Roll-Royce's Trent powers wide-body planes

By I. Christianto

HONG KONG (JP): Aiming to win competition in the business of air transportation, both the aerospace industry and air carriers are always trying to offer and operate the best aircraft, including those which apply high technology and safety.

Cathay Pacific, one of the leading international air carriers in Asia, has decided to choose the Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engine to power its A330-300s. The airline company ordered, in 1989, nine A330s airplanes for delivery from 1995 while holding options for another eight such airplanes.

Rolls-Royce has developed the Trent from the RB221 family of engines which power all Cathay Pacific's existing fleet of L1011 TriStars and Boeing 747s.

Rolls-Royce's manager for technical sales Mark Baseley said recently that the Trent has been developed to meet the strong market demand for high-thrust engines for large long-range aircraft.

The design for the A330 exploits service-proven advanced technology to provide a low-risk route to high thrust, with low environmental impact.

Increased thrust is achieved by increasing the fan size and improving core components. Even at the highest thrust levels for the A330, the operating temperature remains within the RB211 experience. The unique hollow titanium wide-chord fan blade is developed to give further strength advantages and lower weight.

Rolls-Royce wide-chord fan blades have a unique in-service background approaching 20 million flying hours and a safety record second to none.

New generations of the distinctive, broad profile fan, even lighter and stronger than their predecessors, are being manufactured for the Trent engine series.

Wide-chord blades -- the "chord" is the width of the fan blade -- provide 80 percent of the engine's thrust, turning at up to 4,000 rpm and passing more than a ton of air every second.

When the Trent first ran, more than four years ago, it was already benefiting from nearly tow decades of experience provided by the Rolls-Royce RB211 family of engine. With a total of 60 million RB211 hours in service experience, the Trent was evolved with the paramount aim of total reliability from entry into service.

Cathay Pacific, one of the faithful customers of Rolls-Royce, the Derby, Britain-based aerospace group, is the first air carrier to operate A330 aircraft which is powered by the Trent.

It carried a 16-day route proving exercise which started on Oct. 16, covering most of Cathay Pacific's regional network. It includes 120 hours of endurance flying in an original airline environment before the first aircraft enters service in next February with Cathay Pacific new livery.

Airbus

Airbus, in the meantime, offers A330 with the choice of three different engine types, Trent, General Electric CF6-80E1 and Pratt & Whitney PW4000. All three engines are a more powerful derivate of existing designs, enabling early extended twin engines operations (ETOPS) based on solid in-service experience with existing types.

Each engine has as well full authority digital engine control (FADEC) and incorporates, the latest in technical progress to give low fuel burn, noise and emissions.

Meanwhile, the route proving exercise comes at the end of an exhaustive certification program, which will include more than 500 hours of flight testing with the Trent version of the aircraft and more than 12,000 hours for all three engine/airframe together. Certification of the Trent version is scheduled for December, followed by first delivery to Cathay Pacific at the start of next year.

At least four companies, including Garuda Indonesia, Dragon Air, TWA and ILFC have also selected Trent for their A330s, representing a 39 percent share of orders. The A330 itself recorded a piece of history in aviation last October by becoming the first airliner in the world to be awarded certificates of airworthiness at the same time by the European and American regulatory authorities.