This article outlines the important developments in the history of the development of the air-breathing (duct)
jet engine. Although the most common type, the gas turbine powered jet engine, was certainly a 20th-century invention, many of the needed advances in theory and technology leading to this invention were made well before this time.
The jet engine was clearly an idea whose time had come.
Frank Whittle submitted his first patent in 1930. By the late 1930s there were six teams chasing development, three in Germany, two in the UK and one in Hungary. By 1942 they had been joined by another half dozen British companies, three more in the United States based on British technology, and early efforts in the
Soviet Union and Japan based on British and German designs respectively. For some time after the
World War II, British designs dominated, but by the 1950s there were many competitors, particularly in the US with its huge arms-buying programme.
1791:
John Barber receives
British patent #1833 for A Method for Rising Inflammable Air for the Purposes of Producing Motion and Facilitating Metallurgical Operations. In it he describes a turbine.
1884:
Charles Algernon Parsons patents the
steam turbine. In the patent application he notes that the turbine could be driven "in reverse" to act as a
compressor. He suggests using a compressor to feed air into a furnace, and a turbine to extract power to run the compressor. Although intended for factory use, he is clearly describing the gas turbine.
1887:
Gustaf de Laval introduces nozzles design of small steam turbines.
1897: Harold Medway Martin Patent No. 6088 combustion chamber powering a turbine.
1903:
Ægidius Elling builds a gas turbine using a
centrifugal compressor which runs under its own power. By most definitions, this is the first working gas turbine.
1906: The
Armengaud-Lemale gas turbine tested in France. This was a relatively large machine which included a 25 stage centrifugal compressor designed by
Auguste Rateau. The gas turbine could sustain its own air compression but was too inefficient to produce useful work.[1]
1908:
Hans Holzwarth starts work on extensive research on an "explosive cycle" gas turbine, based on the
Otto cycle. This design burns fuel at a constant volume and is somewhat more efficient. By 1927, when the work ended, he has reached about 13% thermal efficiency.
1909: Marconnt proposes a modification of Lorin's design using a resonant compression chamber, creating the
pulsejet.
1910:
Romanian inventor
Henri Coandă builds the
Coandă-1910 which he exhibits at the International Aeronautic Salon in Paris. It uses a ducted fan for propulsion instead of a propeller. Years later he claimed that it burned fuel in the duct and was thus a
motorjet, but historians debate this claim, and his claims that the aircraft flew in December 1910 before crashing and burning.[2]
1915:
Albert Fonó devised a solution for increasing the range of artillery, comprising a gun-launched projectile which was to be united with a ramjet propulsion unit. This was to make it possible to obtain a long range with low initial muzzle velocities, allowing heavy shells to be fired from relatively lightweight guns.
1916:
Auguste Rateau suggests using exhaust-powered compressors to improve high-altitude performance, the first example of the
turbocharger.
1917: James Stocker Harris patents a "Motor Jet" design on behalf of his brother inlaw Robert Alexander Raveau Bolton.
1920: W.J. Stern reports to the
Royal Air Force that there is no future for the turbine engine in aircraft. He bases his argument on the extremely low efficiency of existing compressor designs. Stern's paper is so convincing there is little official interest in gas turbine engines anywhere, although this does not last long.
1921: Maxime Guillaume patents the
axial-flow turbine engine. It uses multiple stages in both the compressor and turbine, combined with a single very large
combustion chamber. Although sightly different in form, the design is significantly similar to future jet engines in operation.
1923:
Edgar Buckingham at the United States
National Bureau of Standards publishes a report on jets, coming to the same conclusion as W.J. Stern, that the turbine engine is not efficient enough. In particular he notes that a jet would use five times as much fuel as a piston engine.
[1]
1925: Wilhelm Pape patents a constant-volume engine design.
1926:
Alan Arnold Griffith publishes his groundbreaking paper Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design, changing the low confidence in jet engines. In it he demonstrates that existing compressors are "flying stalled", and that major improvements can be made by redesigning the blades from a flat profile into an
airfoil, going on to mathematically demonstrate that a practical engine is definitely possible and showing how to build a
turboprop.
