Rolls-Royce to pioneer ‘highly electric architectures’ for Tempest
Fully electric propulsion is unfeasible for the UK’s Tempest Future Combat Air System, so Rolls-Royce has come up with an alternative.
Amid plans to integrate cutting-edge technologies on the Tempest Future Combat Air System, Rolls-Royce will embed magnets on the spools of engines to produce up to 1MW of electricity.
‘The propulsion system will be acting as a heat sink for the whole vehicle, so we have transition from propulsion to an integrated power system through the generation of very high levels of electrical energy, all propelled with power dense gas turbines delivering high level electrical and thermal energy,’ Conrad Banks, chief engineer – defence future programmes at Rolls-Royce said during the Royal Aeronautical Society’s virtual Air Power Conference.
‘Although
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