rolls Royce a plaque was placed on the playing fields of St.Peters school to mark where it’s believed he lost his life.
Loved the vid. Good subject, nicely packed with appropriate back story. And I wonder what the Hon Charles Rolls would have thought of his hologram… he’d probably have liked it more than Sir Henry ;-)
I am an UltraFan of this channel.
Rolls Royce also bought Alison in the USA and BMW's share of their partnership. Rolls Royce is a power company, with MTU making diesel engines and their involvement in Small Nuclear reactors . Their big mistake was getting out of the single aisle engine market, but they are big in the executive jet engines. The Ultrafan may be a way back into the single aisle market as it can be downsized..
Petter makes the effort to properly say "Rolls Royce", but still occasionally says it "Royce Royce" :)
Excellent reporting considering every perspectives !
Unless the aircraft has RR engines, I'm not flying in it.
TY. I've been asked why i love this type vid. Answer: The Engines (!) pure Works of Art
The Merlin is hands down, the greatest sounding airplane engine ever. Nothing beats the sound of a P-51 flying by.
Nothing sounds better than a P-51 at 400 mph plus!! Sad that 2023 is Reno’s last year. 2023 will be the final year that the Reno-Stead Airport (north of the City of Reno) will host the National Championship Air Races from September 13-17. Funny thing is that some people don’t get it.
4:33 Apple, take note: spare parts and maintenance = steady flow of revenue
I think the push from 777X program to Airbus would be a good motivation for them to roll out 350 NEO, and Rolls can capitalize on that.
If we get the A350Neo it will not need the RR Ultra fan engine. To compete with the 777X there is enough legroom in the RR Trent XWB to increase it's power. A five metre stretch of the A350-10 to A350-11 still keeps the aircraft under 80 metres. Same size as the 777X
@@thehighlander959 do you think can a version of RR Trent XWB give edge to 350 over 777X with GE9X? I don't think so..
@@MahdisabamehrYes it absolutely can. From an Airbus wings employee, just wait for RR to give their next official market update.
@@Mahdisabamehr I am hearing murmurs and complaints from GE technical specialists in France last week. The GE-NX, GE-90 and Leap 1A have contaminated coating problems. Recalls are a possibility.
As these engines are very similar to turbochargers for a car, it is interesting that it took this long to reach the point of variable vanes, per se. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how these engines work, as I am a piston engine guy. variable vanes at that size obviously is much different than even the largest turbocharger you can get for a car, typically a T88, but still interesting in terms of looking for additional efficiency.
On turbochargers, the blades don't change the angle of attack, its the angle of the vane changing the angle of the incoming air. The vanes don't spin on the axle.Its completely different system. They are talking about a system like helicopters.
The catastrophic failure of the R-R RB-211 Hifil composite fan blades was what killed the RB-211 that had been designed for the Lockheed L-101. The RB-211was modified with titanium fan blades but then couldn't meet the weight and performance specifications that R-R had guaranteed to Lockheed. The penalty clauses in the contract would have meant that Lockheed would have then owned R-R. To solve that problem and not be swallowed by Lockheed, R-R declared bankruptcy.
R-R eventually delivered RB-211 engines to Lockheed, but the L-1011could never meet the performance specifications that Lockheed guaranteed to the airlines that had purchased it. After that fiasco, Lockheed delivered the L-1011s that had been ordered, but then no longer built commercial aircraft.
Sorry, I do need to correct you. PW always claims to be the first one introducing a geared fan. I was the chairmen of the MSG3 PW1000 powerplant group and I made it clear to them, that they were not the first ones. The Honeywell engine LF507 mounted on the BAe 146 and Avro RJ was the first engine in commercial aviation using a geared fan, at least to my knowledge. The BAe 146 was introduced 1983 and the AVRO RJ ten years later. It was flying for more than 20 years.
Regards
Olli
I really hope they suceed this time! Goodness knows we don't want one of the last few major engine makers going bust!
Maybe a single engine hybrid electric aircraft? One giant back engine like the MD90 and two battery powered motor props on each wing?
Some of the American railroads have contracts with GE/Wabash Tech and EMD for locomotive servicing. Some differences because of Union Contracts.
Rolls-Royce will have to talk the airlines into putting the newer engines on top of the wings, or fuselage too allow for the increased size.
Interesting video. Hooker's book "Not much of an Engineer" is a great read if you're interested in the history of RR aero engines.
11:29 is the RR factory in my country, where 1 of my university classmates interned at. We joked that she'd get a car as her internship farewell gift
Don't forget RR is going to be the supplier for the F130 replacement engines on the B-52.
Rolls Royce with Virgin Airlines running the first ever trans-Atlantic flight on a large body jet using 100% green fuel has been missed in this video. I would imagine an airline running its fleet on 100% green fuel with the vast cut in carbon emissions would give that Airline and Rolls Royce a big boost?
It should eventually pay off, but SAF is currently very expensive vs normal jet fuel, so it's more of a marketing gimmick for now unless passengers are happy to pay more to fly.
It is unusual for any Aero Engine manufacturer to have time on their side when building a New Engine, and from what you have told us that's exactly what Rolls Royce have with the Ultrafan. I do feel however that a larger or new Airbus A 350 could be its best market ,but we also know that Boeing have had a lot of delay from G.E with its new engine for the 777X so could it be offered as an alternative Engine fir that Aircraft? GE did put money into Boeing to build this new model?
Either way it looks prudent investment for Rolls Royce to plan ahead to build new Engine to eventually replace its Trent Family which has served them so well .
Refitting 47s with twin Ultrafans would be nice, but a new 747 with a full upper deck, newer wings, and twin Ultrafans would be the ultimate expression of the 47.
Speakly looks interesting! Hope they have Norwegian!
The RR engine is just 15cm wider than then GE9X, the picture at 18:38 is quite misleading. But anyway greate video :)