Rolls-Royce is calling on the UK Ministry of Defence to commit significant extra research funding for high-temperature engine core technology on the Taranis demonstrator programme as a means of protecting its future unmanned combat air vehicles while operating in high-threat environments.

Likely to be powered initially by a Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour 951, the 8t-class Taranis technology demonstrator - being developed under a deal worth £124 million ($247 million) - should begin ground testing in Woomera, Australia in early 2009, before first flight in 2010.

Director of defence customer business John Boughton says the programme, which was awarded to prime contractor BAE Systems last year, will allow R-R to refine its thinking on integrated power systems. "We will be in a position to reject or accept some things once we have taken the man out of the loop and seen what a UCAV is being asked to perform," he says.

However, the need for mission endurance, acute thrust requirements for limited periods and electrical system energy demands, combined with a need for thermal management of the air vehicle's infrared signature and stealth-driven geometry considerations make high-temperature core technology an optimal solution, he adds.

R-R is proposing implementing technology it is developing for next-generation greener power systems, principally through its work on the UK's environmentally friendly engine (EFE) national research programme, which it launched in 2005 in a consortium effort with its suppliers and assisted by a small amount of funding from the MoD.

Boughton says there were concerns that the UK Defence Technology Strategy - which listed UCAVs as technologies in which the UK should retain national capability - would advocate off-the-shelf capability in this area. "They are beginning to recognise the importance of high temperature technology and EFE is a very good way of providing that," he says. "We would, however, wish MoD funding to increase significantly."

Graham Hopkins, R-R director of defence engineering and technology, says the selection of an integrated power system would have a critical influence on architecture and capability. "A smaller core will allow a 10% reduction in platform size, which gives approximately 20% reduction in radar cross section. At the end of the day, smaller means the MoD can build more of them," he says.

The Taranis project will help to inform a decision from 2011 on the MoD's future mix of manned and unmanned combat aircraft, with an operational UCAV system to potentially enter service from late next decade.

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Source: FlightGlobal.com

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