Who invented jet engines

The sky lit up with the bombs falling. The stress had a deleterious effect on Whittle's health. His work was, on occasion, a frightening business, the test jet engines emitting startling noise levels and large pools of fuel that would catch fire.

The mathematics he was doing was groundbreaking. And partly it was the fact he was an RAF man through-and-through. To add to the pressure, Whitehall had word from Nazi Germany that a jet programme had got off the ground. In August , a jet engine designed by a young engineer named Hans von Ohain had briefly powered a plane. He turned an engine which worked on a bench into an engine that was flight-worthy. The design of Whittle's W1 engine is a familiar sight to anybody who has seen a modern jet engine.

As it took to the skies to complete a minute flight before coming back to land, those present were in no doubt about what it signified. During further test flights over the next few days, it reached heights of 25,ft 7,m and a top speed of mph.

They knew it was a terrific thing he had done. One person who got very excited was Winston Churchill. When he heard about the jet, he was galvanised by it and asked, 'Why don't we produce 1, of these?

Further delays to the project meant Churchill's vision never happened. By the time the jet was developed sufficiently, the war was drawing to a close. There was an awareness that Britain had nothing extra to put into such projects. After the war, Whittle was knighted and moved to the US, where his design became the basis of a burgeoning industry.

Today, some question whether his name has become overshadowed by his invention. For some, Whittle's achievement on 15 May was "bittersweet". The government was genuinely alarmed about an invasion and they couldn't begin to think about such an exciting development as the jet engine. That's the significance of the May flight. They were looking the other way, wondering if they had enough traditional aircraft to win the war. Whittle, who registered a patent for the turbojet engine in , received that recognition but did not perform a flight test until Ohain was born December 14, , in Dessau, Germany.

While pursuing doctorate work at the University of Gottingen, he forumulated his theory of jet propulsion in After receiving his degree in , he became a junior assistant to Robert Wichard Pohl, director of the university's Physical Institute. Granted a patent for his turbojet engine in , Ohain joined the Heinkel Company in Rostock, Germany.

By he had built a factory-tested demonstration engine and, by , a fully operational jet aircraft, the He Soon after, Ohain directed the construction of the He S. This engine was installed in the He airplane, which made the world's first jet-powered aircraft flight on August 27, Ohain developed an improved engine, the He S. This engine design, however, was less efficient than one designed by Anselm Franz, which powered the Me , the first operational jet fighter aircraft.

The modern turbojet engine used today in many British and American aircraft is based on the prototype invented by Whittle. At the time, von Ohain was investigating a new type of aircraft engine that did not require a propeller. Only 22 years old when he first conceived the idea of a continuous cycle combustion engine in , von Ohain patented a jet propulsion engine design in very similar in concept to that of Sir Whittle, but different in internal arrangement.

Upon the mutual recommendation of Hugo von Pohl, Von Ohain joined German aircraft builder Ernst Heinkel, at the time seeking assistance in new airplane propulsion designs, in He continued development of his jet propulsion concepts, successfully bench-testing one of his engines in September Heinkel designed and constructed a small aircraft known as the Heinkel He, to serve as a testbed for this new propulsion system, which flew for the first time on August 27, Von Ohain went on to develop a second, improved jet engine known as the He S.

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