AEROSPACE engineering firm Darchem has designed and built equipment for testing aircraft engines in a contract worth more than £1m.

The company, at Stillington, near Stockton, was yesterday showing its Belgian customers the completed testing equipment - a turbulence control screen - which controls air entering engines under test.

All design and manufacture has been carried out by staff at the Stillington site, which employs 550 people, and assembly was completed at LV Shipping, in Middlesbrough, due to the size of the apparatus.

Representatives from Darchem's customer, Cenco, visited the region yesterday to carry out acceptance tests on the structure, which has the appearance of a golf ball and is one of only ten in the world. It will be the first to enter service in Russia, where it will test jet engines.

Darchem, which specialises in high-temperature resistant materials, moved into the jet engine turbulence control market in the past five years.

The golf ball will be dismantled and shipped to Russia by sea, to be rebuilt and installed in an engine test facility for Russian aircraft group NPO Saturn.

Kevin McEneny, of Darchem, said: "I think this contract demonstrates the design manufacturing and assembly skills we have, and the ability of the people here at Darchem to produce something like this.

"Cenco has thanked us and said there was global competition for this contract, but they had chosen us because they recognised the company held all of the skills able to do the design and manufacture. Other companies could only do the design, or the manufacture, not both."

Darchem was bought in a £68m deal earlier this year by the Esterline Corporation, of Washington, US.