As the Rolls-Royce Trent engine celebrates one million hours of service this week, the newest variant, the Trent 500, has begun test runs at the company's Derby, UK, factory.
R-R Trent 500 project director Charles Cuddington says testing so far has gone "entirely as predicted", with the engine performing "exactly as we thought it would".
The Trent 500 is the exclusive powerplant for the Airbus A340-500/600 growth versions. It will be certificated to 60,000lb (267kN) thrust and produced with two ratings - the 53,000lb for the -500 and the 56,000lb for the -600.
On the rig, the engine was tested up to 68,000lb thrust within four hours of running.
Having clocked up $5.2 billion sales for orders on well over 100 aircraft, the Trent 500 has already entered the R-R record books for advance sales.
Source: Flight Daily News
