Rolls-Royce is redesigning its UltraFan jet engine to burn hydrogen instead of kerosene, aiming for a 2035 entry into service on small and medium-range aircraft. This matters because aviation accounts for roughly half of all air transport emissions, and hydrogen is one of the few fuels that can deliver net-zero carbon flight without sacrificing the power density needed for a gas turbine. The current UltraFan architecture, launched in 2014, already cuts fuel burn by 20 percent; the new UltraFan H2 design will push further by exploiting hydrogen’s combustion properties, adding hybrid-electric systems to recover wasted energy, and incorporating a suite of enabling technologies already at proof-of-concept stage. If the project succeeds, the same engine could power both widebody and smaller aircraft, meaning airlines could retrofit or order hydrogen-compatible planes without waiting for an entirely new airframe. The consortium includes easyJet, which operates Europe’s largest fleet of short-to-medium-range aircraft, ensuring the design meets real operational constraints. The work is not fundamental science—it is an engineering validation programme that aims to bring the core technologies to TRL6, the point where a full-scale prototype can be tested in a relevant environment.
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Climate-neutral aviation will require the use of alternative fuels such as Green Hydrogen and Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) combined with the power density of an ultra-efficient gas turbine engine for the Small and Medium Range (SMR) market which corresponds to approximately 50% of the current share of air transport emissions. Rolls-Royce (represented within the HEAVEN project by RR-UK, RR-D and ITP) supported by key UK and European academia, industry and research centres are currently developing a new generation of very high bypass ratio geared engine architecture called UltraFan® which was started in 2014. From the beginning this ducted engine architecture has been designed to be scalable and meet the needs both of widebody and SMR markets. To achieve the necessary 20% fuel burn reduction Rolls-Royce proposes to significantly evolve the UltraFan design into UltraFan H2. The evolved engine architecture design will take the next steps in improving the efficiency of the gas turbine, take advantage of the properties of net zero carbon fuels such as Hydrogen to improve efficiency, combining this with Hybrid electric technology to reduce wasted energy. Numerous innovative enabling technologies already at TR3 will be incorporated into this new architecture to improve the gas turbine efficiency. Together with work proposed on Hydrogen in CAVENDISH (HRA-01) and Hybrid Electric in HE-ART (HER-01) Clean Aviation proposals in conjunction with activities in national and regional programmes, this will be synergistically combined to validate up to TRL6 the highly innovative UltraFan H2 design to support a 2035 EIS. HEAVEN brings together a highly specialised European industrial and academic consortium already strongly involved and familiar with the UltraFan programme. Additionally, the partner easyJet, European airline operator who have the largest fleet of European manufactured SMR aircraft operating in Europe will bring an in depth knowledge of operational requirements.
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