It will give the plane more range, endurance and flexibility in how the Air Force can use the B-52, and it will reduce fuel and maintenance costs.Īs the B-52′s engines receive upgrades, Gass said, so will its related subsystems, including power generation and pneumatics. The re-engining will do more than just keep the B-52 in the air, according to Gass. And the digital modeling will make it easier to produce clear and precise manuals for the maintainers in charge of keeping the engines running, she added. She noted the new engine will be able to receive maintenance work on the aircraft without the need for removal for major repairs. The engineering and manufacturing development phase is expected to last into 2026, she added. In the fourth quarter of this year, she said, Rolls-Royce will start testing its engine prototypes at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, to see how they will operate in the B-52 nacelle. “So we’re seeing those benefits already.” “That’s really what you want in this phase, is to figure it out sooner rather than later, before you go to full-rate production,” Bineyard said. ![]() This helped engineers spot “minor tweaks” that needed to be made to ensure engines would fit precisely inside the B-52 nacelles, she said, or find the best spot where newly added components should go. The process is still in the early stages, Gass noted, but there are anecdotal reports that this method allowed designers to catch problems, such as parts that were conflicting with one another, earlier in the process.Ĭandice Bineyard, director of defense programs at Rolls-Royce, said the two companies have been “trading” digital models with one another.
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