The Rolls-Royce AE 3007 (US military: F137) is a

turbofan The turbofan or fanjet is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used in aircraft propulsion. The word "turbofan" is a portmanteau of "turbine" and "fan": the ''turbo'' portion refers to a gas turbine engine which achieves mechanic ...

engine produced by

Rolls-Royce North America Rolls-Royce North America, Inc. is a subsidiary of multinational corporation Rolls-Royce plc. The American unit operates under a Special Security Arrangement which allows it to work independently on some of the most sensitive United States def ...

, sharing a common core with the

Rolls-Royce T406 The Rolls-Royce T406 (company designation AE 1107) is a turboshaft engine that powers the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor. The engine delivers 6,000 shp (4,470 kW). Development In 1982, Detroit Diesel Allison (DDA) prepared a new e ...

(AE 1107) and

AE 2100 The Rolls-Royce AE 2100 is a turboprop developed by Allison Engine Company, now part of Rolls-Royce North America. The engine was originally known as the GMA 2100, when Allison was a division of former corporate parent General Motors. Developm ...

. The engine was originally developed by the

Allison Engine Company The Allison Engine Company was an American aircraft engine manufacturer. Shortly after the death of James Allison in 1929 the company was purchased by the Fisher brothers. Fisher sold the company to General Motors, which owned it for most of it ...

, hence the "AE" in the model number.

Development

In 1988,

(then owned by General Motors) and

Rolls-Royce plc Rolls-Royce Holdings plc is a British multinational aerospace and defence company incorporated in February 2011. The company owns Rolls-Royce, a business established in 1904 which today designs, manufactures and distributes power systems for ...

began joint studies of a RB580 to power the proposed

Short Brothers Short Brothers plc, usually referred to as Shorts or Short, is an aerospace company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Shorts was founded in 1908 in London, and was the first company in the world to make production aeroplanes. It was particu ...

FJX

regional jet A regional jet (RJ) is a jet-powered regional airliner with fewer than 100 seats. The first one was the Sud-Aviation Caravelle in 1959, followed by the widespread Yakovlev Yak-40, Fokker F-28, and BAe 146. The 1990s saw the emergence of ...

, combining the T406

core Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber * Core, the centra ...

with a Rolls-Royce low-pressure spool. By late 1989, amid growing importance of the

Rolls-Royce Trent The Rolls-Royce Trent is a family of high-bypass turbofans produced by Rolls-Royce. It continues the three spool architecture of the RB211 with a maximum thrust ranging from . Launched as the RB-211-524L in June 1988, the prototype first r ...

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

snubber A snubber is a device used to suppress ("snub") a phenomenon such as voltage transients in electrical systems, pressure transients in fluid systems (caused by for example water hammer) or excess force or rapid movement in mechanical systems. Ele ...

less (or clapperless)

titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resista ...

fan and low-pressure turbine. On March 23, 1990, Allison's GMA 3007 was selected to power the

Embraer EMB-145 The Embraer ERJ family (for Embraer Regional Jet, model names EMB-135, EMB-140 and EMB-145) are regional jets designed and produced by the Brazilian aerospace company Embraer. The family includes the ERJ135 (37 passengers), ERJ140 (44 passen ...

regional jet. In September 1990, it was selected for the

Cessna Citation X The Cessna Citation X is an American business jet produced by Cessna and part of the Citation family. Announced at the October 1990 NBAA convention, the Model 750 made its maiden flight on December 21, 1993, received its type certification on ...

. The engine was first ground tested in mid-1991. On August 21, 1992, the engine had its first

test flight Flight testing is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops specialist equipment required for testing aircraft behaviour and systems. Instrumentation systems are developed using proprietary transducers and data acquisition systems. D ...

on a

Cessna Citation VII The Cessna Citation III is an American business jet produced by Cessna and part of the Citation family. Announced at the October 1976 NBAA convention, the Model 650 made its maiden flight on May 30, 1979, received its type certification on Apri ...

testbed aircraft A testbed aircraft is an aeroplane, helicopter or other kind of aircraft intended for flight research or testing the aircraft concepts or on-board equipment. These could be specially designed or modified from serial production aircraft. Use of te ...

