The first real jet engine

[Peter Gunn]

I think someone is yanking your collective chains...

Any idea on suspects? *COUGH*...biff...*COUGH*

 

[soulezoo]

Still, at least I learned something from those who actually provided substantiated facts...so thank you, gents, for expanding my knowledge of early jet development.

That goes for me as well. I don't post a whole lot but am lurking nearly everyday. A lot of folks here that are a lot more knowledgeable than I so I am just soaking it all in. This was a good one.

Greatly appreciated everyone!

 

[pbehn]

Since we have been surrounded by jet engines most of our lives, and they have only one moving part (in theory) It is easy to think that they are simple to make, in fact the simplicity of the basic design just means more complication in the materials needed to cope with the temperatures and pressures. In the early days the difficulty wasn't producing power but stopping the engine running away and turning itself into fuel just before it explodes.
Below is a graph of pressure velocity and temperature in a turbine from here,
What is a normal EGT range of a jet engine?

 

[Duske]

And still you refuse to answer my straightforward question...but I'll answer yours for you. The Tizard Mission which took the Whittle jet technology to the US was in September 1940. Exactly how many operational jet aircraft existed ANYWHERE at that time?

You need to look more closely at the timelines for the events you're discussing. You're mixing up events from 1940 and 1945 without clearly identifying the point you're trying to make.

PLEASE will you stick to a single story and timeline and pay the common courtesy of backing up your comments about British jet engine development with some facts rather than just your own opinions.

It is answered by just a few words. You are talking about what you had in construction but nothing really did work. By seeing all the send pictures
it is just ridiculous how such an so called axial Jet engine could work right - as it showed and all of them were junk more ore less - unless you are telling
which of does ones ever lift an airplane into the air - non did. As I reported my visit to the Hendon museum was a shocking one. Some arrogant militarian
are still trying telling the world that the Whittle one was the first real jet engine ever pruduced by beeing unable telling that the one of von Ohain
did push his plane one year earlyer into the air. An ordinary guard there is telling some hundreds of visitors each day that the German axial Jet engine was the better one. What a shame ! Did you people ever tryed to correct this lie - no way. You are still trying telling the world a wrong story.

So what for did I pay the cab driver for - for hearing such a lie ?

You people did deliver to the States your week Whittle one as it was proved within the Shooting Star.
By all of your comments where was the fully functional axial Jet engine you had in spare then - just non.

We havent seen any Shooting Star over Germany.
Germany produced 1400 Me 262. 800 were in service and 380 were in combat each day.
Thats why you are very pleased driving a German made automobile - no repairs anymore.

I am not a Nazi orientated one. I am restoring engines since 50 years including some RR ones. That`s why.

 

[Marcel]

People, please calm down. No reason to get all worked up about this.
And yes, this is a warning, keep it civil guys!

 

[pbehn]

Germany produced 1400 Me 262. 800 were in service and 380 were in combat each day.
Thats why you are very pleased driving a German made automobile - no repairs anymore.
I am not a Nazi orientated one. I am restoring engines since 50 years including some RR ones. That`s why.

If you had 380 Me 262s in combat every day the war would have taken a different turn.

 

[GregP]

Hey Shortround,

I went into your link on German Starfighter crashes. In Excel, I searched every record for "engine failure," "compressor stall," or "engine explosion."

There are 296 records and one of these phrases shows up 75 times, or 25.3% of the time. The term "nozzle failure" shows up another 12
times, and the term "caught on fire" shows up another 7 times, making for about 31% problems with the engine or nozzle or fire during a ground run. That leaves 70% of the time when the fault was not engine or fire.

There were 11 midair collisions, accounting for another 22 Starfighters.

Looks like spatial disorientation, running into each other, and collisions with the ground or water were, collectively, a big slice of the accidents.

 

[fubar57]

Thats why you are very pleased driving a German made automobile - no repairs anymore.

