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A Brief History of Jet Engines
A Brief History of Jet Engines
rocketsideas that will, many years later, help fire people into
space.
1925: Pratt & Whitney (now one of the world's biggest aeroengine makers) builds its first engine, the nine-cylinder Wasp.
1928: German engineer Alexander Lippisch (18941976) puts
rocket engines on an experimental glider to make the world's first
rocket plane, the Lippisch Ente.
1926: British engineer Alan Griffith (18931963) proposes using
gas turbine engines to power airplanes in a classic paper titled An
Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design. This work makes Griffith,
in effect, the theoretical father of the jet engine (his many
contributions include figuring out that a jet engine compressor
needs to use curved airfoil blades rather than ones with a simple,
flat profile). Griffith later becomes a pioneer of turbojets,
turbofans, and vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft as the
Chief Scientist to Rolls-Royce, one of the world's leading aircraft
engine makers.
1928: Aged only 21, English engineer Frank Whittle (19071996)
designs a jet engine, but the British military (and Alan Griffith,
their consultant) refuse to take his ideas seriously. Whittle is
forced to set up his own company and develop his ideas by
himself. By 1937, he builds the first modern jet engine, but only as
a ground-based prototype.
1936: Whittle invents and files a patent for the bypass turbofan
engine.
19331939: Hans von Ohain (19111998), Whittle's German
rival, simultaneously designs jet engines with compressors and
turbines. His HeS 3B engine, designed in 1938, powers the