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This week, 62-year-old Fred Rentschler gained another lap in the jet-power race. To mark Pratt & Whitney's 25th anniver sary, he dedicated a new $12 million gas turbine testing laboratory on the banks of the Connecticut River. Oldtimers who examined the concrete-lined testing chambers, in which jet engines will roar full blast in a gas-swirled inferno, were reminded of a classic Pratt & Whitney story. A wartime visitor to the plant, watching blue flames flickering from an engine's exhaust, remarked brightly: "Actually, you people simply are trying to contain and control fire, aren't you?" Replied a Pratt & Whitney veteran: "Yes, and that's simply all the devil has to do in hell, too, as I understand it."