Volkswagen - 2015

From what I've read..." More than 1,400 Me-262s were built, but only 50 were approved for combat, according to Galland. Of those 50, there were never more than 25 operational at any given time"

 

[GregP]

I looked for all the early jets I could find and, so far, have found a pretty good number of early jets that all flew before the end of the 1940s. Included were:

The Heinkel He 178 flew in 1939

The Gloster-Whittle E.28/39 Squirt flew in 1941

The Heinkel He 280 flew in 1941

The Messerschmitt Me 262 flew in 1941, but was delayed by politics until later

The Bell XP-59A flew on 1 Oct 1942

The de Havilland D.H. 100 Vampire flew in 1943

The Messerschmitt Me 328 flew in 1943, but did not get developed

The Douglas XB-43 jet bomber flew in 1946 (the piston version flew in 1944)

The Arado AR-234 flew in 1944

The Fieseler Fi 103 manned pulsejet flew in Sep 1944

The Junkers Ju-287 flew in 1944

The Gloster G.44 and F.Mk III Meteor flew in 1944 with the F. Mk. 8 coming in 1945

The McDonnell FD-1 Phantom flew on 26 Jan 1945

The Gotha Go.229 (Horten Ho.229?) flew on 2 Feb 1945

The Heinkel He 162 flew in 1945

The Lockheed P-80 flew in 1945

The Bell XP-83 flew in 1945

The Northrop XP-79 flew in 1945

The Henschel Hs 132 was supposed to fly in 1945, but the prototype was captured by the Russians before it was fully assembled

The Gloster NF.11 Meteor flew in 1946

The Lavochkin La-150/152/154/160 all flew in 1946

The North American FJ-1 flew in 1946

The Avia S92 flew in 1946 and was a close copy of the Me 262

The de Havilland D.H. 108 Swallow flew in 1946, was the 1st British aircraft to exceed the speed of sound

The MiG-9 flew in Apr 1946 and was faster than the Me 262 at 910 kph, entered service in 1947

The Yakovlev Yak-15 flew in 1946

The Junkers-Argus EF-126/127 Elly flew in 1946

The McDonnell F2H-3 Banshee flew on 11 Jan 1947

FMA in Argentina flew the I.Ae.27 in 1947

The Armstrong Whitworth Sea Hawk flew in 1947

The Armstrong Whitworth AW52 bomber flew in 1947

The Alekseev I-211 flew in 1947

The Curtiss XP-87 flew in 1947 (and was the last Curtiss aircraft)

The Soviet Alekseev 140 flew in 1947

The Lavochkin La-156 flew in 1947

The Ilyushin Il-22 flew in 1947 and was very similar to the 4-engine Arado AR 234 variant

The North American XF-86 flew on 1 Oct 1947

The North American B-45 flew in 1947

The Republic F-84 flew in 1947

The Northrop YB-49 flew in 1947

The Tuploev Tu-12 flew in 1947 and looks like a jet version of the North American B-25 Mitchell

The Tupolev Tu-14 flew in 1947

The Yakovlev Yak-17 flew in 1947

The Yakovlev Yak-19 flew in 1947

The Leduc 0.10 flew in 1947

The Convair XB-46 flew on 2 Apr 1947

The Saunders-Roe SR.A-1 flew on 16 Jul 1947

The I.Ae.27 Pulqui flew 9 Aug 1947

The Armstrong-Whitworth AW.52 flew on 13 Nov 1947

The Boeing B-47 Stratojet flew 17 Dec 1947

The Alekseev I-215 flew in 1948

The Alekseev Model 150 flew in 1948

The Leduc 0.16 flew in 1948

The SNCAC NC.1071 flew in 1948

The SNCAC NC 1080 flew in 1948

The SNCASO SO-6020 flew in 1948

The SNCASO SO-6025 flew on 28 Dec1948

The Gloster E.1/44 (or GA.2) flew in 1948

The French Arsenal VG-70 flew in 1948

The Lavochkin La-168/176 both flew in 1948

The Lockheed T-33A flew in 1948

The Lavochkin La-15 flew in 1948

The Vickers-Armstrong Nene-Viking flew on 6 Apr 1948

The Northrop XF-89 Scorpion flew in 1948

The Sud Ouest 6000 flew in 1948

The SAAB J29 in 1948 (a VERY good fighter)

