Honeywell Aerospace today announced its small-thrust-class engine, the SkyShot 1600, was selected by the U.S. Air Force to advance into Preliminary Design Review, a formal milestone in which the Air Force evaluates whether the engine design is technically mature enough to move into detailed development, as part of the Air Force's Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP) programme.

"We've leveraged our proven and tested technology, plus the latest advancements in digital modeling and manufacturing, to design an engine ready to power the next generation of collaborative combat aircraft and unmanned systems," said Dave Marinick, president and CEO of Engines and Power Systems at Honeywell Aerospace. "We look forward to supporting the U.S. Air Force in their mission of building smarter, more effective and more cost-efficient systems."

The SkyShot1600 is designed to meet all mission-critical performance parameters for collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), including high-altitude capabilities, rigorous G-level performance and the ability to reach manoeuvrability targets. The cost-effective, flexible and versatile architecture supports both turbojet or turbofan variants from 800 to 2800 pound-force. The core engine has been demonstrated across its full rated thrust range.

The engine is designed to go "from model to metal" quickly. A significant percentage of the materials used are capable of being additively manufactured or produced with high-volume manufacturing techniques, enabling both speed and supply chain resilience.