A centrifugal compressor rotor is quite robust, but the blading of an axial compressor looks horrifyingly fragile and very susceptible to damage by objects sucked into the engine. The introduction of axial compressor engines into airline service brings this again to the attention of designers and service engineers. The object of this paper is to outline the problem, and to describe one experimental approach to assessing the relative merits of different blade materials from the damage point of view.