ORIGINAL: Wayne22
Just by contrast...in 1968 - 40 years ago- the first JT9D, the biggest jet engine in the world at the time (designed for the B747) flew its first test flight and developed a whopping 43,500 lbs of thrust
And the current -400 versions of the 747, a-la 1989 vintage with the big upper deck and winglets, have over 60,000 pounds of thrust these days per engine, and the 747-8 due out next year will have well over 70k per engine, in the basic same size package for a total of about 290,000 pounds of thrust for the airplane.
And the A-380 with four of the 'baby' 777 engines on it, pretty amazing.
The 777 variant engines are pretty cool looking, but the big -300ER versions are just monsters. Wise cracks about 2 engines going on strike during short final not withstanding.
Engine technilogy has long been the bottleneck of aerspace development, it's pretty cool to see the development these days, bit by bit.