1927:
Aurel Stodola publishes his "Steam and Gas Turbines" - basic reference for jet propulsion engineers in the USA.
1927: A testbed single-shaft turbocompressor based on Griffith's blade design is tested at the
Royal Aircraft Establishment. Known as Anne, the tests are successful and plans are made to build a complete compressor-turbine assembly known as Betty.
1929:
Frank Whittle's thesis on future aircraft design is published. In it he talks about the needs for high-speed flight and the use of turbojets as the only reasonable solution to the problem of propeller efficiency.
1929:
Boris Stechkin publishes first theory of supersonic ramjet, based on compressible fluid theory.
First turbojet engines (1930–38)
1930: Whittle presents a complete jet engine design to the
Air Ministry. They pass the paper to
Alan Griffith at the
Royal Aircraft Establishment, who says the idea is impracticable, pointing out a mathematical error, noting the low efficiency of his design, and stating that Whittle's use of a
centrifugal compressor would make his proposal useless for aircraft applications.
1930: Whittle receives official notice that the
Air Ministry is not interested in his concepts, and that they do not even feel that it is worthy of making secret. He is devastated, but friends in the
Royal Air Force convince him to
patent the idea anyway. This turns out to be a major stroke of luck, because if the Air Ministry had made the idea secret, they would have become the official owners of the rights to the concept. In his patent, Whittle cleverly hedges his bets, and describes an engine with two axial compressor stages and one centrifugal, thus anticipating both routes forward.
1930: Schmidt patents a pulsejet engine in Germany.
1931:
Secondo Campini patents his
motorjet engine, referring to it as a thermojet. (A motorjet is a crude form of hybrid jet engine in which the compressor is powered by a piston engine, rather than a turbine.)
1933:
Hans von Ohain writes his thesis at the
University of Göttingen, describing an engine similar to
Frank Whittle's with the exception that it uses a centrifugal "fan" as the turbine as well as the compressor. This design is a dead-end; no "centrifugal-turbine" jet engine will ever be built.
1935: Whittle allows his patent to lapse after finding himself unable to pay the £5 renewal fee. Soon afterward he is approached by ex-RAF officers
Rolf Dudley-Williams and
James Collingwood Tinling with a proposal to set up a company to develop his design and
Power Jets, Ltd is created.
1935
Virgilio Leret Ruiz is granted a patent (submitted January 1935, granted March 1935) in Madrid for a 'continuous reaction turbocompressor, for propulsion of aircraft, and in general all types of vehicles'. Work commenced at the
Hispano-Suiza factory in 1936, months after Leret's execution by Francoist forces.[3][4]
1936: von Ohain is introduced to
Ernst Heinkel by a former professor. After being grilled by Heinkel engineers for hours, they conclude his idea is genuine. Heinkel hires von Ohain and Hahn, setting them up at their
Rostock-area factory.
1936: A stationary gas turbine is installed at the Sun Oil refinery in
Marcus Hook,
Pennsylvania
1936: French engineer
René Leduc, having independently re-discovered
René Lorin's design, successfully demonstrates the world's first operating
ramjet. The
Armée de l'Air orders a prototype aircraft, the
Leduc 010, a few months later.
September, 1937: von Ohain's
Heinkel HeS 1 is converted to run on
gasoline.
Ernst Heinkel gives the go-ahead to develop a flight-quality engine and a testbed aircraft to put it in.
1937:
Hayne Constant, Griffith's partner at the
RAE, starts negotiations with
Metropolitan-Vickers (Metrovick), a British heavy industry firm, to develop a Griffith-style turboprop.
1937: At Junkers, Wagner and Müller decide to re-design their work as a pure jet.
1938: Metrovick receives a contract from the
Air Ministry to start work with Constant.
1938:
György Jendrassik starts work on a turboprop engine of his own design.