The McDonnel XF-88, which became the F-101 Voodoo, flew in 1948

The Vought F7U-1 Cutlass flew in 1948

The Sukhoi Su-10 was supposed to have flown in 1948

The Supermarine 510/517 flew in 1948, and became the Swift

The Chance-Vought F7U1 flew in 1948

The Avro Tudor 8 flew in 1948

The McDonnell XF-85 Goblin flew on 23 Aug 1948

The Convair XF-92 flew on 18 Sep 1948

The Hawker P.1052 flew on 27 Nov 1948

The Yakovlev Yak-23 flew in 1948

The Yakovlev Yak-25 (1st one) flew in 1948

The FFA EFE N-20.1 swept delta glider flew in 1949 leading to the Arbalette and Aiguillon (not really a jet, but the same airframe)

The Lavochkin La-200 flew in 1949

The Lavochkin La-15 UTI flew in 1949

The Arsenal VG-90 flew in 1949

The Republic XF-91 Thunderceptor flew in 1949

The Lockheed F-94 Starfire flew in 1949

The Hawker P.1040 flew in 1949

The de Havilland D.H. 106 Venom flew in 1949

The Yakovlev Yak-50 jet flew in 1949

The Yakovlev Yak-1000 flew in 1949

The Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle flew in 1949

The Martin XB-51 flew in 1949

The GrummanF9F-8 Panther flew in 1949

The Republic XF-91 flew 3 May 1949

The English Electric Canberra flew on 13 May 1949

The de Havilland Comet flew on 27 July 1949

The SAAB J21 RB flew in 1949

The French Nord (or SNCAN) 2200 flew in 1949

The Avro Canada C-102 Jetliner flew on 10 Aug 1949

The Avro Type 707 flew on 4 Sep 1949

The Lockheed XF-90 flew in 1949

The Sud Ouest M.2 flew in 1949

The Sukhoi Su-15 (1st one) flew in 1949

The Tupolev Tu-82/83 flew in 1949

The Chance-Vought F6U Pirate flew in 1949

So ... there were a LOT of early jets were out there! Cheers. If anyone find any more, please add to the list!

 

[Peter Gunn]

*SNIP*

Thats why you are very pleased driving a German made automobile - no repairs anymore.

*SNIP*

Not really, I have two friends with late model high dollar Benz', you'd choke if you saw some of their repair bills. ( Thank God for warranties )

I think you're confusing German made cars with Japanese made cars when it comes to "no repairs anymore".

Toyota = bulletproof

 

[pbehn]

I notice the OP has gone ominously silent. I'm tending to align with Biff15's thinking that this was just a trolling exercise. Still, at least I learned something from those who actually provided substantiated facts...so thank you, gents, for expanding my knowledge of early jet development.

Any discussion throws up useful information. I had briefly read about A.A. Griffith but only with regard to turbines, I didn't realise that his (and others) early work on metal fatigue and what is now the science of fracture mechanics changed the world as we know it. It was the knowledge of crack propagation and what caused it that saved the Liberty Ships programme. It is also the reason why we polish con rods in racing engines. The unfortunate by product of Mr Griffith's genius is that I spent weeks of my life witnessing C.T.O.D. tests, which are not only very complicated but also as mind numbingly boring as they are important.

