Rolls-Royce: Powering the Whispering Giant - The Trent 900 Engine

The Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines power the world’s largest airliner, the Airbus A380.

In February 2001, Rolls-Royce announced the launch of one of the most ambitious engineering programmes in the company’s Civil Aerospace history – to develop the Trent 900 engine to power the Airbus A380, a new and exciting aircraft which would become the largest civil airliner ever built.

The Trent 900 is the 4th member of the Trent family, and holds pride of place as the largest jet engine ever produced by Rolls-Royce. ‘Powering the Whispering Giant’ plots the Trent 900 journey in photographs from concept to design, development, testing, first flight on the A340 flying test bed, flight test on the A380, Route Proving, Service Readiness and Entry into Service in October 2007.

This colourful publication combines the best images from throughout the programme, with descriptions of each major step along the way, to offer the reader a unique insight into one of the most public and most exciting new jet engine programmes ever undertaken.