The Jet Generations Photo by Russ Rogers Via Warren Thompson
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A 21-year-old RAF pilot and a German graduate student got the whole thing going 70 years ago. The Jet Generations Photo by Russ Rogers via Warren Thompson By Bruce D. Callander N the last months of World War II, was losing the war but was still able self. Within a decade, the propel- Allied bombers were jumped by to inflict damage. ler-driven fighters of the major pow- German interceptors that had no These desperation weapons ar- ers would become virtually obso- propellers but could outrun any rived too late to have any substan- lete, their successors powered by conventional fighter. In the Pa- tial impact on the outcome of the “reaction engines.” cific, the Japanese sent piloted war, but they foreshadowed a post- At the time of the Wright brothers’ Iglide bombs against ships and air- war transformation in military tech- first flight in 1903, a relatively light craft, their suicide dives boosted by nology as dramatic in its way as the internal combustion engine was avail- rocket or turbojet engines. The Axis invention of the flying machine it- able. For the next three decades, pis- A four-ship of F-80 fighters. The Shooting Star was the nation’s first combat jet fighter. 68 AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2002 AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2002 68 A 21-year-old RAF pilot and a German graduate student got the whole thing going 70 years ago. The Jet Generations Photo by Russ Rogers via Warren Thompson By Bruce D. Callander N the last months of World War II, was losing the war but was still able self. Within a decade, the propel- Allied bombers were jumped by to inflict damage. ler-driven fighters of the major pow- German interceptors that had no These desperation weapons ar- ers would become virtually obso- propellers but could outrun any rived too late to have any substan- lete, their successors powered by conventional fighter. In the Pa- tial impact on the outcome of the “reaction engines.” cific, the Japanese sent piloted war, but they foreshadowed a post- At the time of the Wright brothers’ Iglide bombs against ships and air- war transformation in military tech- first flight in 1903, a relatively light craft, their suicide dives boosted by nology as dramatic in its way as the internal combustion engine was avail- rocket or turbojet engines. The Axis invention of the flying machine it- able. For the next three decades, pis- A four-ship of F-80 fighters. The Shooting Star was the nation’s first combat jet fighter. 68 AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2002 AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2002 68 new technology. It was March 1943 before the prototype Gloster Meteor made its first flight. Sixteen of the fighters eventually were delivered to the RAF. The first saw combat in August 1944, when their pilots downed two V-1 rockets over south- ern England. By then, Germany already was fielding its jet fighters in numbers. In early 1940, the German Air Min- istry had given two aircraft compa- nies—Heinkel and Messerschmitt— contracts to produce test aircraft. Heinkel took an early lead; unfortu- nately its airplane was plagued by engine failures. Although Messer- schmitt got a slow start, the Me-262 made its first flight in July 1942 and won the competition. Frank Whittle stands next to the engine he designed, designated Whittle W1X, Development problems and the on display in the jet gallery at the National Air and Space Museum in Washing- demands of the war delayed the ton, D.C. project, but in late 1943, Germany approved the 262 for mass produc- ton engines turned propellers that In the 1930s, two men in different tion. More than 1,400 were built; pushed or pulled aircraft through the countries tackled the problem. however, fewer than one-fourth sky, and the search for other power Frank Whittle, in pilot training at reached combat. Many were grounded sources was largely forgotten. the Royal Air Force College from for lack of fuel and qualified pilots Improved designs and more pow- 1926 through 1928, wrote his final or were destroyed by Allied bombs. erful engines increased performance, thesis on the principle of jet propul- but it was apparent as early as the sion. Two years later, in 1930, he Bizarre Proposals 1920s that propeller-driven aircraft applied for a patent on a reaction Late in the war, the Germans be- would be limited, particularly in the engine for aircraft. The Air Ministry came more desperate and the pro- speeds they could attain. showed little interest, but in 1934, posals more bizarre. Several manned The solution, many designers the RAF sent Whittle to Cambridge rocket projects were launched, in- agreed, was some form of