“We got lots of positive feedback. We had Airbus, the airframer. We had airlines – which we call operators – like Qatar Airways, United Airlines, TAP Portugal, and US Airways. It’s a set of really rigorous and demanding customers.”
According to Boddy, the attendees were a little nervous to start with because they hadn’t necessarily seen the engine in detail at that point.
“I think it was relief because, until then, what they had seen from Rolls-Royce were mostly Powerpoint presentations. Impressive specifications and big promises, but nothing tangible (in a lot of cases, customers had bought the engine before we had built the thing). But then, after they finally saw it, saw what it could do, we had all these executives coming up to us, smiling, saying what a great day it was for the program.”
After nearly a decade of backbreaking work that went into developing this engine, all the thousands of hours and dozens and dozens of people involved, this was a special moment of satisfaction for Boddy.
But, he says, there’s another good reason for assembling so many stakeholders – the opportunity to tap into their knowledge.
“Because they’ve lived with engines so long – even if they weren’t Rolls-Royce engines. It’s a great opportunity to talk about the overall reliability and durability of components they were seeing for the first time,” says Boddy.
“They’d say, you know – ‘I have this problem with this kind of component. How have you solved this problem on the Trent XWB?’”
Boddy says this back-and-forth often teases out real insights and sparks new ideas. There’s no substitute for hearing it from the horse’s mouth.
“Really, at the end of the day, all this dialogue helps Rolls-Royce continually roll out improved products. And that’s what it’s all about.”
To find out about another tough test that Rolls-Royce puts its engines through, read about our cold weather testing here.
To learn more about the Trent family, visit our Power of Trent hub.