Aerial Warfare

Rolls-Royce Awarded $1 Billion US Navy Contract to Support T-45 F405-RR-401 Adour Engines

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US Navy T-45C Goshawk Naval Trainer Aircraft
US Navy T-45C Goshawk Naval Trainer Aircraft

Rolls-Royce Corp., Indianapolis, Indiana, is awarded a $1,013,571,576 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery, requirements contract. This contract provides intermediate, depot-level maintenance and related logistics support for approximately 210 in-service T-45 F405-RR-401 Adour engines in support of the U.S. Navy. Work will be performed in Meridian, Mississippi (47%); Kingsville, Texas (46%); Pensacola, Florida (6%); and Patuxent River, Maryland (1%), and is expected to be completed in July 2027. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. The U.S. Naval Air System Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

The Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour is a two-shaft low bypass turbofan aircraft engine developed by Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Limited, a joint venture between Rolls-Royce (UK) and Turbomeca (France). The engine is named after the Adour, a river in south western France. The Adour is a turbofan engine developed primarily to power the Anglo-French SEPECAT Jaguar fighter-bomber, achieving its first successful test run in 1968. More than 3,000 Adours have been produced, for over 20 different armed forces with total flying hours reaching 8 million in December 2009. The Adour is a rugged and easy-to-maintain engine, which has earned its reputation as a proven and dependable power plant for ground attack and advanced trainer aircraft.

Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour turbofan aircraft engine.
Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour turbofan aircraft engine.

The U.S. military designation for this engine is the F405-RR-401 (a derivative of the Adour Mk 871), which is currently used to power the fleet of Boeing / BAE Systems T-45 Goshawk military trainer jets of the U.S. Navy. The Mk951 provides increased thrust, reduced life-cycle costs and greater performance through the addition of a FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) system. During the mid-1990s, Rolls-Royce worked on establishing a US-based production line for the Adour engine, which was to be operated by the former Allison Engine Company (which had been recently acquired by Rolls-Royce in 1995); however, during September 1997, the U.S. Navy chose to terminate the partially-finished engine effort.

The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) T-45 Goshawk is a highly modified version of the British BAE Systems Hawk land-based training jet aircraft. Manufactured by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) and British Aerospace (now BAE Systems), the T-45 is used by the United States Navy as an aircraft carrier-capable trainer. The T-45 Goshawk is a carrier-qualified version of the British Aerospace Hawk Mk.60.[1][20] It was redesigned as a trainer for the United States Navy (USN) and United States Marine Corps (USMC). Changes were made to the Hawk in two stages. The Hawk was redesigned for carrier operations and submitted to the Navy for flight evaluation. The development flight trials resulted in further modifications.

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