Emirates airline has started work on a new jet engine test facility, one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated and the only one of its size in the Middle East.

The facility, designed in co-operation with General Electric International, is due for completion in January 2007. It will house a 13-m cross-section jet engine test cell and an auxiliary power unit test cell, and will be capable of testing aircraft engines with up to 150,000 pounds of thrust.
“This state-of-the-art test facility will be one of 12 such facilities in the world,” Adel Al Redha, Emirates’ executive vice president engineering and operations, says.
The new centre will be one of the biggest civil aviation maintenance facilities in the world. Its eight hangars will form the largest free-spanned structures in the Middle East, with roofs supported by 110-m-long single spans.