Want to be the envy of fellow aviation nuts? Well then, may we suggest that you grab the original Rolls-Royce Olympus Turbojet engine (593-610) that was once fitted on the supersonic passenger airliner, Concorde, currently put up on sale on eBay. Yes. You read that right. A Concorde Turbojet engine is up for up grab. Like, what are the odds, right? To find one for sale is already a rarity these days. To find one that is the only Concorde engine sold by British Airways with its afterburner still attached to it and with the original serial number is even rarer.
If by looking at this aviation engineering beauty triggers the engineer in you, well, we have news for you. Part the conditions of the sale is that it can only be used for static display. You can buy it, take it apart and repurpose the individual components into furniture or do whatever, but you just can’t pack it into any flying contraption. That’s the deal.
For the uninitiated, Rolls-Royce Olympus Turbojet is a legend in aviation history born out of the mid 60s and for obvious reasons. It was designed with enormous thrust (of its time, if I may add), developing a whopping 32,000 lbf (142 kN) and engineered to fly at twice the speed of sound at Mach 2.2 (2,717 km/h or 1,688 mph). The performance of this unit was astonishing for its time. If that isn’t enough to impress, perhaps the build would.
Because of the power, the unit can get crazy hot and as such, every compressor drums and blades were crafted from titanium, save for the last four stages which were of Nimonic 90 nickel alloy, a nickel-based high-temperature low creep superalloy. This particular example, which we believe is the only one of its kind with afterburner and serial number, is a complete unit (again, don’t get tempted) and comes with an original serial numbered mobile stand.
As part of your acquisition, you will also receive the original delivery log book containing details of all sub assemblies, along with original signatures where applicable, and a record of the aircraft it was fitted to for delivery. That said, we do not know which Concorde this engine was used on unless we buy the engine. We would love to (buy this piece aviation history), but the thing is, this engine is impossibly enormous, measuring 6 meters (18 feet) long, stands 1.5 meters (5 feet) tall and weighs a mind-boggling 3.5 tons – excluding the stand which is 2 tons on its own.
The size makes it impossible to fit most homes (including ours) unless the property is a warehouse or maybe a disused church. If you have a hanger space, it will work too. I just don’t see it sitting in anyone’s home. That’s not to mention that it commands a princely sum of £748,000 (or about $23K shy of a million USD), an amount clearly none of us have. If I had that amount (of money), I won’t have to sit here typing furiously everyday for several hours a day.
Images: eBay (my10uk20).
Source: Silodrome via Luxury Launches.
