LONDON—Rolls-Royce says its work providing Boeing the engine for the MQ-25 uncrewed tanker provides an entry point to potentially powering thousands of autonomous combat aircraft.
“We’re learning a lot of very valuable information that will not only be important for the MQ-25 Navy platform, but will read across strongly to U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps aspiration for their variants of autonomous collaborative platforms,” John Shade, executive vice president for business development and future programs at Rolls-Royce North America, said at a media briefing in July.
The MQ-25 “is not necessarily significantly large in terms of volume,” he said, but of strategic importance. With the applications beyond the MQ-25, he said: “We see the opportunity for thousands of aircraft evolving and emerging in this space. It is moving very quickly.”
In the UK, Rolls-Royce has been working on the Orpheus engine demonstrator project first announced in 2022. The team within 18 months managed to put an engine on test rather than the more traditional 36 months, said Alex Zino, director of business development and future programs at Rolls-Royce. That engine, he said, is being designed to fit in such uncrewed platforms.
The company has been coy about the thrust class of the scalable engine, though it is likely below the 15,000-20,000-lb.-thrust of an engine it has been eyeing for a European remote carrier project.
Shade also said the company was making progress with the F130 program to re-engine the B-52H bomber. The program has a value of $2.6 billion if all production options are exercised.
Rolls-Royce is also in talks with the U.S. Air Force about a potential C-17 re-engining and its next-generation tanker and airlifter efforts, Shade said, calling it “early days.”
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