Rolls-Royce Awarded $36.5 Million Navy Deal for CMV-22 Engines
The Indianapolis engine maker received a firm-fixed-price, non-competed contract to build 10 AE 1107C Lot 28 engines for the Navy's carrier delivery aircraft, with work due by May 2028.
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA — Rolls-Royce Corp., the Indianapolis unit of the British aerospace and defense group, received a $36.5 million Navy contract to build engines for the fleet’s newest carrier delivery aircraft.
The firm-fixed-price award covers 10 1107C Lot 28 production engines for the CMV-22 aircraft. Work will be performed in Indianapolis, with completion expected in May 2028, the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River, Maryland, said in a contract announcement. Fiscal 2024 aircraft procurement funds covering the full value will be obligated at the time of award. The Navy did not compete the contract, a designation it applies when a single supplier holds the qualified design or tooling for a specific engine line.
The award matters because the CMV-22 carries people, parts and cargo between shore bases and aircraft carriers at sea, and each airframe depends on the engines Rolls-Royce builds. Steady engine production keeps carrier air wings supplied and supports the Navy’s operational readiness. The contract also anchors skilled manufacturing work in Indianapolis, where crews assemble and deliver the engines.
Rolls-Royce Holdings plc, the London-listed parent and the world’s fourth-largest commercial aircraft engine manufacturer, reported revenue of £21.2 billion in 2025, according to rolls-royce.com. The company traces its roots to a 1904 partnership between Charles Rolls and Henry Royce and today employs about 50,000 people worldwide. Its shares are a component of the FTSE 100 Index, and the group announced a fresh buyback and higher profit guidance during 2026, according to businesstimes.com.sg.
The deal is modest against the parent’s global scale. It is the first contract awarded to Rolls-Royce Corp.in 2026, bringing the company’s total contract value for the year to $36.5 million, according to Department of Defense records. It ranks as the fifth Department of Defense contract awarded in Indiana during 2026. The figure trails the firm’s record award of roughly $1.4 billion and sits between the Navy’s 2026 year-to-date low near $9 million and its high of $8 billion. The award was one of eight Department of Defense contracts issued nationwide on July 13, 2026.
For the average US reader, the spending flows from federal tax dollars into a domestic factory payroll and into the machinery that moves supplies to sailors deployed far from home. The engines help sustain the logistics chain that keeps carrier strike groups running.
Has this happened before? It has happened many times. Rolls-Royce has supplied the AE 1107C engine family across successive production lots for the tiltrotor fleet, and Lot 28 continues a recurring procurement pattern for the Navy variant. Non-competed follow-on awards for engine lots are routine when one manufacturer holds the qualified production line.
The next decision rests with the Naval Air Systems Command, which manages delivery and payment milestones as production proceeds toward the May 2028 completion target. No date for a follow-on lot award has been announced.
Rolls-Royce has weathered sharper turns than a single engine order, as happened before. The parent company, then Rolls-Royce Limited, entered voluntary liquidation in 1971 after cost overruns on the RB211 jet engine, and the British government bought its assets through a new company, according to britannica.com. Rolls-Royce plc returned to the stock market in 1987 under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The rescue preserved the engine business that decades later would supply the very aircraft now flying from American carrier decks.
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