A new engine design and subsequent development programme require extensive knowledge, experience, capability, and infrastructure. It is useful, indeed essential, to understand not only the fundamentals of gas turbine operation and performance - an understanding backed with the experience of decades of research and application - but also to be able to develop the engine design with sufficient environmental, social and legislative awareness that the engine can enter service anywhere in the world.

The section on engine design looks at how the jet engine came to be what it is today, and what engineers need to consider when translating an idea into a proven, working engine.