Rolls-Royce AE 3007

The Rolls-Royce AE 3007 (US military: F137) is a turbofan engine produced by Rolls-Royce North America, sharing a common core with the Rolls-Royce T406 (AE 1107) and AE 2100. The engine was originally developed by the Allison Engine Company, hence the "AE" in the model number.

Development


In 1988, Allison Engine Company (then owned by General Motors) and Rolls-Royce plc began joint studies of a 33 kN RB580 to power the proposed Short Brothers FJX regional jet, combining the T406 core with a Rolls-Royce low-pressure spool. By late 1989, amid growing importance of the Rolls-Royce Trent engine and uncertainty over the Short Brothers project, Rolls-Royce quit. Allison Engine Company pursued the engine alone, revising the design as a new wide-chord snubberless (or clapperless) titanium fan and low-pressure turbine.

On March 23, 1990, Allison's GMA 3007 was selected to power the Embraer EMB-145 regional jet. In September 1990, it was selected for the Cessna Citation X. The engine was first ground tested in mid-1991. On August 21, 1992, the engine had its first test flight on a Cessna Citation VII testbed aircraft. In 1995, Rolls-Royce bought Allison Engine Company and the engine had its first flight on the EMB-145. The Citation X AE3007C, producing 28.655 kN, was certificated by the FAA in February 1995; while the EMB-145 AE3007A, producing 39 kN, was certificated in mid-1996.

In 1995, Teledyne Ryan selected the AE3007H for the Tier II+ unmanned surveillance aircraft (now the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk), which required long-endurance at up to 70,000 ft. It was tested at these altitudes in February 1996 at the Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tennessee and the first was delivered in May 1996.

More than 3,400 engines have been delivered. In 2014, 2,976 civil engines were installed. In 2017, the AE 3007 in the ERJ family had flown over 53 million hours and over 44 million cycles. It was flown for more than 60 million hours. The engine is manufactured at the Rolls-Royce North America engine plant in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Design
The AE 3007 is a direct drive turbofan engine with a single stage fan, a 14-stage axial compressor with 6 stages of variable vanes including inlet guide vanes, an annular combustor, a two-stage high pressure turbine and a 3-stage low pressure turbine. The accessory gearbox is mounted at its bottom and two single channel FADEC units are mounted in the aircraft. It has fore and aft mounting provisions for underwing pylon or aft fuselage installation. The AE 3007 has a thrust-specific fuel consumption (TSFC) of 0.36 tsfc at static sea level takeoff and 0.65 tsfc at a cruise speed of Mach 0.8 and altitude of 10,670 m. The engine's A variant was designed to produce a cruise thrust of 1,420 lbf at Mach 0.8 and 41,000 ft altitude.

Variants

 * AE 3007C, C1, C2
 * Cessna Citation X
 * AE 3007A, A1, A1/1, A1/3, A3, A1P, A1E, A2
 * Embraer ERJ family
 * Embraer Legacy 600
 * Embraer R-99
 * AE 3007G
 * Proposed powerplant for the 48-50 seat Fairchild Dornier 528JET


 * AE 3007H (F137)
 * Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk
 * Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton
 * AE 3007N
 * Boeing MQ-25 Stingray
 * GMA 3008
 * A proposed 8,000 lbf thrust variant with a 38.5 in diameter fan


 * AE3009
 * A proposed 40 kN thrust version with a new high-pressure turbine ceramic-matrix composite tailcone


 * GMA 3010 / AE 3010
 * A 44.5 kN thrust variant, which was to power the Yakovlev Yak-77 twin-engine business jet as a derated variant of the GMA 3012 with a 44 in fan


 * GMA 3012 / AE 3012
 * A proposed 12,000 lbf thrust variant with a 44 in fan, two-stage intermediate compressor, an extra stage in the low pressure turbine, and an advanced high pressure turbine


 * GMA 3014 / GMA 3014 ADV
 * A proposed variant targeted toward the Regioplane consortium's 80-130-seat Regioliner RL 92/RL 122 (the successor to the MPC 75), with a 55 in fan, 14,000 – of thrust, a new eight-stage compressor, dual-bank combustor, and a four-stage low pressure turbine

Applications

 * Boeing MQ-25 Stingray
 * Cessna Citation X
 * Embraer ERJ family
 * Embraer Legacy 600
 * Embraer R-99
 * Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk
 * Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton