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Chris McDonald MP, the UK's Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry was at RR in Derby today discussing future government investment.

I'm not privy to what was discussed, so cannot comment further, but can confirm he was present. Make of that what you will.

Physical preparations are being made for a rumoured visit , on Friday (20th March), by Tufan and a senior UK politician in Derby. Currently the reason is still pure speculation. Watch this space.

@Jimbo27 Thank you. I'm sorry but I don't have anything to do with the military side of things, so am unable to comment on the Gripen E variant.

But, you have peeked my interest. So, Saab are apparently looking at replacing the GE engine with an EJ230 (varient of the EJ200 Eurofighter engine) to reduce reliance on the US. Interesting, thanks for that.

@Shareflyer I said - 'I don't think we will ever see another new 4 engined commercial aircraft again', (note the word 'new') and I believe that to be true. What high volume commercial aircraft with 4 engines is still in production? None. A340 long gone, 747 ceased production recently, A380 not produced anymore with some aircraft as young as 10 years old cut up and scrapped. The world has moved on and I don't believe Boeing or Airbus will ever go back to 4 engines, unless we go all green and hydrogen powered. As this boards 'self professed' aviation expert I would expect you to be a little more 'technical' in your arguments, but alas you only seem to be an emoji expert to me. (I would put a fist emoji, but I have no idea or desire in how to do so)

@NotZero. The XWB was originally designed to have an 84k (84,000 lbs) thrust rating and was therefore designed with enough margins so that it would have a long on-wing time running at that rating. It's a brilliant and reliable engine, even Tim Clark of Emirates loves it, so it must be good! Then Airbus decide they want to make the A350-1000 and want more power so RR has to increase its output to 97k. Take the 84k, do some design changes and modifications and essentially run it a lot hotter. Trust me when I say that heat is your biggest enemy. There's your 97k output and that's when the issues start to arise. It's OK in benign environments, but start using it regularly at hot/high/dusty airfields and suddenly its cyclic life plummets. Could you get 110k+ out of a 97k? Absolutely. Would it last? Absolutely not. RR does not want to revisit a Trent 1000 scenario ever again. It cost billions in cash and an untold cost in loss of reputation and RR are keenly aware of that mistake. In truth the XWB 97k doesn't have a lot left to give without a major redesign from the ground up and you might as well design a whole new engine in that case. Maybe an XWB/Ultrafan hybrid? Maybe, but that tech has yet to be proved.

To be honest, I don't think we will ever see another new 4 engined commercial aircraft again due to costs and efficiency. The trend has fully moved to twins now due to lower buying cost, lower running costs (both fuel and maintenance) and the ability for modern twin engined aircraft to reach any part of the globe safely, even if they loose one engine in flight, due to increased ETOPs ratings (Extended range Twin engine Operations.)

Also Airbus would want to reduce costs as much as possible by only doing the minimum design changes to the airframe (i.e adding extra fuselage frames to make it longer).

The only 'fly in the ointment' is that it is remotely possible that Airbus could decide to go with the GE90X engine for the A350-2000, more work for them but it fits with the thrust output and it's pretty much an 'off the shelf' option. That said, it's about 14 inchs bigger diameter than an XWB, but still about 6 inches smaller that the Ultrafan, so I don't know how that would affect the airframe overall.

I honestly can't see this happening in the near to midterm time frame . There is, to my knowledge, no plans for, or progress on a higher power version of the XWB-97K engine and I doubt there would, or even could be without essentially redesigning it from scratch. A lot of time and money is currently being invested on the XWB-97K to improve its reliability and on-wing time because it is , to all intents and purpose, an upgraded 84k version, run hotter and harder (There are other differences, but not that many) and that is where a lot of the reliability issues stem from. To try and squeeze more from it would just push you back to square one on a reliability front.

It maybe a candidate for the Ultrafan 80 future engine, but again, that is only touted for an 80-100k thrust range which would probably be a little under powered even at 100k for that size airframe.

It'll be interesting to see what happens going forward.

I never said it wasn't a certainty. I absolutely know it is.