April, 1938:
Hans Mauch takes over the
RLM rocket development office. He expands the charter of his office and starts a massive jet development project, under
Helmut Schelp. Mauch spurns
Heinkel and
Junkers, concentrating only on the "big four" engine companies,
Daimler-Benz,
BMW,
Jumo and
Bramo. Mauch and Schelp visit all four over the next few months, and find them uninterested in the jet concept.
1938: A small team at
BMW led by
Hermann Östrich builds and flies a simple
thermojet quickly prompting them to design a true jet engine.
1938: The
Heinkel He 178 V1 jet testbed is completed, awaiting an engine.
1938: The
Heinkel HeS 3 "flight quality" engine is tested. This is the first truly usable jet engine. The engine flies on a
Heinkel He 118 later that year, eventually becoming the first aircraft to be powered by jet power alone. This engine is tested until it burns out after a few months, and a second is readied for flight.
A stationary gas turbine is installed in a new electrical generating plant in
Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
A 2,200 horsepower (1,600 kW) gas turbine is built by
Brown, Boveri & Cie and used to power an experimental
train in Switzerland.
BMW's team led by
Hermann Östrich tests their axial-flow design.
Bramo starts work on two
axial-flow designs, the
P.3301 and
P.3302. The P.3301 is similar to Griffith's contrarotating designs, the P.3302 using a simpler compressor/stator system.
Bramo is bought out by
BMW, who abandon their own jet project under Östrich, placing him in charge of
Bramo's efforts.
Summer:
Jumo is awarded a contract to develop an
axial-flow engine, starting work under
Anselm Franz. Müller decamps with half the team to
Heinkel.
Heinkel He 178, the world's first aircraft to fly purely on turbojet power
August:
Heinkel He 178 V1, the first jet-powered aircraft, flies for the first time, powered by the HeS 3B.
September: A team from the
Air Ministry visits Power Jets once again, but this time
Frank Whittle demonstrates a jet engine at full power for a continuous 20-minute run. They are extremely impressed, quickly contracts are offered to Whittle to develop a flyable design, and production contracts are offered to practically every engine company in England. These companies also set up their own design efforts, reducing the possibility of financial rewards for Power Jets.
September: The Air Ministry also contracts
Gloster to build an experimental airframe for testing Whittle's engines, the
Gloster E.28/39
After hearing of Whittle's successful demonstration, Hayne Constant realizes that exhaust thrust is practical. The Metrovick efforts are quickly reworked into a turbojet design, the
Metrovick F.2.
November: Müller's team restarts work on their
axial-flow design at Heinkel, now known as the
Heinkel HeS 30.
René Anxionnaz of France's
Rateau company received a
patent on an advanced jet design incorporating bypass.
A shakeup at the
RLM's engine division places
Helmut Schelp in control, and results in development contracts for all existing engine designs. The designs are also given consistent naming, the Heinkel HeS 8 becoming the 109-001, the HeS 30 the -006, BMW's efforts the -002 and -003, and Jumo's the -004. Porsche's project becomes the -005, although work never starts on it. DB gets -007. Numbers starting in the 20s are saved for
turboprops, and 500 and up for rockets.
1940
The CC.2, the first publicly demonstrated jet aircraft.
The
Campini Caproni CC.2 flies for first time. The flights were highly publicized, and for many years the
Italians were credited with having the first jet-powered aircraft.
NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) starts work on a
CC.2 like motorjet for assisted takeoffs, and they later design an aircraft based on it. This work ends in 1943 when turbojets start to mature, and rockets take over the role of
JATO, or jet assisted takeoff.
von Ohain's larger
Heinkel HeS 8 (-001) engine is tested.
BMW's P.3302 (-003) axial-flow engine is tested
September: Glider testing of the
Heinkel He 280 twin-jet fighter begins, while it waits for the HeS 8 to mature.
September:
Henry Tizard visits the United States to show them many of the advanced technologies the British are working on and looking for US production (the
Tizard Mission). Among many other details, Tizard first mentions their work on jet engines.
October:
Rover is selected to build the flight-quality Power Jets W.1. They set up shop at a disused mill in
Barnoldswick, but also set up a parallel effort at another factory in
Clitheroe staffed entirely by their own engineers.
