Trent 500

Overview

The Rolls-Royce Trent 500 is a member of the Trent engine family developed exclusively for the Airbus A340-500 and A340-600 quad-engine widebody aircraft. With only around 200 engines produced, it is among the rarest Trent variants, a reflection of the limited commercial success of the A340-500/-600 in a market that increasingly favoured twin-engine long-haul operations enabled by ETOPS regulations.

The Trent 500 shares the fan diameter of the Trent 700 but uses a higher bypass ratio of 8.5:1 and a higher overall pressure ratio of 40:1, making it a more advanced core than its A330-engined sibling. The engine was the sole powerplant offered on the A340-500/-600, giving Rolls-Royce a monopoly position on a programme that nonetheless faced challenging market conditions from the outset.

Technical Specifications

Variants

• Trent 553: Standard production variant at 53,000 lbf for the A340-500.
• Trent 556: Higher-thrust variant at 56,000 lbf for the A340-600, accommodating the greater maximum take-off weight of the stretched fuselage.

Aircraft Applications

• Airbus A340-600 — primary application

Development History

The Trent 500 was launched in 1996 to power the stretched A340-500 and -600 variants that Airbus was developing as ultra-long-range competitors to the Boeing 747. The engine first ran in 1999 and entered service with Virgin Atlantic Airways in 2002. The A340-500/-600 programme never achieved the commercial volumes that would have justified a second engine option, leaving Rolls-Royce as the sole supplier throughout the type's production life. As airlines retired ageing A340s in favour of more fuel-efficient twins such as the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350, demand for Trent 500 maintenance diminished. Airbus ended A340-600 production in 2011, making the Trent 500 the last quad-engine application in the Trent lineage.