Rolls-Royce has announced that its new F130 engine has successfully passed the Critical Design Review (CDR) phase, progressing toward production.
Rolls-Royce has successfully completed F130 engine Critical Design Review (CDR), clearing the way for final development, test, and production efforts to proceed and taking another step towards delivering the upgraded B-52J to the U.S. Air Force.
In a public statement, the company said the milestone is the culmination of over two years of detailed design work and close collaboration between teams at Rolls-Royce, the Air Force and Boeing. The engine testing program is on track to begin altitude testing in February 2025 at the U.S. Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Complex in Tullahoma, Tennessee.
The CDR closes the critical design phase of a project. During the CDR, the final designs are validated through review of analyses, simulations, schematics, software code, and test results. The CDR confirms that everything’s on track with the technical work to finish developing the flight and ground systems, as well as the mission operations. It’s all set to meet the mission’s performance goals while staying within the planned budget and timeline.
Candice Bineyard, Director, Early Life Cycle & Naval Programs – Defense, said:
We’re extremely proud to have delivered the F130 CDR milestone on-time for the B-52J, and grateful for our continued partnership with the U.S. Air Force and Boeing. Throughout the detailed design phase, our teams have executed a rigorous process in close collaboration with our partners. We’re excited to start the production work to deliver this incredible and highly reliable engine for the B-52J.
Interestingly, earlier this year, Rolls-Royce completed the first phases of F130 sea-level tests in Indianapolis (which is Rolls-Royce’s biggest production site in the U.S. and where the engines will be built, assembled, and tested) and wrapped up Rapid Twin Pod Tests at NASA Stennis Space Center this summer.
Sea-level testing collected important performance data by running the first software release for the engine in Test Cell 114. This test cell was recently upgraded as part of a $1 billion effort to modernize Rolls-Royce’s Indianapolis facilities, aimed at delivering cutting-edge manufacturing and innovation for the Air Force and other clients.
At NASA Stennis, testing the F130 engines in the dual-pod setup for the B-52 aircraft happened for the first time. The quick Twin Pod Tests were key in confirming Rolls-Royce’s analysis, reducing risks for integrating the F130 engines onto the B-52J, and hitting test objectives.
The RR F130 engines were selected in 2021 to replace the bomber’s Pratt & Whitney TF33-PW-103s, used on the Stratofortress fleet since the 1960s.
The TF-33 engine will no longer be supportable beyond 2030, so the B-52 Commercial Engine Replacement Program was kicked off in 2018, with GE Aviation, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce competing for the contract. The winning offer from Rolls-Royce is the military version of the BR725 engine used by the Gulfstream G650 business jet and already powering both the C-37 and E-11 BACN in service with the U.S. Air Force.
The Air Force plans to finalize integration activities and deliver the first lot of B-52 modified aircraft in the 2026-2027 timeframe, with initial operational capability expected in 2030. The new engines are expected to remain on the B-52 for the reminder of the aircraft life, through at least 2050 increasing fuel efficiency and range, reducing emissions in unburned hydrocarbons, and significantly reducing maintenance costs.
Here’s what we explained about the new engines design in a previous article about the new engines and the upgrade to the B-52 fleeet:
Some wondered why the U.S. Air Force did not choose to use four larger turbo fans instead of eight smaller ones. Among the reasons that barred the four-engine solution there are the limited takeoff clearance they would have provided and the need for a more radical redesign of the engine/wing/pylon interface, resulting in a more complex and riskier conversion.
Anyway, compared to the current TF-33s, the new F130 will be much quieter and produce only minimum smoke: in other words, the B-52J will not be characterized by the long and dark smoky trail that has become a distinguishing feature of the iconic strategic bomber.
As happend with the B-52G, when new engines were the main reason the B-52G was redesignated as B-52H in 1962, with the new F130 engines, the Stratofortress will be given the designation B-52J.
Along with the new engines, the B-52Js will embed other interesting upgrades: the bomber is to get a modified variant of the F/A-18EF Super Hornet’s APG-79 AESA radar; a more streamlined profile and a cleaner look with the removal of the blisters that currently house the AN/ASQ-151 Electro-Optical Viewing System (EVS); two large humps over the fuselage, near the wing roots, that could be used to host classified equipment (possibly associated with wideband satellite communications systems); and a cockpit upgrade, with “new 8 x 10 digital displays, hybrid mechanical-to-digital throttle system, new data concentrators units (2x), new engine fault maintenance recorder, new engine air data system (and) modified system panels.