Crack Tip Opening Displacement Testing (CTOD)

 

[tomo pauk]

It is answered by just a few words. You are talking about what you had in construction but nothing really did work. By seeing all the send pictures
it is just ridiculous how such an so called axial Jet engine could work right - as it showed and all of them were junk more ore less - unless you are telling
which of does ones ever lift an airplane into the air - non did. As I reported my visit to the Hendon museum was a shocking one. Some arrogant militarian
are still trying telling the world that the Whittle one was the first real jet engine ever pruduced by beeing unable telling that the one of von Ohain
did push his plane one year earlyer into the air. An ordinary guard there is telling some hundreds of visitors each day that the German axial Jet engine was the better one. What a shame ! Did you people ever tryed to correct this lie - no way. You are still trying telling the world a wrong story.

So what for did I pay the cab driver for - for hearing such a lie ?

You people did deliver to the States your week Whittle one as it was proved within the Shooting Star.
By all of your comments where was the fully functional axial Jet engine you had in spare then - just non.

We havent seen any Shooting Star over Germany.
Germany produced 1400 Me 262. 800 were in service and 380 were in combat each day.
Thats why you are very pleased driving a German made automobile - no repairs anymore.

I am not a Nazi orientated one. I am restoring engines since 50 years including some RR ones. That`s why.

Next time you're at Hendon, ask for Mr. Hendrix - a knowledgable man, has no bias, hi is from Leuven, Belgium. He rates German hardware pretty high. Once was very active in this forum, we even met once for real.
Nobody accused you for being Nazi oriented. BTW - who are 'you' that I've bolded in your post?
Japanese and Korean cars are every bit as good as German, if not a bit better these days.

 

[buffnut453]

It is answered by just a few words. You are talking about what you had in construction but nothing really did work. By seeing all the send pictures
it is just ridiculous how such an so called axial Jet engine could work right - as it showed and all of them were junk more ore less - unless you are telling
which of does ones ever lift an airplane into the air - non did. As I reported my visit to the Hendon museum was a shocking one. Some arrogant militarian
are still trying telling the world that the Whittle one was the first real jet engine ever pruduced by beeing unable telling that the one of von Ohain
did push his plane one year earlyer into the air. An ordinary guard there is telling some hundreds of visitors each day that the German axial Jet engine was the better one. What a shame ! Did you people ever tryed to correct this lie - no way. You are still trying telling the world a wrong story.

So what for did I pay the cab driver for - for hearing such a lie ?

I think you need to get over yourself...or at least get over some perceived slight that happened at Hendon some time ago. I'm not trying to tell any story at all, I'm simply disagreeing with you about your fundamental statements that seem to centre on the Whittle jet not really being a jet or that was somehow poorer than German-built jet engines.

You people did deliver to the States your week Whittle one as it was proved within the Shooting Star.
By all of your comments where was the fully functional axial Jet engine you had in spare then - just non.

You keep talking about the Whittle jet being "week" and yet it had more thrust than the Jumo 004. How is it possible that the engine you're decrying so much had better performance than the operational jet engine that powered the Me262?

As to the timing, the Metrovick F2 first ran in 1941 AFTER the Whittle jet was taken to the US. What you still haven't shared is how the F2 was influenced by German jet design. You keep saying that the UK had no axial jets and that all knowledge of axial jet technology came from Germany. How on earth did that happen in 1941 to enable the F2 to be bench run? Bench run = fully functional. No, it's not operational but it's up and running so how was it influenced by a German jet? Please answer that basic question that you've now been asked 4 (yes FOUR) times without a sensible response.

We havent seen any Shooting Star over Germany.

What does that point have to do with anything? Meteors WERE operational and flying the same, largely defensive, mission that the Me262 was doing...and doing it rather well against the V-1 threat.

Thats why you are very pleased driving a German made automobile - no repairs anymore.

I am not a Nazi orientated one. I am restoring engines since 50 years including some RR ones. That`s why.

I'm wondering if you can be any more jingoistic? Modern cars have NOTHING to do with the quality of jet engines produced in 1944-45 and, frankly, the Me262 engines were crap from a maintainability perspective.

