The Museum of Airports and Air Transport of the Malaga-Costa del Sol Airport welcomes from Wednesday a very special ‘tenant’. It is a ‘Trent 900’ engine, manufactured in response to the new requirements of the aeronautical industry and called to equip what would be the largest aircraft on the market, the Airbus A380.
The engine, designed and manufactured by Rolls Royce, arrived in Malaga after a road trip that started in Toulouse last April 7 and has definitely kept it away from ending up scrapped in oblivion, despite being at the time a scientific, technological and industrial challenge of the first magnitude.
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The transfer to the Malaga museum of this giant of propulsion, 4.5 meters long and 2.9 meters in diameter (equivalent to the fuselage of a DC-9 aircraft), began to be forged in 2018, a year after its last flight, on July 3, 2017, after 529 flights and almost a hundred other ground operations, totaling 1,796 hours and 19 minutes of operation in its 724 ignitions.
After the Airbus 380’s final wing down, the engine was left to await a far from flattering future for this jewel of 21st century engineering. But chance, and above all the interest of a young engineer from Malaga, Álvaro Rojas Zamora, changed that fate that would turn it into forgotten pieces. In autumn 2018, the possibility was raised that the ‘Trent 900’ engine could have its ‘golden retirement’ in Malaga.
With this same conviction, Rolls Royce’s aeronautical engineer Álvaro Rojas presented the British company with the first proposal to send the ‘Trent 900’ to the museum at the Malaga airport. In parallel, from Malaga, the first steps were taken with the main Spanish aeronautical companies that might be interested in collaborating in the project to transfer the engine, steps that unfortunately did not bear the desired fruit. The whole of 2019 passed without the project making any progress and, in March 2020, the COVID 19 pandemic brought the whole world to a complete standstill.
When the project was reactivated in the spring of 2021, Aena began the steps to make what still seemed to be a dream come true. Reports, mails and calls marked the first half of 2021, until all the necessary mechanisms could be articulated between Rolls Royce and Aena so that the acceptance, transfer and reception of the ‘Trent 900’ engine at the Museum of Airports and Air Transport in Malaga would be possible.
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A whole race of technological, logistical, construction, design, administrative, legal and economic hurdles lay ahead. Over a period of more than six months, the work of professionals from Aena, the Association of Friends of the Museum and Rolls Royce technicians finally shaped a project that became a reality on April 7, when, after being packed, accommodated and secured in a special vehicle, the ‘Trent 900’ set off for Malaga.
On Friday, April 8, against all odds, the company in charge of transporting the engine announced that it was in the middle of the Castilian plateau. Four days ahead of schedule. The reaction of the Friends of the Museum was not long in coming, and in just a few hours, the arrival of the engine was arranged, which made it possible for the huge special transport truck and its guide vehicle to enter the museum square without any problems.
On Tuesday, at 7 a.m., the work of dismantling the roof of the museum’s Hall 3 began, to introduce the technological giant from above and complete a process that lasted 10 uninterrupted hours and in which technicians from Rolls Royce and the Malaga companies BTG Construction and Engineering, Eurogrúas Raimundo and Metal y Forja collaborated.
From today, Malaga has a new cultural and technological jewel for the delight of aviation lovers. But, beyond its public exhibition, the main objective, shared between Aena and Rolls Royce, is to promote education in science and technology, bring aeronautics closer to young people and inspire their creative work, tasks in which the Museum of Airports, Navigation and Air Transport has been working on since its creation, more than 25 years ago.
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