. In 1995, Rolls-Royce bought Allison Engine Company and the engine had its first flight on the EMB-145. The Citation X AE3007C, producing , was certificated by the

FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

in February 1995; while the EMB-145 AE3007A, producing , was certificated in mid-1996. In 1995,

Teledyne Ryan The Ryan Aeronautical Company was founded by T. Claude Ryan in San Diego, California, in 1934. It became part of Teledyne in 1969, and of Northrop Grumman when the latter company purchased Ryan in 1999. Ryan built several historically and tec ...

selected the AE3007H for the Tier II+ unmanned surveillance aircraft (now the

Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk The Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk is a high-altitude, remotely-piloted surveillance aircraft of the 1990s–2020s. It was initially designed by Ryan Aeronautical (now part of Northrop Grumman), and known as Tier II+ during development. The ...

), which required long-endurance at up to . It was tested at these altitudes in February 1996 at the

Arnold Engineering Development Center The Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC), Arnold Engineering Development Center before July 2012, is an Air Force Materiel Command facility under the control of the Air Force Test Center (AFTC). Headquartered at Arnold Air Force Base, ...

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 Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

Design

The AE 3007 is a

direct drive A direct-drive mechanism is a mechanism design where the force or torque from a prime mover is transmitted directly to the effector device (such as the drive wheels of a vehicle) without involving any intermediate couplings such as a gear train o ...

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 combustor is a component or area of a gas turbine, ramjet, or scramjet engine where combustion takes place. It is also known as a burner, combustion chamber or flame holder. In a gas turbine engine, the ''combustor'' or combustion chamber is fe ...

, 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 Installation may refer to: * Installation (computer programs) * Installation, work of installation art * Installation, military base * Installation, into an office, especially a religious (Installation (Christianity) Installation is a Christian li ...

. The AE 3007 has a

thrust-specific fuel consumption Thrust-specific fuel consumption (TSFC) is the fuel efficiency of an engine design with respect to thrust output. TSFC may also be thought of as fuel consumption (grams/second) per unit of thrust (newtons, or N), hence ''thrust-specific''. This fig ...

(TSFC) of at static sea level takeoff and at a cruise speed of Mach 0.8 and altitude of . The engine's A variant was designed to produce a cruise thrust of at Mach 0.8 and altitude.

Variants

;AE 3007C, C1, C2 *

;AE 3007A, A1, A1/1, A1/3, A3, A1P, A1E, A2 *

Embraer ERJ family The Embraer ERJ family (for Embraer Regional Jet, model names EMB-135, EMB-140 and EMB-145) are regional jets designed and produced by the Brazilian aerospace company Embraer. The family includes the ERJ135 (37 passengers), ERJ140 (44 passenger ...

Embraer Legacy 600 The Embraer Legacy 600 is a business jet derivative of the Embraer ERJ 145 family of commercial jet aircraft. Design and development The Legacy 600 (market designation adopted after 2005) is based on the ERJ-135 model. It was launched in 2000 ...

Embraer R-99 The Embraer R-99 is the Brazilian Air Force military designation of the EMB-145-RS. It is an aircraft based on the ERJ 145 civil regional jet. The R-99 series are equipped with Rolls-Royce AE1 3007 turbofan engines. The military versions provid ...

;AE 3007G :Proposed powerplant for the 48-50 seat Fairchild Dornier 528JET ;AE 3007H (F137) *

* Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton ;AE 3007N *

Boeing MQ-25 Stingray The Boeing MQ-25 Stingray is an aerial refueling drone that resulted from the Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS) program, which grew out of the earlier Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program. The M ...

;GMA 3008 :A proposed thrust variant with a diameter fan ;AE3009 :A proposed thrust version with a new high-pressure turbine ceramic-matrix composite tailcone ;GMA 3010 / AE 3010 :A thrust variant, which was to power the Yakovlev Yak-77 twin-engine business jet as a derated variant of the GMA 3012 with a fan ;GMA 3012 / AE 3012 :A proposed thrust variant with a 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 MPC 75 was an aircraft project of the company "MPC Aircraft GmbH" a subsidiary of "Deutsche Airbus". Work on the project was done mainly between 1988 and 1992 in Hamburg, Germany. Predevelopment work was finished, however the project never got ...

), with a fan, of thrust, a new eight-stage compressor, dual-bank combustor, and a four-stage low pressure turbine

Applications

* Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton

Specifications

References

External links

* * * * {{USAF gas turbine engines High-bypass turbofan engines 1990s turbofan engines

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, he ...