Sorry for the rant but you're simply throwing out vitriol because you got offended at Hendon one time. Please answer (for the 4th time) my basic question about how German jet technology influenced a British jet engine that was running in 1941....and PLEASE stick to a consistent timeline in your criticism of British jet development.

Over to you...

 

[Shortround6]

The Messerschmitt Me 262 flew in 1941, but was delayed by politics until later

A minor correction if I may to an extensive and impressive list.

The First prototype did indeed fly in April of 1941 but under the power of a Jumo 210 piston engine as no jets were available.
The V3 didn't fly with jets until March of 1942 and they were BMW units. The V3 had kept the Jumo in the nose which came in handy when both Jets failed during the short flight.

Politics may very well have played a part but the lack of airworthy engine units sure didn't help in 1942/43.

 

[wuzak]

Greg's list mentions the Meteor F.III, but does not mention that the prototype flew in March 1943 with Halford H.1 engines, owing to delays in the manufacture of the W.2B by Rover.

The first flight by Whittle W.2B engines was in June 1943. Not sure if they were still Rovers or were Rolls-Royces by that stage.

Another prototype Meteor flew with Metrovicks F.2 axial flow jet engines in November 1943.

 

[swampyankee]

The history of the gas turbine engine is quite well documented,

The GE J 79 I catched from Wikipedia. But you are right it was the GE J 57 - constructed by the German Neumann as I said, the director of
General Electric of does days. Well known in the States as Herrmann the German. He became director of GE because the J 57 he designed became so famous. Some air-museum museum in Germany are named after him. So the J 57 traced ist lineage to the German axial Jet engine as Neumann was one of the heads of BRAMO. Just ask Hanns to learn more about

The J57 was from Pratt&Whitney, not GE. Neumann emigrated from Germany well before WW2; he was Jewish, by the nazi definition; he certainly would not have been let anywhere near a drawing board; had he remained in Germany, he would either be murdered or enslaved. The history of the gas turbine (which far predates the jet engine) is well-documented. If you have a significant issue with actual, published history, start citing documents from archives. If you want to do so with any credibility, make sure that you get rather basic facts straight. One is that the first gas turbine to operate with an axial compressor was built by Brown-Boveri, a Swiss company, with turbomachinery designed by Aurel Stodola, who was ethnically a Slovak. See web.mit.edu/aeroastro/labs/gtl/early_GT_history.html. Another is that British jet engine development during WW2 was quite successful, in many ways more so than that of the Germans. The Jumo 004 had such poor reliability and serviceability that none of the Allied powers would have accepted it into service.

 

[Shortround6]

It is answered by just a few words. You are talking about what you had in construction but nothing really did work. By seeing all the send pictures
it is just ridiculous how such an so called axial Jet engine could work right - as it showed and all of them were junk more ore less - unless you are telling
which of does ones ever lift an airplane into the air - non did. As I reported my visit to the Hendon museum was a shocking one. Some arrogant militarian
are still trying telling the world that the Whittle one was the first real jet engine ever pruduced by beeing unable telling that the one of von Ohain
did push his plane one year earlyer into the air. An ordinary guard there is telling some hundreds of visitors each day that the German axial Jet engine was the better one. What a shame ! Did you people ever tryed to correct this lie - no way. You are still trying telling the world a wrong story.

The Metrovick axial flow engines did power an airplane into the air, please see early post.
The little westinghouse did not, but it was never intended to power an airplane, it was intended as a booster engine or an engine for a missile/drone.
And it's big brother, also an axial flow, did power an aircraft into the air in Jan 1945. MacDonald Phantom I

First run in March of 1943, with the aid of the allied time machine that allowed allied engineers to travel to the future to copy German engines.
Granted it started at 1200lbs thrust and only hit 1600lbs in later production versions but wait.......
it was only 19in (483mm) in diameter compared to the Jumo 004s 32in (810mm) and it weighed about 830lbs compared to the Jumos roughley 1600lbs (depending on exact version). so for it's size and weight it was doing pretty good.

