From left, Cédric Goubet, CEO of Safran Helicopter Engines, Riccardo Procacci, CEO of Avio Aero, and Michael Schreyögg, Chief Program Officer of MTU Aero Engines.
LE BOURGET—The European industrial team developing an engine for a next-generation military rotorcraft is planning tests of a demonstrator power and propulsion system in the early 2030s.
The European Military Rotorcraft Engine Alliance (EURA) joint venture—made up of Germany’s MTU Aero Engines, France’s Safran Helicopter Engines and Italy’s Avio Aero—hopes to be ground-running the demonstrator around 2033, EURA CEO Wolfgang Gartner told Aviation Week on the third day of the Paris Air Show.
The demonstrator will support the development of a so-called European Next-Generation Helicopter Engine (ENGHE), which Gartner described as a potentially 4,500-shp turboshaft.
It will be developed to power the rotorcraft that is expected to emerge from NATO’s Next-Generation Rotorcraft Capability (NGRC), which will produce a new medium rotorcraft for battlefield transport and naval operations in the 2040s.
“We know that helicopters will be operated differently in the future, they are vulnerable, so they've got to fly low and fast, and this means you need more power,” Gartner said. “We also know the rotorcraft will need more electrical power, much more than on today’s helicopters, with data links to uncrewed systems, and perhaps directed energy weapons to defend against missiles—that all needs electrical energy, and this will drive the need for a big generator.”
The team is also looking to hybridize the turboshaft, which will allow the engine to potentially be “sized a bit smaller to burn less fuel,” while sensors on the engine will support a predictive maintenance regime, allowing technicians to identify problems long before the engine needs to be removed from the aircraft.
Furthermore, with several different rotorcraft architectures being proposed for NGRC, including compound and tiltrotor configurations, the new engine will also need to be agnostic, EURA Deputy CEO Jean-Michel Larricq said.
Funding for the demonstrator will be partly supplied by future research and technology initiatives supported by the European Defense Fund (EDF). A first phase of this effort, a program called Propulsion System for Next-Generation Rotorcraft, was included in the EDF’s 2025 call for projects, published in January. Details of the demonstrator emerged as EURA welcomed Italy’s Avio Aero into the ENGHE development team.
Related Content
