You’d be forgiven for thinking Rolls-Royce (LSE:RR.) Shares will run out soon. After rising an incredible 1,209% over the past five years – buoyed by successive wins in aerospace, defense, nuclear power and even powering data systems for artificial intelligence, the stock price must be falling soon, right?

Rolls-Royce CEO Tufan Erginbilgiç would probably disagree. He has just confirmed the company’s massive plans to conquer perhaps its biggest market yet. He called it A “a huge opportunity for development for 50 years”.

What’s the news? Rolls-Royce plans to enter the market for engines for narrow-body aircraft. The current engines the company produces for civil aircraft are designed for wide-body planes – a larger type of plane with multiple stairs – that are most often used for long-haul flights.

Why is this such a massive deal? Because of the size of the possibilities. Smaller single-aisle aircraft make up the majority of the world’s fleets. This is a huge market that Rolls-Royce needs to tap into. And let’s remember that civil aircraft engines are the company’s largest department, accounting for nearly half of sales.

Another advantage is the numerous current delays in aircraft production, often caused by current engines. Something smells of opportunity…

Much of this revenue comes not from the sale of the engines themselves, but from long-term maintenance and upkeep. Therefore, Erginbiligiç can speak in a time frame of five decades. And why the stock could have a very radiant future.

The future is truly the watchword here. The up-to-date engines are designed to operate at 100% power “sustainable aviation fuel” – produced from renewable or biofuel, characterized by significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions – from the first day of operation.

The last word

What are the negatives here? First of all, this is just a suggestion. Nothing has happened yet. The narrow-body vehicle market may prove to be a tough nut to crack in a few years.

And despite its size, Rolls-Royce currently has a solid valuation as a growth company. The forward price-to-earnings ratio is around 40, and yet the engineering company currently has a market capitalization of £104 billion and is the fifth largest company on the FTSE 100 index.

Another disadvantage is the difficulty of production in this country. An example of this was the recent news that the United States and Germany were seeking to acquire a 40,000-job project for the company. Industrial energy, sometimes costing a quarter of the price across the Atlantic, can pose a challenge for a company that uses a lot of the raw material.

Last word? Rolls-Royce has been proving its critics wrong for years. While there’s no guarantee that this up-to-date foray into smaller aircraft engines will pan out, I wouldn’t want to bet on it. I think the stock is worth considering.