09 November 2001

Ruffles pushes Whittle's dream to the limit

Philip Ruffles, the driving force behind Rolls-Royce's award-winning Trent engine, has received the Royal Academy of Engineering's highest award - the Prince Philip Medal - in recognition of his exceptional contribution to engineering. HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, as The Academy's Senior Fellow, presented Mr Ruffles with the solid gold medal at Buckingham Palace on Thursday 8 November. The award is unique - it is not made every year, but only to honour the greatest engineering advances.

Mr Ruffles has just retired as Engineering and Technology Director of Rolls-Royce plc, having served over 40 years with the company. This award comes exactly ten years after jet engine pioneer Sir Frank Whittle won the Academy's first ever Prince Philip medal for his lifetime achievements in jet development. Rolls-Royce has since developed Frank Whittle's concepts to build some of the world's most powerful jet engines. The latest Trent engine turbines generate 200,000 horsepower, enough to power 3,000 family cars - one engine could suck all the air out of the Albert Hall in 30 seconds. Mr Ruffles has played a key role throughout his career in the development of Rolls-Royce engines, notably the Trent family of engines, which have captured over half the global market with variants powering the Airbus A330, A340 and the Boeing 777. He and his team won the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award in 1996 for their innovation and commercial success.

So what future does Philip Ruffles see for civil aircraft? "It will be driven by environmental concerns," he says, "by the need to reduce fuel consumption, noise and emission levels. New regulations will demand a 50 per cent noise reduction over the next 20 years - we can achieve that. We'll also have to reduce carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions in the upper atmosphere. But as well as improving engine design and aircraft architecture we could save fuel through better air traffic management - planes currently travel a lot further than they need to because of complex routing arrangements."

He does not rule out developing a supersonic business jet, although a new supersonic transport is very unlikely. "We could see a small supersonic jet for 8-14 passengers," he says. "Business people are prepared to pay a premium for faster travel and fractional ownership has really taken off in the executive jet class. But the economics won't support a second-generation supersonic aircraft to succeed Concorde - you'd need to triple the capacity and double the range, to carry 300 people over 6,000 miles. There are huge technical problems and not enough passengers prepared to pay the premium fare."

Mr Ruffles does look forward to some exciting new aircraft concepts to save weight and improve fuel efficiency. "Take the 'flying wing' - that's very exciting - you could radically redesign the engine and even have the fan at the back instead of the front. We can also experiment with things like all-electric transmission instead of gearboxes and hydraulics to reduce the weight."

ends

Notes for editors

1. Philip Ruffles CBE FREng FRS RDI joined Rolls-Royce in 1961 as a graduate apprentice and progressed rapidly to become Chief Engineer on the RB211 in 1977. He led the development of the RB211-22B for Tristar and the 525-D4 for the Boeing 747. He became Director of Engineering for the Aerospace Group in 1991. In 1997 he became a main board member and Director of Engineering and Technology for Rolls-Royce plc. He has championed the benefits of technology transfer and industry/academia links and has contributed widely to Government and industry bodies, including the LINK Board, the Foresight programme, the Central Research Laboratories Council, the Defence Scientific Advisory Committee and the CBI.
   
2. The Prince Philip Medal, instigated in 1989, is awarded to an engineer of any nationality who has made an exceptional contribution to engineering as a whole through practice, management or education. The list of previous winners is short but very eminent: the late Sir Frank Whittle OM CBE FREng FRS in 1991 for the development of the jet engine; Sir Denis Rooke CBE FRS FREng in 1992 for changing the face of the UK gas industry; Professor Charles Kao CBE FREng FRS in 1996 for the invention of optical fibres; Professor John Argyris FREng FRS jointly with Professor Ray Clough in 1997 for developing the technique of finite element analysis; Sir John Browne FREng, Chief Executive of BP Amoco plc, in 1999 for his engineering and managerial achievements in creating Britain's biggest company; and the Academy's new President Sir Alec Broers FREng FRS, Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, in 2000 both for pioneering miniature electronic circuits on silicon chips and for building the university's links with industry
   
3. The Royal Academy of Engineering aims to pursue, encourage and maintain excellence across the whole field of engineering in order to promote the advancement of the science, art and practice of engineering for the benefit of the public. The Academy comprises the UK's most eminent engineers and is able to use their combined wealth of knowledge and experience to meet its objectives.

For more information please contact:

Jane Sutton at the Royal Academy of Engineering tel. 020 7227 0536 / 07989 513045
email: jane...@...org.uk

or

Martin Nield at Rolls-Royce tel. 01332 248912

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