Aviation International News senior correspondent Ian Goold has been involved in aerospace since 1964 and in aviation media for more than 40 years. He enjoyed a 20-year career at Flight International magazine, where he was latterly air-transport editor before turning freelance in 1993. A winner of the European Regions Airline Association Hank McGonagle award for excellence in aerospace journalism and a Royal Aeronautical Society Aerospace Journalist of the Year global&nbsp;award, he has edited or contributed to aerospace and aviation magazines, special publications, and websites in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Ian entered aerospace as an apprentice at the British Aircraft Corporation at Brooklands (Weybridge), where he worked on production and final assembly lines of the Vickers Super VC10, and BAC One-Eleven , and manufacture of Concorde major sub-assemblies. He subsequently graduated from the BAC Design Training School to work in the airframe structures drawing office (including design of international future projects, such as the Panavia Tornado multi-role combat aircraft) before joining Flight International in 1973. Apart from years of reading aircraft magazines and books, his first direct contact with aviation media had come during the early 1970s when he was involved at Brooklands with the Weybridge Man-powered Aircraft Group, which designed and built the tenth aircraft to fly under purely human power. As an aviation journalist, he has worked at more than&nbsp; 50 of the major biennial&nbsp;global and regional international aerospace industry shows at Le Bourget, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai (having missed attending only one "Farnborough" since 1960), plus innumerable NBAA, HAI, (U.S.) AOPA, and EBACE Conventions and ERA Assemblies. His favourite aircraft is the Hawker Hunter, of which – as a schoolboy – he heard hundreds make their first flights from Dunsfold, where also on September 24, 2013, he saw the penultimate landing of the VC10 (happily involving an example of which he had witnessed the maiden takeoff in 1970) a day before the last example made the design's final flight (unless, of course....).

Senior correspondent

Ian Goold

Rolls-Royce (Stand N23) is planning further flight-, ground-, and rig-testing of its advanced “lean-burn” combustor system (ALECSys) demonstrator that was first run last month, according to R-R Civil Aerospace future programs chief engineer, Phil Curnock. The technology, which introduces a new lean-burn concept to a more traditional engine design, has been demonstrated on an Advance 3 rig and ground-tested on a modified Trent 1000 engine.

 


In a similar set-up, it could be demonstrated on a flying testbed in about two years’ time, said the manufacturer. Before then, further testing will involve exercises such as starting after a long cold “soak” and checking for the safe shedding of ingested ice—work that will be conducted in Manitoba, Canada. The ALECSys technology also will be tested on an outside noise-testing rig to determine any change in sound levels, said Curnock.

 


Leaner fuel/air mixtures help to control combustion temperature, greatly reducing the amount of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions, according to Rolls-Royce. "Incorporation of a lean-burn combustion system also enables higher peak temperatures in the engine for improved efficiency, fuel burn, and CO2 emissions," said the British engine manufacturer.

 


The development of ALECSys is funded in part by the European Union's Clean Sky SAGE (Sustainable And Green Engine) program.

 


The ALECSys activity is just one of several "areas of focus" for product innovation as Rolls-Royce continues efforts to optimize gas-turbine technology. The manufacturer also is looking closely at increased integration between airframes and powerplants, as well as increased electrification of aircraft—an area in which Rolls-Royce says developments are "relentless" and in which it claims to be a driving force.

 


Curnock said the architecture of the company's established Trent engine family has made “good steps” in the past 20+ years, but that increased integration between engine and airframe is “really the key” to further developments, along with electrification.

 


Although he sees the Trent XWB engine as representing the best of current technology, Rolls-Royce is evolving two new powerplant generations with its Advance design (using core developments for service-entry in in the first half of the next decade) and UltraFan (which introduces a gearbox to drive a larger fan and removes the low-pressure) for operations after 2025.&nbsp;

 


As the manufacturer continues to optimize its engines, Curnock said that the Advance and UltraFan developments are exploiting progress in propulsive efficiency, with ever-increasing bypass ratios employing bigger, slower fans, and thermal efficiency by running smaller, hotter cores at higher pressure ratios.

 


R-R forecasts a 20-year demand for 31,650 new commercial aircraft, of which some 8,500 will be twin-aisle designs (accounting for about 27 percent of units, but 50 percent of both thrust and value) and around 15,000 single-aisle models.

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