Damn, I will almost certainly miss it and my chances of catching up on iplayer are not good.
A few days ago a friend gave me a small booklet he found at a boot sale called "Jets" apparently published by the National Association of Spotters Clubs. Not dated but I guess around 1944.
It has a few inaccuracies, like saying the Gloster E.28/39 was the "first aircraft in the world in which the jet was produced by a gas turbine." There is nothing about the Heinkel He 176 and 178 and very little about the He 280, clearly due to wartime lack of info.
However it has one fascinating paragraph:
"The (Bell) Airacomet....was made possible by a very notable example of reverse Lease-Lend. Britain sent the original engine used in the Gloster e.28/39 together with full information and data we had obtained, to the American government. This gave America a flying start, of which it does not seem to have taken the fullest advantage..."
I believe that in the true spirit of fair play we then also shared the technology with Russia to prevent a power imbalance, almost certainly without informing USA!
It interests me because so much information about what we gave to USA and all the projects which we cancelled due to their opposition, has been suppressed over the years and substituted with unconvincing excuses. I have heard that USA tried very hard to make us cancel the V Bomber programme and buy American, but this was a very rare occasion when our government did not cave in to US will and DID support "home-grown".
The V Bombers might now be Cold War Dinosaurs, but by the standards of the time they were incredible, and an amazing achievement for a bankrupt and war-damaged nation.