The Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 TEN powered a Boeing 787 Dreamliner flight for the first time on 8th December. The flight, which took off and landed at Boeing Field, Seattle, Washington, US, marks the latest phase in the engine’s development programme.

The UK engine maker also announced that the Trent 1000 TEN has been selected to power the first test flight of the Boeing 787-10 version of the Dreamliner next year. This means the Trent 1000 will have powered the first flight of every version of the 787.

The Trent 1000 TEN started flight testing in March on the Rolls-Royce Flying Test Bed aircraft, a Boeing 747, at Tucson, Arizona.

The Trent 1000 is one of the two powerplant offerings on the Dreamliner, alongside the GEnx. Features of the TEN — an upgraded version of the original Trent 1000 — include a new compressor system scaled from the Trent XWB engine programme and a new turbine design to allow extra thrust. Unique to the TEN is a modulated air system which optimises the secondary air flow within the engine using a valve system with no moving parts.

The original Trent 1000 is in service on a total of 169 Boeing 787s. Rolls-Royce announced in August that it was replacing all Trent 1000 intermediate pressure turbine blades with a new design due to fatigue cracking issues first noted by All Nippon Airways.