Frank Whittle is incensed.
After only two years of development, the
Jendrassik Cs-1 turboprop engine is tested. Designed to produce 1,000 horsepower (750 kW), combustion problems limit it to only 400 horsepower (300 kW) when it first runs. Similar problems plagued early Whittle designs, but the industry quickly provided assistance. It appears that
György Jendrassik had to draw upon any similar talent pool.
February:
NACA starts testing their "Propulsive duct engine", a
ramjet, unaware of earlier similar efforts. Since ramjets need to be moving in order to work, NACA engineers take the simple step of mounting it at the end of a long arm and spinning it.
April: The He 280 flies under its own power for first time, powered by two
Heinkel HeS 7 (-001) engines. The HeS 8's continue to have reliability issues.
May: The
Gloster E.28/39 flies for the first time. Over the next few weeks, the top speed soon passes any existing propeller aircraft.
Müller's
Heinkel HeS 29 (-006) axial-flow engine runs for first time.
October: A Power Jets W.2B is sent to General Electric to start production in the US.
Sanford Alexander Moss is lured out of retirement to help on the project.
The Switzerland turbine-powered
train enters testing.
1943
The Me 262 flies for the first time in 1942, and would go on to become the first jet powered combat aircraft to enter service.
The
Metrovick F.2 is given test rating delivering between 1,800 and 2,000 lbf (8.9 kN)
Metrovick start on "thrust augmentation" adding a turbine and propellers to a F2/2 which will lead to the F.3 (a high bypass design) with an extra 1,600 lbf (7,100 N) over the F2/2.
Work on the BMW 002 is stopped as it is proving too complex. Work continues on the 003.
Work on the HeS 8 (-001) and HeS 30 (-006) is stopped, although the later appears to be reaching production quality. Heinkel is ordered to continue on the more advanced
Heinkel HeS 011.
The
Messerschmitt Me 262 flies for the first time, powered by a
Junkers Jumo 211 piston engine in the nose. The
BMW 003 has been selected to power the production versions, but is not yet ready for flight tests. The design, offering more internal fuel capacity than the He 280, is selected over its now 003-powered competitor for production.
The
Daimler-Benz 007axial-flow engine is tested, similar to Griffith's "contraflow" design that uses two contra-rotating compressor stages for added efficiency.
The "production-quality" BMW 003 is first tested.
March. The
Rover W2B/26 experimental engine (STX) is first run, this was the straight-through design made by Rover without the knowledge of Whittle.[5] This design was to be adopted by
Rolls-Royce as the basis for their Derwent engine after they took over from Rover (by which time four more W2B/26 engines were under test).
The British order a single-engined jet design from
de Havilland
July 18, 1942: The
Messerschmitt Me 262, the first jet-powered fighter aircraft, flies for the first time under jet power.
July:
Frank Whittle visits the United States to help with
General Electric's efforts to build the W.1. The engine is running soon after, known as the "General Electric Type 1", and later as the I-16, referring to the 1,600 lbf (7,100 N) thrust. They also start work on an improved version, the I-40, with 4,000 lbf (18 kN) thrust. The majority of United States jet engines from this time through the mid-1950s are licensed versions of British designs.
Whittle returns to Power Jets and starts development of the improved Power Jets W.2/500 and /700 engines, so named for their thrust in
kilograms-force (kgf).
Westinghouse starts work on an axial-flow engine design, the
WE-19.
October: The
Bell XP-59 flies, powered by a General Electric Type I-A (W.1).
December: After meeting held at a pub, Rover agrees to hand over the jet development to
Rolls-Royce, in exchange for their
Rolls-Royce Meteor tank engine factory.
1943
The Meteor flew in 1943, a year later than the 262, but entered service only a month later.
January 1: Rolls takes over the Rover plants, although the official date is several months later.
