Testing concorde's engines

Even when you stand behind two thicknesses of armoured glass in the safety and comparative quiet of the test control room, you can sense the staggering power which one of these Concorde engines develops.

It's an Olympus 593. With its intake and exhaust pipes it's about as long as a single-seater fighter. Each one of these engines costs £300,000. Each one develops as much power as all four engines of a Comet airliner.

This particular engine is a descendant of a long line of smaller Olympus engines, and a lot of the basic features were already well-known to the designers. But there were two new problems: how to make an engine that would stand the supersonic conditions, the great heat and the weight difficulties that would come with a very large engine. If you double the size of a jet engine, it will give four times the power, but will weigh eight times as heavy.

Well, the designers and builders did their jobs. The first engine was made and put on test. Within six weeks it was delivering almost maximum power - the highest recorded figure for any European jet engine. And now they're working on the second engine. Concorde will have 4 of these huge monsters. They'll give a total output of a quarter of a million horsepower, equivalent to 7,500 Mini cars.