At NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, Rolls-Royce has begun testing the F130 Jet Dual Engine Pod. The pod will be installed on the U.S. Air Force’s B-52H Stratofortress heavy bomber for the remainder of its service life through the 2050s.
The B-52, which entered service in 1955, is so venerable that the original pilot’s grandson flew in the same aircraft. It is a testament to over-engineering that the remaining 76 of his B-52Hs and 12 of his spares remained in service for another 30 years until the basic airframe became too fatigued to survive flight. is.
But like the Theseus ship thought experiment, the B-52 has had so many parts replaced that the question arises as to whether they are still the same aircraft. They have been serviced and upgraded so many times that little remains beyond the original.
The new F130 engine, under development at Rolls-Royce U.S. Division in Indianapolis, Indiana, will be the last to power the B-52 fleet. Under contract with the US Air Force, Rolls-Royce builds 608 of his engines (8 per aircraft) and 42 of his spare engines. To speed up repairs, the company derived his F130 from a commercial BR725 engine. This engine has already earned him 30 million flight hours in his Gulfstream G650 Business jets and other civilian and military transport aircraft.
This gave the F130 a head start, but the engine family was only flown as a single-engine pod, not in an aircraft of the size and complexity of the B-52. This allows us to test in the dual engine configuration used on the B52 to see how the engines operate in close proximity, monitor the aerodynamic flow of crosswinds, and see how the engines interact with the new digital control system. The priority is to test whether it responds to
Rolls-Royce says preliminary results have been promising, but testing will continue for several months. The tests are being conducted by the Air Force and Boeing, with Boeing responsible for integrating the engine into its modernized B-52 fleet.
Candice Vineyard, Rolls-Royce Director of Defense Programs, said: “Rolls-Royce will continue to work closely with the Air Force and Boeing to ensure a smooth engine testing and integration process. Maintenance costs will be significantly reduced, and we look forward to sharing test results with the Air Force and Boeing as the test program at NASA’s Stennis Space Center progresses.”
The video below describes the test program.
F130
Source: Rolls-Royce
