Breaking Defense<\/a>.<\/p>\nACP drones are autonomous drones that would operate alongside more expensive, piloted aircraft, the Air Force spokesperson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ACPs \u201cwill be designed with modular open systems architecture, digital engineering, rapid software development, and new manufacturing techniques that will offer the potential for a new genus of smart, risk-tolerant, teamed aircraft that can increase capacity in a highly contested environment,\u201d the Air Force spokesperson said.\t\t<\/p>\n
The Air Force spokesperson said Collaborative Combat Aircraft, such as the General Atomics YFQ-42A and Anduril YFQ-44A, are types of ACPs.<\/p>\n
The Air Force is now concentrating on the ACP effort, the spokesperson said, but other platforms could also use Rolls-Royce or GE\u2019s engines.<\/p>\n
Candice Binyard, Rolls-Royce\u2019s director of business development and future programs for defense, said in a statement to Air & Space Forces Magazine that the company\u2019s AE engines could be chosen for the ACP drones.<\/p>\n
\u201cAutonomous aircraft represent a fundamental shift in how the U.S. Air Force will project combat airpower,\u201d Binyard said. \u201cBy leveraging our advanced AE engine family, we can move quickly to deliver the performance, electrical power and reliability our warfighters need for operational advantage in contested environments.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Navy\u2019s MQ-25 Stingray refueling drone uses Rolls-Royce\u2019s AE 3007, the company said, and the RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-4C Triton use the military variant of that engine, the F137.\t\t<\/p>\n
GE Aerospace said its GE426 engine is a new propulsion system that was built specifically for medium-thrust ACPs. The company said in a May 19 release it successfully finished the engine\u2019s concept design review in August 2025, which confirmed its architecture would work and moving the design forward.<\/p>\n
GE Aerospace now plans to keep maturing the GE426 prototype through a preliminary design review and further refine its capability, producibility and cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve proven we can rapidly move from concept to engine demonstration with the GEK800, and our focus now is on applying that process to the GE426 to ensure it provides the performance, affordability and readiness the warfighter needs,\u201d Steve \u201cDoogie\u201d Russell, the vice president and general manager of GE Aerospace\u2019s Edison Works, said in the company\u2019s own statement.\n<\/p>\n
Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20731],"tags":[27315,27316,21819,27317,27318,27319,1238],"class_list":["post-55686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rolls-royce","tag-acp","tag-autonomous-collaborative-platforms","tag-cca","tag-engines","tag-general-electric","tag-propulsion","tag-rolls-royce"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116689124785584826","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}