Fairey Rotodyne.
OT:
"Frank Whittle invented the Jet engine"
Hans von Ohain invented the jet engine. (patented 1936)
Ernst Heinkel built the first jet He 178 to fly in August 1939.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_178
BTW they had some interesting helicopters as well:
https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/...stelze-at-war/
"Frank Whittle invented the Jet engine"
Hans von Ohain invented the jet engine. (patented 1936)
Ernst Heinkel built the first jet He 178 to fly in August 1939.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_178
BTW they had some interesting helicopters as well:
https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/...stelze-at-war/
Frank Whittle has akways been regarded as the inventor of the turbojet engine. From Wili:
Whittle's jet engines were developed some years earlier than those of Germany's Hans von Ohain who was the designer of the first operational turbojet engine.[2]
earned him a place on the officer training course at Cranwell. He excelled in his studies and became an accomplished pilot. While writing his thesis there he formulated the fundamental concepts that led to the creation of the turbojet engine, taking out a patent on his design in 1930.
Without Air Ministry support, he and two retired RAF servicemen formed Power Jets Ltd to build his engine with assistance from the firm of British Thomson-Houston.[5] Despite limited funding, a prototype was created, which first ran in 1937
Meanwhile, in Britain the Gloster E28/39 had its maiden flight on 15 May 1941 and the Gloster Meteor finally entered service with the RAF in July 1944. These were powered by turbojet engines from Power Jets Ltd., set up by Frank Whittle. The first two operational turbojet aircraft, the Messerschmitt Me 262 and then the Gloster Meteor entered service within three months of each other in 1944.
Fronn Wiki again.
There was also an Italian turbine aircraft that usea a piston engine to drive the compressor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Campini_N.1
The engine was extremely simple, made largely of sheet metal. Construction started late in the summer of 1936 and was completed in March 1937. Two weeks later the engine was running on hydrogen, but the high temperature exhaust led to considerable "burning" of the metal. The tests were otherwise successful, and in September the combustors were replaced and the engine was run on gasoline for the first time. Ohain had at last, albeit five months after Frank Whittle, working in parallel in England, run a self-contained turbojet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Campini_N.1
Last edited by Fareastdriver; 28th Oct 2019 at 21:44.
I have trouble with the word "inventor", for the jet engine in the form that Whittle and we know it was first patented in 1921 by Frenchman Maxime Guillaume using an axial compressor, French patent no. 534,801, filed: 3 May 1921; issued: 13 January 1922. Never built though, as the necessary technology did not exist. The very first gas turbine patent was by Englishman John Baker in 1791 UK patent no. 1833 – Obtaining and Applying Motive Power, & c. A Method of Rising Inflammable Air for the Purposes of Procuring Motion, and Facilitating Metallurgical Operations. Although he never built one at the time a working version was shown at the Hannover Fair in 1972.
von Ohain had the first operational jet engine, the He 178 getting airborne 27 August 1939 where as Whittle was a little later, the Gloster E28/39 was in 15 May 1941.
I'm reminded of the quote "we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature". People have ideas and dreams, but are held back by the limitations of their times, metallurgy being just one of many. They lay the ground work with their ideas and dreams and folk such as Whittle and von Ohain are able to capitalise on the previous work and bring their own dreams and ideas to a project and by dint of experimentation and hard graft bring about a successful conclusion. Inventors though?
An example of who can be credited as an inventor.
The Brits built the flying wing Westland-Hill Pterodactyl Mk.IV in 1931 with small sweep changes to adjust for longitudinal trim.
Messerschmitt built one only P.1101 which never flew, had ground adjustable sweep, the US took it home after the war and used it as a basis for their Bell X-5 which had in flight adjustable positions of 20, 40 and 60 degrees.
British Barnes Wallis started work on variable sweep in 1949, however the government pulled the plug on finance so he went cap in hand to the US where he received the same reception. He came up with the idea of the outboard pivot in 1954 to solve inherent issues with the concept. The detailed implementation of the concept was done by the NASA Langley Laboratory team of Alford, Polhamus and Barnes Wallis. British engineer L. E. Baynes patented a swing wing fighter in 1949 and a supersonic version in 1956.
The F-111 was the first production aircraft to use the concept.
Question : Who was the inventor of the swing wing, the chap who came up with the idea, or those who built the first practical aircraft?
von Ohain had the first operational jet engine, the He 178 getting airborne 27 August 1939 where as Whittle was a little later, the Gloster E28/39 was in 15 May 1941.