Judging by your past posts, you obviously think you know more about everything than anybody else.

I shall leave any future updates to you.

Tufan told the world he 'would like' to re-enter the narrow body market with potentially a scaled version of the Ultrafan. He has not commented to any commitment on design, partners, customers, size, power ratings or anything other than a desire to do so.

That is not an announcement, it's a statement of intent.

Tufan told the workforce there would be no 'official' narrow body announcement till 2027. If that changes, I'm sure you'll hear.

Ultrafan is not scheduled back to test till Q1/Q2 2026 and a narrow body prototype engine is not due to begin any testing till at least 2028.

The chances are these will slip further out and not nearer.

The Ultrafan engine (this is a tech demonstrator only and not a design for a production product) has completed one stint of testing so far. It is due back to test around Q1 2026 (that may slip to Q2) to complete further testing and data gathering. The Ultrafan 80 and 30 designs rely heavily on the results of this testing and the data gathered to influence their designs.

The unofficial word is that UF 80/30 prototypes will not be assembled and start any testing till at least 2028 and this may slip if design issues are encountered.

Staff have been told internally that there will be no narrow body announcement till at least 2027. It is currently unknown about size/power output and this will depend very much on a number of factors, like the requirements of the air framers (Airbus/Boeing), technical barriers for scaling down Ultra-fan technology and currently understanding the huge amount of data from past and future full size Ultra-fan testing. Nothing is set in stone yet.

I would not expect to see a prototype going for ground testing till 2028-2030, followed by a multi year development and certification program. Best guess currently for entry into service would be 2033 onward, give or take. There are rumors of a JV, as you say, but nothing firm on that, although the name Safran has been heard to be whispered. I think that is a wait and see.

As for the Emirates situation, RR has invested a lot of time and money on improving on-wing time for the XWB-97k with advanced turbine technology which should be coming to fruition shortly. This should boost on-wing time greatly. A lot of work has also been done for Trent 1000/7000 reliability issues.

These are not 5 minute fixes and require a lot of off wing engine running to prove concepts and gain type approval from the relevant aviation authorities before being pushed out into the real world.

@Taverham - we do not have any orders from Boeing.

I was replying to the post about the trade deal and was about orders from the US company Boeing. It is unlikely we will see any sales linked to Boeing orders.

We just have to hope the airlines see sense and split their orders with Airbus as IAG have done.

@Trello - 'The Boeing order certainly should help once the engine mix is known'

Unfortunately it's unlikely that there will be any RR orders linked to those deals. The only modern volume product that is an option on Boeing aircraft is the Trent 1000 on the 787, and it's unlikely that BA or Virgin will want anymore of those after having to cancel flights due to spares shortages.

Currently RR have very little to do with Boeing, apart from Trent 1000 for the 787. The volumes for that aren't huge and after all the problems customers are more likely to go the GenX route anyway. The only good thing from the T1000 woes is that all the reliability fixes that are being worked (yes, there are some in the pipeline) for Trent 1000 are being pushed across into other products to improve on-wing time.

Trent 500, 700, 900, 7000, and XWB 84k (and 84K EP) and 97K are all Airbus, and the 7000 and XWB are the only volume products from that list.

RR could well profit from this upheaval as it may force airlines away from Boeing and onto the books of Airbus, from where RR has a better chance of selling its own engines.

Although, there are whispers that Boeing is interested in a narrow body version of Ultrafan and Airbus are leaning more towards a widebody version, but both of those are 5-10 years away yet so anything can happen.

Evidence?

I'm not pro or anti JB, but what evidence do you have either way?

ppanchol, Hoof, Andii?

I have a modest investment here, but you all seem to be the main protagonists, both for, and against.

There are some pretty serious allegations being thrown around, so please, all sides plead your case.

I would like to try and understand just wtf is going on.

There won't be any announcement about narrow body i.e size, thrust or specs until at least 2027 according to Tufan.

Them's the facts that were briefed to staff.

It's all based on Ultrafan and that is still very much in its infancy, with plenty more testing and data analysis to be carried out before any meaningful decisions can be made regarding future designs.