UK-based global power and propulsion systems group Rolls-Royce has highlighted that the latest version of Airbus’ A350 airliner family, the A350F dedicated freighter, which made its first flight on Tuesday, was powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engines. This engine also powered the A350-1000 airliner model (the smaller A350-900 airliner used Trent XWB-84 engines). Orders for the A350F already stand at 115, from 14 customers.

Although the Trent XWB-97 has been powering A350-1000 airliners for eight years, and has so far accumulated more than 4.5-million flying hours, the mission profiles of the airliner and freighter versions are very different, the engine maker pointed out. Typical A350-1000 flights involved heavy weights of passengers, cargo and fuel, creating very demanding take-off and climb conditions, and had an average duration of nine hours. Each Trent XWB-97 in commercial service is, on average, airborne and running for 14 hours a day. In contrast, the typical flight profile for the A350F will involve much shorter distances but even higher payloads.

Both profiles pose challenges to the powerplants.

“For my engineering team, the starting point was to understand the freighter mission properly,” explained Rolls-Royce Trent XWB chief engineer Ian Smith. “We looked closely at expected payloads, stage lengths, utilisation and operating conditions and compared them with the real-world experience we already have from the A350-1000 fleet. That evidence gives us confidence that the Trent XWB-97 is ready for this new market.”

The engine has already racked up the biggest operational dataset for a new-generation high-thrust powerplant, with data drawn from both flight operations and overhaul periods. This data will allow improvements and upgrades to the engine.

“The advantage of having millions of hours of Trent XWB-97 experience is that improvement is based on evidence, not assumption,” emphasised Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 upgrade chief engineer Phil Curnock. “We can now see how the engine performs across different missions and environments, and use that insight to target the upgrades that matter most to customers. That is what ‘always ahead’ means from an engineering perspective.”

The next major upgrade for the XWB-97 will, from 2028, give the engine up to six years of continuous service (“on wing”) at a time.

Users of the XWB-97 can and do make use of Rolls-Royce’s comprehensive TotalCare service package. This is centred on operational certainty, fleet availability and a long-term partnership. TotalCare frees operators from bearing the full risk of operating engines, because Rolls-Royce manages and maintains (including pro-active maintenance) each engine throughout its lifecycle.