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N0KFQ > TODAY 15.05.11 23:19l 76 Lines 3695 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - May 15
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Sent: 110515/2046Z 7803@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.0.4
May 15, 1941:
First Allied jet flies
On May 15, 1941, the jet-propelled Gloster-Whittle E 28/39
aircraft flies successfully over Cranwell, England, in the first
test of an Allied aircraft using jet propulsion. The aircraft's
turbojet engine, which produced a powerful thrust of hot air, was
devised by Frank Whittle, an English aviation engineer and pilot
generally regarded as the father of the jet engine.
Whittle, born in Coventry in 1907, was the son of a mechanic. At
the age of 16, he joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as an aircraft
apprentice at Cranwell and in 1926 passed a medical exam to
become a pilot and joined the RAF College. He won a reputation as
a daredevil flier and in 1928 wrote a senior thesis entitled
Future Developments in Aircraft Design, which discussed the
possibilities of rocket propulsion.
From the first Wright brothers flight in 1903 to the first jet
flight in 1939, most airplanes were propeller driven. In 1910,
the French inventor Henri Coanda built a jet-propelled bi-plane,
but it crashed on its maiden flight and never flew again.
Coanda's aircraft attracted little notice, and engineers stuck
with propeller technology; even though they realized early on
that propellers would never overcome certain inherent
limitations, especially in regard to speed.
After graduating from the RAF college, Whittle was posted to a
fighter squadron, and in his spare time he worked out the
essentials of the modern turbojet engine. A flying instructor,
impressed with his propulsion ideas, introduced him to the Air
Ministry and a private turbine engineering firm, but both
ridiculed Whittle's ideas as impractical. In 1930, he patented
his jet engine concept and in 1936 formed the company Power Jets
Ltd. to build and test his invention. In 1937, he tested his
first jet engine on the ground. He still received only limited
funding and support, and on August 27, 1939, the German Heinkel
He 178, designed by Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain, made the first
jet flight in history. The German prototype jet was developed
independently of Whittle's efforts.
One week after the flight of the He 178, World War II broke out
in Europe, and Whittle's project got a further lease of life. The
Air Ministry commissioned a new jet engine from Power Jets and
asked the Gloster Aircraft Company to build an experimental
aircraft to accommodate it, specified as E 28/39. On May 15,
1941, the jet-propelled Gloster-Whittle E 28/39 flew, beating out
a jet prototype being developed by the same British turbine
company that earlier balked at his ideas. In its initial tests,
Whittle's aircraft--flown by the test pilot Gerry Sayer--achieved
a top speed of 370 mph at 25,000 feet, faster than the Spitfire
or any other conventional propeller-driven machine.
As the Gloster Aircraft Company worked on an operational turbojet
aircraft for combat, Whittle aided the Americans in their
successful development of a jet prototype. With Whittle's
blessing, the British government took over Power Jets Ltd. in
1944. By this time, Britain's Gloster Meteor jet aircraft were in
service with the RAF, going up against Germany's jet-powered
Messerschmitt Me 262s in the skies over Europe.
Whittle retired from the RAF in 1948 with the rank of air
commodore. That year, he was awarded 100,000 pounds by the Royal
Commission on Awards to Inventors and was knighted. His book Jet:
The Story of a Pioneer was published in 1953. In 1977, he became
a research professor at the United States Naval Academy in
Annapolis, Maryland. He died in Columbia, Maryland, in 1996.
73, K.O. N0KFQ
Another old retired guy
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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