Jane Edwards
The U.S. Air Force has partnered with Rolls-Royce to unveil a 14,500-square-foot facility at Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex on Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma designed to accommodate repair, maintenance and overhaul work on the F-137 engine.
F-137 is an 8,000-pound Rolls-Royce-made turbofan engine that works to power the Northrop Grumman-built RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, the Air Force reported Monday.
Phil Burkholder, president of defense North America at Rolls-Royce, said the engine depot marks the company’s first private-public partnership and that the firm will work to provide engine management and logistics services in support of OC-ALC and the service branch.
The engine, also known as AE 3007H, works to help Global Hawk drones to operate at an altitude of more than 60,000 feet for over 30 hours.
Global Hawk is designed to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
