Rolls-Royce and Liebherr-Aerospace announce name of power gearbox joint venture and start of operations

The initial team consists of nearly 30 employees, mainly from the two parent companies and is co-led by two Managing Directors, Heike Liebe from Liebherr-Aerospace and Dr. Rob Harvey from Rolls-Royce.

Rolls-Royce already has significant experience in the use of power gearboxes with thousands of engines already in service and will continue to lead the design definition and design integration of the power gearbox, as well as the testing activities.

Liebherr has unmatched production engineering know-how and will manufacture the components of the power gear drive train in existing Liebherr facilities for the joint venture during the development phase of the power gearbox.

The new UltraFan, a geared design, will offer at least 25 per cent improvement in fuel burn compared with the first generation of Rolls-Royce Trent engines. The new power gearbox will enable the UltraFan to deliver efficient power over a range of take-off thrusts for high-bypass ratio engines of the future. For the highest thrust engines, each single gearbox will be capable of handling the equivalent horsepower produced by more than 500 family cars.

Dr. Rainer Hönig, Managing Director, Rolls-Royce Deutschland said: “The new power gearbox test centre we’re building at our Dahlewitz site south of Berlin is progressing well and celebrating its roof-topping today. I’m pleased to see our joint venture moving at the same pace.”

“I would like to congratulate everybody at Rolls-Royce and Liebherr-Aerospace who contributed to the creation of this new joint venture,” commented Josef Gropper, Managing Director & COO Production, Purchasing and Asset Investments, Liebherr-Aerospace. “We are happy to provide a home for Aerospace Transmission Technologies GmbH in Friedrichshafen. The joint venture is swiftly capitalising on the vast expertise of both founding partners. The first pieces of metal for the gearbox have already been cut.”

About Rolls-Royce Holdings plc

1. Rolls-Royce’s vision is to create better power for a changing world via two main business divisions, Aerospace and Land & Sea. These business divisions address markets with two strong technology platforms, gas turbines and reciprocating engines. Aerospace comprises Civil Aerospace and Defence Aerospace. Land & Sea comprises Marine, Nuclear and Power Systems.

2. Rolls-Royce has customers in more than 120 countries, comprising more than 380 airlines and leasing customers, 160 armed forces, 4,000 marine customers including 70 navies, and more than 5,000 power and nuclear customers.

3. Our business is focused on the 4Cs:

• Customer – placing the customer at the heart of our business
• Concentration – deciding where to grow and where not to
• Cost – continually looking to increase efficiency
• Cash – improving financial performance

4. Annual underlying revenue was £14.6 billion in 2014, around half of which came from the provision of aftermarket services. The firm and announced order book stood at £76.5 billion at 30 June 2015.

5. In 2014, Rolls-Royce invested £1.2 billion on research and development. We also support a global network of 31 University Technology Centres, which position Rolls- Royce engineers at the forefront of scientific research.

6. Rolls-Royce employs over 54,000 people in more than 50 countries. Over 15,500 of these are engineers.

7. The Group has a strong commitment to apprentice and graduate recruitment and to further developing employee skills. In 2014 we employed 354 graduates and 357 apprentices through our worldwide training programmes. Globally we have over 1,000 Rolls-Royce STEM ambassadors who are actively involved in education programmes and activities; we have set ourselves a target to reach 6 million people through our STEM outreach activities by 2020.

Liebherr-Aerospace is a leading supplier of systems for the aviation industry.

Liebherr-Aerospace & Transportation SAS, Toulouse (France), is one of eleven divisional control companies within the Liebherr Group and coordinates all activities in the aerospace and transportation systems sectors.

Liebherr-Aerospace is a leading supplier of systems for the aviation industry and has more than five decades of experience in this field. The range of aviation equipment produced by Liebherr for the civil and military sectors includes flight control and actuation systems, landing gear and air management systems as well as gears and gearboxes. These systems are deployed in wide-bodied aircraft, single aisle and regional aircraft, business jets, combat aircraft, military transporters, military training aircraft, civil helicopters and combat helicopters.

Liebherres aerospace and transportation systems division employs around 4,900 people. It has four aviation equipment production plants at Lindenberg (Germany), Toulouse (France), Guaratinguetn (Brazil) and Nizhny Novgorod (Russia). These production sites offer a worldwide service with additional customer service centers in Saline (Michigan/USA), Seattle (Washington/USA), Montr, M (Canada), Sao JosSao Josce wit(Brazil), Hamburg (Germany), Moscow (Russia), Dubai (UAE), Singapore and Shanghai (People’s Republic of China).