reaction University for an engineering de- cluding one for a fighter able to take engine. There were several possi- gree. There, he was encouraged to off vertically. Another designer sug- bilities but all had limitations. Rocket continue his work, and before he gested a manned flying bomb. It was power, already effective in unmanned graduated in June 1936, Whittle and an outgrowth of the V-2 rocket pro- weapons, burned fuel quickly and some friends formed a company to gram and was to be designed to reach promised only limited range. The produce a test model. the US, where the pilot would eject “ram” principle was almost as simple, Meanwhile, Hans von Ohain was and, with luck, become a prisoner of relying on air rushing into the en- working on his Ph.D. in physics and war. Most such ideas never got be- gine, where it would mix with fuel aerodynamics in Germany when he yond the thinking stages. and be ignited to produce a rush of conceived a similar engine. He de- One that did progress was the hot gases. However, before the ram- veloped his idea, built a working “Volksjaeger” (People’s Fighter). jet would kick in, the airplane had to model, and in 1934, applied for his The Reich War Ministry invited bids be in motion. patent. on a cheap, stripped-down jet that Two years later von Ohain was could be built with noncritical mate- Dawn of the Turbojet working for the Heinkel Works, rials and by unskilled labor. Heinkel The third, and most promising, where he developed a turbojet that won the job and by January 1945 option was the turbojet, able to draw the firm installed in a specially de- was producing the He-162. air in, compress it, mix it with fuel, signed He-178. It flew for the first Critically short of experienced and ignite it in one continuous op- time in August 1939, five days be- pilots, Air Minister Hermann Goering eration. The expelled gases would fore Germany invaded Poland and proposed to train members of the both propel the aircraft and run a touched off World War II. Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) in glid- turbine, which turned the compres- That same year, the British Air ers, transition them to the jet fight- sor blades. Steam turbines already Ministry gave Whittle’s company a ers, and send them into combat. Like were used in ships and had been contract to develop a flight engine the airplanes, the young pilots would tried in early automobiles. The prob- and picked the Gloster Aircraft Co. be expendable. lem was to make one strong enough to build an airplane to use it. Fortunately for the Hitler Youth, to stand up to the heat and vibration However, Britain was straining to the war ended before they could take they would encounter in a fuel-burn- produce conventional defense air- on what would have been suicide ing engine. craft, so it was slow to exploit the missions for most. In Japan, how- 70 AIR FORCE Magazine / October 2002 ever, thousands of minimally trained pilots were dispatched with no hope of survival. Most kamikaze pilots flew conventional aircraft loaded with explosives, while some versions of the Yokosuka Cherry Blossom piloted glide bomb had jet engines. The Axis powers also experi- mented with rocket-powered aircraft. One of the most promising was the Me-163 interceptor, which actually made it into combat. Called the Komet, it could reach speeds of al- most 600 mph; it carried fuel for only about 10 minutes of powered flight and had a tendency to explode. The Japanese copied the airplane for their Mitsubishi Shusui, but its en- gine failed on its initial flight test and the project was abandoned. Late in the war, Germany grew desperate to turn the tide against the Allies. A Slow Start in the US One proposal was the He-162 Salamander, a flimsy lightweight jet aircraft built The United States did not field a jet partially out of plywood and intended to be expendable. in combat during the war—not for lack of trying. Three months before The second US entry, the prototype the Navy. Neither airplane flew un- Pearl Harbor, Lt. Gen. H.H. “Hap” of Lockheed’s P-80, designed around til after the war. Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces, a de Havilland engine, was completed If Germany had been able to send asked Lawrence Bell to work on a within 143 days and flown at Muroc hundreds of Me-262s into combat fighter using a Whittle–type engine. on Jan. 8, 1944. It went through sev- when it was losing the war and strug- By the following spring, Bell Air- eral evaluations including a change to gling to produce anything, why had craft had designed a single-seat air- GE engines, and by 1944, the AAF the Americans been so far behind? plane powered by two turbojets built had ordered several thousand produc- For one thing, the two countries by General Electric under British li- tion models.