Since its legendary Dart turboprop engine flew on the revolutionary Gulfstream I in 1958, the Rolls-Royce Business Aviation brand of turbine engines has become synonymous with exceptional performance, quality, and industry-leading innovation.
With over 65 years of dedicated business aircraft engine operations aboard tens of thousands of aircraft flying tens of millions of hours, you’d think the company would know pretty much everything there is to know about how to maximize the performance and reliability of its engines.
Well, you’d be wrong.
“Business aircraft operations are always changing, and they are very demanding on the engines,” Andy Robinson, senior vice president of Customers and Services for Rolls-Royce Business Aviation, explains. “Our Business Aviation Services Organization is dedicated to our customers in helping them achieve their number-one goal: 100-percent averted missed trips.”
“A big piece of meeting that goal involves studying the information we collect from our Engine Health Monitoring (EHM) sensors on the engines. Business aircraft today operate in such a wide variety of conditions, and each condition impacts engine performance,” he continues. “We use that information to proactively identify potential engine issues so we can alert the operator—and solve before they become AOGs.”
“Houston, we have a problem…”
“We need to understand how every engine is doing at all times. We continuously collect data like temperatures, pressures, and vibration levels,” adds Rolls-Royce Business Aviation vice president of Digital Services, Akin Keskin. “We then analyze all that data to find anomalies in performance, and if we find something we inform the aircraft’s operator to proactively avoid any service disruptions.”
As you would expect, Rolls-Royce Business Aviation’s EHM capabilities have evolved considerably since the introduction of the system in the mid-1980s.
“Back then, the data was a snapshot of the engine’s operation. We had few sensors and much less bandwidth to collect and store data, and most of the times it took several weeks to get hold of the data as it was a manual download process,” he continues. “Today, we can automatically collect much more detailed and actual information from many more locations in the engine. We can also combine those with climate and environmental data to better understand how it impacts engine performance and reliability. It does make a difference.”
So, what does Rolls-Royce Business Aviation do with the terabytes of data it collects from a global fleet of customer aircraft? Well, it is currently used in two ways: to help spot and avoid situations that could potentially lead to AOGs; and then use that information as a basis for future engine design enhancements.
According to Robinson, stopping AOGs before they happen is the primary benefit EHM provides to today’s operators. “We can monitor how quickly an engine lights off during the start cycle. If it’s too slow, then we can tell the operator to go in and proactively change the ignitor plugs,” he said. “It seems like an obvious thing, but if the engine doesn’t start, you’ll wish you would have changed it.”
“Even a simple problem like this can become a worst-case scenario when the principal is on board, and you’re at a remote location,” Robinson adds. “As you can imagine, having the ability to proactively avoid AOG situations is extremely valuable to our customers.”
“From a customer’s perspective, knowing that Rolls-Royce has got access to that kind of data and looks after the engines around the clock offers great peace of mind,” he continues. “It also allows us to offer services like remote troubleshooting for customers enrolled in our CorporateCare Enhanced program.”
Information is a two-way street.
While the company’s current versions of EHM are extremely capable of collecting and recording information, emerging technologies are always enabling Rolls-Royce Business Aviation’s team to find new and improved ways to turn data into more precise information.
As Robinson explains, the new Pearl engine family features the latest version of EHM, called the Engine Vibration Health Monitoring Unit (EVHMU). What makes it truly significant is the technology’s ability to accept input and actively change what we are monitoring “on the fly.”
“It’s the latest in IoT (Internet of Things) technologies. It’s not only capable of measuring and storing data covering some 10,000 engine parameters, it can also handle two-way communications between our Business Aircraft Availability Center and the engine itself,” says Robinson. “With the operator’s permission, we can connect and remotely configure the EVHMU to look at certain operational parameters of specific engine components.”
“For example, if there is a starting issue, we can configure the unit to look specifically at the duct pressure and the starter air valve pressures during a ground run,” Robinson continues. “Or if the EEC (Electronic Engine Controller) tells the engine to accelerate and the fuel metering unit’s torque motor is slow to respond, it can indicate that the module is starting to deteriorate. We can recommend replacing the unit before it fails.”
“When you think about it, you can see a point where you will never have an engine-related AOG because you can sense a problem before it happens. That’s a game changer,” he says. “Our Pearl engine family is the only one that can do that now, but it is a future where all of our engines are going.”
Data mining for the golden nuggets of information.
Okay, so now that Rolls-Royce Business Aviation can get virtually limitless information from thousands of engines operating around the world, what are they going to do with it?
“We’ve developed a tool called the Engine Network, which takes all of the EHM data we collect from the engines, our Global Service Centers, and other operators, and brings it all together so we can create an overview of the projected life of a particular engine,” Keskin says. “Our digital team is always refining advanced algorithms to better analyze the trends and see what else we can learn.”
“With these tools, we can compare fleet-wide data on particular engine and aircraft models to locate common areas of interest,” he continues. “We can compare the performance of an aircraft’s right-side engine to its left-side to see if there are even the slightest anomalies between them. There’s never too much detail.”
Rolls-Royce Business Aviation’s Aircraft Availability Center in Berlin, Germany, acts as the primary hub for all this information. In addition to helping its 3,000-plus customers, the team there is tasked with supporting the company’s global network of 85 authorized service centers, 78 dedicated on-wing service specialists, 25 dedicated customer managers, and 10 spare parts stores.
“All of the collected data is shared with our customers. They get a monthly report on their engines’ health. But if we see a trend change of any kind, we immediately notify the operator and provide next-step recommendations,” says Robinson. “Reliability and safety are absolute givens in everything we do.”
“Through the last 65 years, I think we’ve built an outstanding history and reputation for providing very reliable engines that perform extremely well,” he continues. “Our most recent history is an example of that ongoing success.”
“Through 2023, we’ve achieved a total of 99.1 percent averted missed trips—which is very, very good. We’ve also achieved a less than 24-hour average in our AOG response times. We’re extremely proud of that,” Robinson says. “EHM has been key to enabling us to achieve these incredible statistics, and I think that with the new generation of engines and the advances of EHM, we will get another step closer to our ultimate goal of 100 percent.”