Stanley Hooker leads a team including
Fred Morley,
Arthur Rubbra and
Harry Pearson. Several Rover engineers decide to stay on as well, including
Adrian Lombard, leader of Rover's "offshoot" design team. They focus on making the W.2B production quality as soon as possible.
After only a few short months since Rolls-Royce took over from Rover, the W.2B/23, soon to be known as the
Rolls-Royce Welland, starts production.
The parallel Rover design effort, the W.2B/26, is adopted by Rolls-Royce for further development and becomes the
Rolls-Royce Derwent.
The
de Havilland Goblin engine is tested, similar in most ways to the Derwent.
March: A license for the Goblin is taken out in the United States by
Allis-Chalmers, later becoming the J36. Lockheed is awarded a contract to develop what would become the
P-80 Shooting Star, powered by this engine.
Production of Jumo 004B starts.
Production of BMW 003A starts.
First running turbofan the German
Daimler-Benz DB 670 (aka 109-007) operated on its testbed on April 1, 1943
Throughout 1943, the Jumo 004 and BMW 003 continue to destroy themselves at an alarming rate due to turbine failures. Efforts in the United Kingdom, at one point years behind due to official indifference, have now caught up due to the availability of high temperature alloys which allowed for considerably more reliable high-heat sections of their designs.
The US decides to rename all existing jet projects with a single numbering scheme. The L-1000 becomes the J37, GE's Type I the J31, and Westinghouse's WE-19 the J30. Newer projects are fitted into the remaining "30's".
Turboprop designs become the T series, also starting at 30.
June:
Metrovick F.2/1 tested, fitted to Avro Lancaster
September: Allis-Chalmers runs into difficulty on the J36, and the Shooting Star project is re-engined with the
General Electric J33, a licensed version of the W.2B/26, or
Rolls-Royce Derwent. GE later modifies the design to produce over twice the thrust, at 4,000 lbf (18 kN).
November: The Metrovick F.2 is tested on a modified
Gloster Meteor. Although more powerful, smaller and more fuel efficient than the Welland, the design is judged too complex and failure prone. In his quest for perfection, Griffith instead delivers an impractical design. Work continues on a larger version with an additional compressor stage that over doubles the power.
The Armstrong Siddeley ASX is tested.
Metrovick F2/3 delivers 2,700 lbf (12,000 N) but not developed further, moving on to 10 stage F2/4
1944
BMW tests the 003R, a 003 with
an additional rocket engine mounted "in parallel" to the BMW 003A turbojet it is combined with; and produces an even more powerful
"mixed-power" engine.
April: With internal design efforts underway at most engine companies, Power Jets have little possibility of profitability, and are nationalized, becoming a pure research lab as the National Gas Turbine Establishment.
June: Design work on a gas turbine engine for powering tanks begins under the direction of Müller, who left
Heinkel in 1942. The first such system, the
GT 101, is completed in November and fit to a
Panther tank for testing.
June: A Derwent II engine is modified with an additional turbine stage powering a gearbox and five-bladed propeller. The resulting RB.50, or
Rolls-Royce Trent, is not further developed, but is test flown on a modified
Gloster Meteor.
The
BMW 018 engine is tested. Work ends soon after when the entire tooling and parts supply are destroyed in a bombing raid.
The
Junkers Jumo 012 engine is tested, it stands as the most powerful engine in the world for some time, at 6,600 lbf (29,000 N).
The
J35, a development of an earlier
turboprop effort, runs for the first time.
Ford builds a copy of the V-1's engine, known as the PJ-31-1.
The
Ishikawajima Ne-20 first runs in Japan. Originally intending to build a direct copy of the BMW 003, the plans never arrived and the Japanese engineers instead built an entirely new design based on a single cutaway image and several photographs.
The
Doblhof WNF-4 flies, the first ramjet-powered helicopter.
April 5: The nearly complete prototype of the
Leduc 010 ramjet-powered aircraft, under construction at the
Montaudran airfield near
Toulouse, France, unbeknownst to German occupation authorities, is heavily damaged by a
Royal Air Force bombing raid.
June: The Messerschmitt Me 262 enters squadron service in Germany.
