Originally Posted by chornedsnorkack
Do you mean two engines or zero engines?
Observe that A300 flew only about 2 years after Tristar...
DC10 - first flight Aug 70. A300 - Oct 72. Relevant to compare these two as the same GE engine.
Large engines were evolving extremely fast at this time. When the DC10/L1011 designs were finalised in the late 1960s the 747 had not even flown yet, it first did so in Feb 69 and those first P&W big fan engines on the 747 were underpowered and unreliable, I think even P&W would agree there, so there was understandable concern about a twin. Rolls Royce of course also ran into huge development problems with their engine which bankrupted the company and delayed the Tristar programme. The first year of 747 operations there were lots of in-flight shutdowns, often due to the big fan casing going slightly out of shape or "ovalising" and contacting the fan, just as well the aircraft was a quad.
Two years on from the DC10 first flight GE had been able to refine and uprate their engine allowing the initial transcontinental DC10 to become the intercontinental DC10-30 with a much uprated GE engine, essentially the same spec as the one made available to the A300.