As a young girl, Roxana Leonte remembers feeling awestruck by the white lines of the contrails that airplanes left in the sky as they soared high above her home in Romania. She marveled at everything from the physics that allowed airplanes to take flight to what it would feel like to be a passenger or even the pilot on a jumbo jet.

At the Dubai Airshow this week, one of the most anticipated sights will be the Boeing 777X, Boeing’s new plane powered by the GE9X, the most powerful jet engine in the world. But thrust is just one of the engine’s many attributes. It’s also tough and the United Arab Emirates, a hot, desert country that also happens to be the base for two of the world’s largest airlines — Emirates and Etihad Airways — is an ideal place to talk about the engine’s brawn.

The Boeing 777X aircraft made its public debut at the Dubai Airshow on Sunday. Propelled by a pair of GE9X engines from GE Aviation, the engine can supply 134,000 pounds of thrust, more than the rocket used in America’s first manned space flight.

Travis Harper and his colleagues are developing the technology that could ultimately lead to an engine that would use 20% less fuel and produce 20% fewer CO2 emissions than the most efficient jet engines today.

GE’s priority has always been to develop and mature breakthrough technologies that reduce jet engine weight, reduce harmful emissions, and lower noise.

Some of the fascinating, technical challenges presented to engineers in the GE9X program over the last few years.

To celebrate the GE9X engine certification, Steve Ross can add another accomplishment to his unique 37-year GE Aviation career—working back-to-back from start to finish on the two newest widebody engine development programs.

The GE9X engine has been certified by U.S. aviation authorities, a key milestone in its journey to power the new twin-engine Boeing 777X family. Ten GE9X engines have been delivered for Boeing’s four 777X flight test airplanes.

GE's Customer Technical Education Center (CTEC) facility in Cincinnati, Ohio, recently added a GE9X engine for use in customer training classes. “Everything on the GE9X is big—nothing is small,” said Eli Lessing, retired New Product Introduction Program Manager for Training at CTEC. “We needed a lot of space to accommodate the engine.”

On April 30, the second Boeing 777X airplane successfully completed its test flight, cruising 2 hours and 58 minutes over Washington State and landing at Boeing Field in Seattle. On its wings: the most powerful jet engine ever built—the GE9X.