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Since the first passenger-carrying aircraft went into service, each major new aircraft type has grown in size, weight, performance, reliability, and economics. Thus, history, plus a sharply increasing travel market, have provided statistics that define general requirements for development and growth needs of the powerplants for supersonic transports. General Electric’s GE4 turbojet engine for the United States SST is examined, from a conceptual design and development program standpoint, against today’s airlines requirements. The important criteria of a reliable and mature engine for initial SST service is related to the prospect of that engine’s operational growth capability for the future, with emphasis on maintainability, safety, performance, and economics.

The rapid and dramatic growth of aviation over the past several decades is a matter of history with which we are all quite familiar. Integral to that growth has been the mushrooming progress in powerplant technology which, by necessity, is the lead factor in the development of aircraft systems. This paper highlights some of the major milestones that have influenced the course of developments in gas turbine powerplants. It traces its origins in work done on turbosuperchargers, with discussion of the stimuli and shifts in requirements that resulted in various types of jet engines leading up to today's high-bypass turbofans. The natural quest to fly higher, faster and further has reached a point of relative maturity in technology so that today's efforts can now be directed more towards improvements in efficiency, reliability and ecological consciousness. The future holds new challenges. It calls for new ways to control the spiraling costs of development and production of powerplants.