Airbus has completed installation of the first Rolls-Royce Trent XWB flight-test engine on the A380 flying-testbed aircraft (MSN 001) at its Jean-Luc Lagardere site in Toulouse, France, ahead of the flight test.

Both the companies will begin in-flight testing of the Trent XWB engine for the A350 wide-body passenger jet in the coming weeks.

The Trent XWB engine is the largest Rolls-Royce turbofan with a 118in diameter fan, and has been specially designed to power all members of the new Airbus A350 XWB family.

The other versions of Rolls-Royce’s family of Trent wide-body engines power all of the other wide-body aircraft Airbus currently produces.