July: The
Gloster Meteor enters squadron service in the United Kingdom.
27 July: First combat mission flown by a Gloster Meteor
4 August: Gloster Meteors shot down two pulsejet-powered
V-1 flying bombs
A design competition starts in Germany to build a simple jet fighter, the Volksjäger. The contract is eventually won by the
Heinkel He 162Spatz (sparrow), to be powered by the
BMW 003.
October 27 - After a short 6-month period Rolls-Royce designs and builds the
Rolls-Royce Nene at 5,000 lbf (22 kN), but it sees only limited use in the United Kingdom, and is first run on this date.
December: Northrop's T-37 turboprop is tested. The design never matures and work is later stopped in the late 1940s.
1945
The Nakajima
Kikka flies for the first time on August 7, 1945, powered by two
Ishikawajima Ne-20 turbojets, making it the first Japanese jet aircraft to fly.
Stanley Hooker scales the Nene down to
Gloster Meteor size, producing the RB.37, also referred to, confusingly, as the Derwent V. A Derwent V powered Meteor sets the world speed record at 606 mph at the end of the year. The importance of this incident relegates the development of more powerful engines unimportant.
The RB.39
Rolls-Royce Clyde turboprop runs, combining axial and centrifugal stages in the compressor. Rolls-Royce abandon development, preferring to focus on the turbojet. A carrier-based naval strike aircraft, the
Westland Wyvern, having already changed from its original Rolls-Royce Eagle piston engine, uses the alternative turboprop, the
Armstrong Siddeley Python.
January: A dispirited
Frank Whittle resigns from what is left of Power Jets. Gradually the company is broken up, with only a small part remaining to administer its
patents.
Development of the
Rolls-Royce Dart starts. The Dart would go on to become one of the most popular
turboprop engines made, with over 7,000 being produced before the production lines finally shut down in 1990.
Metrovick F2/4 Beryl delivers 4,000 lbf (17.8 kN). Metrovick jet turbines sold to Armstrong Siddeley.
1949
April 21: The
Leduc 010, the world's first
ramjet powered aircraft, finally completes its maiden flight in
Toulouse, France. The aircraft's rate of climb exceeds that of the best contemporary
turbojet powered fighters.
late 1950:
Rolls-Royce Conway the world's first production
turbofan enters service, significantly improving fuel efficiency and paving the way for further improvements.
1952
2 January: the world's first flight of a geared turbofan, the
Turbomeca Aspin, powering the
Fouga Gemeaux test-bed aircraft.
2 May: the world's first commercial jet airliner to reach production, the
de Havilland Comet, enters service with
BOAC.
1953
The
de Havilland Gyron, Halford's last jet design, runs for the first time. Before cancellation 2 years later it has evolved to 25,000 lbf (110,000 N) using reheat. Other comparable turbojet engines are developed at the same time including the Canadian
Orenda Iroquois.
1956
15 September: the
Tu-104 medium range jet airliner enters service with
Aeroflot, the world's first jet airliner to provide a sustained and successful service. The Tu-104 was the sole
jetliner operating in the world between 1956 and 1958.[6]
1958
October: the
Boeing 707 enters service with
Pan American. This aeroplane is largely credited with ushering in the
Jet Age having huge commercial success with few operating problems unlike its competitors. This plane helped establish
Boeing as one of the leading makers of passenger aircraft in the world.
1959
Sud Aviation Caravelle enters service: claimed as the first short/medium range jet airliner, first flight 27 May 1955.
1968
30 June:
TF39high bypass turbofan of 43,300 lbf (193 kN) enters service on the
C-5 Galaxy transport ushering in the age of wide-body transports.
1975
26 December 1975:
Tu-144S the first
supersonic jet airliner went into mail and freight service between Moscow and Alma-Ata in preparation for passenger services, which commenced November 1977.
31 January -
GE90-115B receives FAR 33 certification; currently holds the world record for thrust and engine (fan) size for a gas turbine powered engine at 127,900 lbf of thrust and 128 inches, respectively[7]