The UltraFan demonstrator run to full power took place in the world’s largest and smartest indoor aero-engine testing facility – Testbed 80, in Derby, UK.
Testing the demonstrator is the culmination of many years work, which has been supported by the UK Government through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), Innovate UK; the EU’s Clean Sky programmes plus LuFo and the State of Brandenburg in Germany.
UltraFan has been a decade in the making, with the concept unveiled publicly in 2014. It is a fundamentally different design architecture to that within the approximately 4,200 Rolls-Royce Civil large engines currently in service, as it incorporates a geared design that no other industry player has produced at this size before.
Demonstrating at this scale gives us the flexibility to scale down as required by our customers. It also puts us in the unique position of being able to offer a portfolio of two-shaft, three-shaft, direct drive and geared propulsion solutions to power future aircraft.
Imagery is available for download from: https://www.flickr.com/gp/rolls-royceplc/wTun9K25A1