Following the selection of its RB282 to power Dassault’s new super-midsize design at the Paris Air Show in June– beating competing designs from Snecma, Honeywell, Pratt & Whitney Canada and General Electric–Rolls-Royce has announced it will build a North American plant to build the newly launched 10,000-pound-thrust engine. The new facility, to be located on a 1,000-acre site in Prince George County, Va., will assemble and test the RB282, which the British powerplant manufacturer says will be the first in a series of engines designed for corporate and regional jets. The RB282’s development and testing will be handled by the company’s Bristol, UK facilities.
The Virginia facility will create as many as 500 new jobs and could also be used to manufacture components for the F136 engine in the Joint Strike Fighter. Plans call for the facility to include a single testbed providing capacity to test up to 500 engines annually.
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