General Electric, in addition to building a series of centrifugal engines based on the imported Whittle example but diverging by greater amount with each new version, was tasked with building a turbo prop in 1941.
They started with a 14 stage axial compressor and the engine (while not a flow through ) first ran on the 15th of May 1943, experience with this compressor led to a contract for a jet engine using an axial compressor called the TG-180. initial design called for a 4:1 pressure ratio and a mass flow of 75lbs a second. Hoped for thrust was 4000lbs. It did give 3620lbs in early tests.
While it lifted no aircraft into the air during WW II, over 14,000 built of post war versions (production lasted until 1955) certainly did.
Diameter was about 37.5 in (953mm) and while the weight was 2425lbs or better, thrust went from 3750lb for early versions to 5400lbs in the last versions.

What the GE and Allison engineers could have learned from the 8 stage low pressure ratio compressor on the Jumo 004 that helped with the 11 stage 33% higher pressure ratio compressor I have no idea.

BTW GE went on to design and build the J-47, the experimental XJ-53 and the J73 before work really started on the J-79. While there is no doubt that
Gerhard Neumann made many valuable contributions to GE engines they were not based on anything the Germans had done in 1939-39.

 

[pbehn]

A minor correction if I may to an extensive and impressive list.

The First prototype did indeed fly in April of 1941 but under the power of a Jumo 210 piston engine as no jets were available.
The V3 didn't fly with jets until March of 1942 and they were BMW units. The V3 had kept the Jumo in the nose which came in handy when both Jets failed during the short flight.

Politics may very well have played a part but the lack of airworthy engine units sure didn't help in 1942/43.

This is an issue I have with this discussion. The Metrovick V2 was not adopted because of unreliability however it was eventually developed into the Sapphire. When two engines fail on the same flight the engine is obviously unreliable. If the UK was under the same threat from escorted daylight raids they may well have gone ahead and designed a plane around the Metrovick V2 and its descendants and accepted the losses as part of the grim calculation. If the Jumo 004 was a huge leap forwards then it would have been copied like the V2 rocket was, the fact is it wasn't.

 

[wuzak]

This is an issue I have with this discussion. The Metrovick V2 was not adopted because of unreliability however it was eventually developed into the Sapphire. When two engines fail on the same flight the engine is obviously unreliable. If the UK was under the same threat from escorted daylight raids they may well have gone ahead and designed a plane around the Metrovick V2 and its descendants and accepted the losses as part of the grim calculation. If the Jumo 004 was a huge leap forwards then it would have been copied like the V2 rocket was, the fact is it wasn't.

It wasn't just reliability that stopped the Metrovicks F.2 being adopted - the complexity of construction and manufacture was also a consideration.

The F.2 flew in the Meteor. The F.2 was improved as the F.2/2, F.2/3 and the F.2/4 Beryl, which flew in the Saunders-Roe SR.A/1 flying boat.

The F.3 was a an unducted fan version of the F.2/2, which was being worked on during the war. The F.5 was an unducted fan version of the F.2/4.

The F.2 gave more thrust and better specific fuel consumption than the contemporary centrifugal type jets engines in Britain.

 

[Shortround6]

I will freely grant that both German engines suffered from a lack of special alloys and the makeshift substitutes and workarounds significantly impacted reliability and longevity.
I will also freely admit that the allied engines, even for 3-4 years after WW II were hardly paragons of virtue.
The Germans may have had superior designs on the drawing boards compared to the Jumo 004 and BMW 003.
That does not mean that any western allied engines were copied, scaled up, scaled down or drawn in mirror image of any WW II German engines, The sole exception being the Early French Atar engine which was desinged by a fair number of ex-BMW engineers.
However the first run of the Atar 101 V1 was not made until March 26rd 1948. so again, it is hard to see where the supposed influence on British and American 1946-47-48 engines is supposed to have come from.