Inventor of the turbojet engine

I just watched a documentary on Frank Whittle, the British inventor of the turbojet engine. He joined the RAF and was assigned to a fighter squadron in 1928. He was enrolled in an officer training course at Cranwell. While attending Cranwell, he did his thesis on future aircraft technology and realized that planes of the future had to fly much higher and faster than piston engines would allow. He realized that the engine was the major stumbling block to future aircraft design and began thinking about a completely different kind of engine. He applied for and got a patent for his engine design in 1930.

He and two retired RAF servicemen created PowerJets LTD. They built several prototypes based on his turbojet engine design on a shoestring budget. The first few iterations ran away and exploded before he finally got the controls figured out. They had a working engine in 1937. they presented it to the British government but there was skepticism that it was practical. Had they pursued it, the Battle of Britain might have been fought with British jet fighter aircraft against the Luftwaffe.

The government finally acknowledged his design concept and then covered it with the official secrets act which made getting funding more difficult because he couldn't tell potential investors what he was working on. Although the British government covered his design with the official secrets act, they allowed the patent to remain public. Germany based their jet engine fighter technology on his patent drawings.

The British government then gave an order to start manufacturing the engine to Rover who knew nothing about jet engine materials or manufacturing. Manufacturing problems at Rover delayed it 2 years. They finally moved production to Rolls Royce who realized that it was the future of aircraft powerplants and made a viable product out of it.

The German government proved to be just as inept as the Brits. Heinkel already had a working jet airplane based on his design but top German military leaders favored the Messerschmitt company over Heinkel and authorized them to build the jet despite Heinkel's technological lead. That authorization caused a delay of 2 years in their jet fighter development. It seemed like it was sort of a race to see who could delay jet aircraft development the longest.

The first prototype ME262 flew in 1941 but it didn't fly in numbers until 1944. It took RAF encounters with the German ME262 before they realized the performance advantage that the jet engine gave the German aircraft. The first British fighter jet prototype, the Glouster Meteor flew in 1943 and the first Glouster squadron was created in late 1944.

Once jet aircraft became a reality, Whittle thought about the fact that the jet was not as fuel efficient as a piston engine and suggested bypassing some of the compressor gasses creating what is today called the turbofan. It dramatically reduced the noise and increased the fuel efficiency of the engines and is used in most commercial aircraft today.

Frank Whittle was the Edison of jet aircraft engine design.