I'm reminded of the quote "we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature". People have ideas and dreams, but are held back by the limitations of their times, metallurgy being just one of many. They lay the ground work with their ideas and dreams and folk such as Whittle and von Ohain are able to capitalise on the previous work and bring their own dreams and ideas to a project and by dint of experimentation and hard graft bring about a successful conclusion. Inventors though?
Swing technology used in the F111 was a British design
The Brits built the flying wing Westland-Hill Pterodactyl Mk.IV in 1931 with small sweep changes to adjust for longitudinal trim.
Messerschmitt built one only P.1101 which never flew, had ground adjustable sweep, the US took it home after the war and used it as a basis for their Bell X-5 which had in flight adjustable positions of 20, 40 and 60 degrees.
British Barnes Wallis started work on variable sweep in 1949, however the government pulled the plug on finance so he went cap in hand to the US where he received the same reception. He came up with the idea of the outboard pivot in 1954 to solve inherent issues with the concept. The detailed implementation of the concept was done by the NASA Langley Laboratory team of Alford, Polhamus and Barnes Wallis. British engineer L. E. Baynes patented a swing wing fighter in 1949 and a supersonic version in 1956.
The F-111 was the first production aircraft to use the concept.
Question : Who was the inventor of the swing wing, the chap who came up with the idea, or those who built the first practical aircraft?
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The historical timelines show that von Ohain was still a university student when Whittle filed his first patent for a turbojet engine in January 1930, Whittle successfully ran his first engine in April 1937, some 6 months before von Ohain. von Ohain was the first however to fly a turbine powered aircraft.
The first gas turbine to successfully run self-sustainingly was built in 1903 by Norwegian engineer Ęgidius Elling, his first gas turbine patent was granted in 1884.
The first gas turbine to successfully run self-sustainingly was built in 1903 by Norwegian engineer Ęgidius Elling, his first gas turbine patent was granted in 1884.
Just to put the "invention" of the gas turbine into perspective...
- 1791: A patent was given to John Barber, an Englishman, for the first true gas turbine. His invention had most of the elements present in the modern day gas turbines. The turbine was designed to power a horseless carriage.[5][6]
- 1899: Charles Gordon Curtis patented the first gas turbine engine in the US.[7]
- 1900: Sanford Alexander Moss submitted a thesis on gas turbines. In 1903, Moss became an engineer for General Electric's Steam Turbine Department in Lynn, Massachusetts.[8] While there, he applied some of his concepts in the development of the turbocharger.[8]
- 1903: A Norwegian, Ęgidius Elling, built the first gas turbine that was able to produce more power than needed to run its own components, which was considered an achievement in a time when knowledge about aerodynamics was limited. Using rotary compressors and turbines it produced 11 hp.[9]
- 1904: A gas turbine engine designed by Franz Stolze, based on his earlier 1873 patent application, is built and tested in Berlin. The Stolze gas turbine was too inefficient to sustain its own operation.[3]
- 1906: The Armengaud-Lemale gas turbine tested in France. This was a relatively large machine which included 25 stage centrifugal compressor designed by Auguste Rateau and built by the Brown Boveri Company. The gas turbine could sustain its own air compression but was too inefficient to produce useful work.[3]
- 1910: Holzwarth gas turbine (pulse combustion) achieved 150 kW (200 hp).[3]
- 1920s The practical theory of gas flow through passages was developed into the more formal (and applicable to turbines) theory of gas flow past airfoils by A. A. Griffith resulting in the publishing in 1926 of An Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design. Working testbed designs of axial turbines suitable for driving a propeller were developed by the Royal Aeronautical Establishment.[10]
- 1930: Having found no interest from the RAF for his idea, Frank Whittle patented[11] the design for a centrifugal gas turbine for jet propulsion. The first successful test run of his engine occurred in England in April 1937.[12]
- 1932: The Brown Boveri Company of Switzerland starts selling axial compressor and turbine turbosets as part of the turbocharged steam generating Velox boiler. Following the gas turbine principle, the steam evaporation tubes are arranged within the gas turbine combustion chamber; the first Velox plant was erected in Mondeville, Calvados, France.[13]
- 1936: The first constant flow industrial gas turbine is commissioned by the Brown Boveri Company and goes into service at Sun Oil's Marcus Hookrefinery in Pennsylvania, US.[14]
