Research and Test Apparatus

The development of high performance gas turbine engines for future generations of civil airliners and military aircraft is becoming increasingly diflicult because of the severe limitations of flight testing. In order to overcome some of these difficulties Rolls‐Royce have begun to build a high‐altitude test plant which will simulate most of the conditions under which the engine is designed to operate. The company has authorized an expenditure of £3,820,000 for this project; and work on the buildings has already started on a 13i acre extension to the Aero Division's Research and Development Establishment at Derby. The high altitude test‐beds will be completed and undergoing calibration during the summer of 1957 and full scale scheduled testing should begin in January 1958. It will be the first privately owned high altitude aero engine test facility in the Commonwealth.