Originally Posted by
FlightlessParrot
He examined Whittle's impeller design, and concluded that he couldn't improve it. As Hooker made his reputation on the design of the supercharger impeller for the Merlin (and evidently had a proper pride in that), it suggests that Whittle was seriously good.
Just re-reading and this reminded me of something.
Brunel designed the propeller for the SS Great Britain and although it wasn't the first screw fitted to a ship, it was the first on anything like that scale.
According to the organisation that looks after the ship, using modern computer aided design, the efficiency could only be improved by about 5%.