Call us geeks, planespotters or nerds, but sometimes we do get excited about things that you’d be hard-pressed getting anyone else excited about. Take, for example, the Pratt & Whitney ‘geared turbofan’. This brand new aircraft engine – being called the PurePower PW1000G – has been undergoing testing, first on a Boeing 747 and most recently on an Airbus A340 in France.

Initially the engine, which uses gears (much like in a car) to better control the speed of the fanblades, will be used on the 130-seat Bombardier C-Series aircraft due to enter service in around 2013. Pratt & Whitney say that the new engine will be up to 15% more fuel efficient than the model it replaces and, critically, it will also be a lot quieter than most engines of its size. The initial phase of testing will be complete by the end of this year.

Anyway, if my description didn’t get you excited, maybe this short video will. It’s from just before the flight testing started earlier this year, but I only just found it on YouTube: