Success comes to those in the right place at the right time with the right product. That's certainly true of Rolls-Royce Allison, whose engines are at the center of both the hotly contested regional jet and long-range business aircraft markets.

No one would have predicted several years ago that one of the best-selling airplanes of recent times would be Embraer's 35- seat ERJ135 and 50-seat ERJ145, both of which are powered by Rolls' AE3007 turbofan. New orders last month at the Farnborough air show brought Embraer's order book to 145 firm orders for the ERJ135 plus 194 options, and 207 firm orders for the ERJ145 plus 219 options.

Nor would anyone have predicted the success of the new class of intercontinental business jets. The $35 million Gulfstream V and Bombardier Global Express, both powered by the BMW Rolls-Royce BR710, have approximately 180 orders between them.

All in all, it's a very good time for Carmen Lloyd to join Rolls-Royce as president of the company's new, Indianapolis-based Corporate & Regional Airline Business unit. Lloyd, who started on the job October 1, came to Rolls-Royce Allison from Canadian Marconi, where he was CEO. Prior to that, he was senior vice president of marketing and support for Pratt & Whitney Canada.

The new unit is one of 12 "market facing" units created by Rolls to better support its customers. Worldwide sales and aftermarket strategies for all of Rolls' regional and corporate engines will now come out of Indianapolis. That includes: the AE2100 turboprop on the Saab 2000; the AE3007 turbofan on the Embraer 134/145 and Citation X; the BMW Rolls-Royce BR710 on the GV and Global Express; and the Williams-Rolls FJ44 on the Citation Jet and Raytheon Premier 1.

Beside corporate and regional operations, two other Rolls businesses are located at the former Allison site-helicopters and U.S. military.

"The establishment of these 12 market facing business units effectively says that these markets are unique; corporate operations and applications are unique compared to big airline applications," said Lloyd.

Lloyd wants to make clear, however, that the reorganization of the company's corporate and regional assets, following the mid-1990s shake-up of Allison after the Rolls purchase, in no way reflect any turmoil at the company. It is a subject he will talk about this week here in Las Vegas.

"We don't want the customer to think things are thrown up in the air again at Rolls-Royce Allison," he said.

"Externally, we don't want to confuse the market by saying we're organizing ourselves in a different way then they're used to."

The most disappointing program for Rolls-Royce Allison at the moment is, according to their own estimates, the AE2100 turboprop program. Slow sales for the powerplant are in no way due to the engine itself, however. The core is, in fact, common with the very popular AE3100 turbofan.

It is the worldwide shift from turboprop-powered regionals to turbofan-powered aircraft-the Dash 8Q-400 series notwithstanding-that is responsible for sluggish sales of the AE2100.

Saab, one of the aerospace industry's most prominent manufacturers of regional and commuter turboprops, said recently it would no longer produce the popular 340 model or Saab 2000 regional turboprop-which is powered by the AE2100.

"Certainly, the regional airline turboprop opportunities coming up in the near term are not very evident to me," said Lloyd.

"The Dash 8Q-400 was launched and the engine already selected.

"In my mind, there will be few applications in the near term for regional turboprop engines of the size of the AE2100."

The company is confident that the U.S. Air Force's C-130J, a re-engined and upgraded Hercules that is powered by the AE2100, will provide sales for the turboprop many years into the future. Strategically, the next move for Rolls' Corporate & Regional Airline Business unit is greater emphasis on aftermarket services.

"We're at the early end of the cycle in introducing onto the market the AE3007 and BR710 engines," Lloyd said."

The next strategic area we've got to look at is in the support side and engine services. That may not always be traditional overhaul, but could be power-by-the-hour or trend monitoring programs."

By Barry Rosenberg