They approached the jet engine problem in different ways, but they both solved it. The Converging Paths of Whittle and von Ohain Pictured in 1987 is Frank Whittle and the Whittle W1X, the engine he designed. The engine is on display in the jet gallery at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. 70 AIR FORCE Magazine / January 2006 They approached the jet engine problem in different ways, but they both solved it. o one who witnessed the first apprentice at the age of 16. His goal flight by a jet aircraft had any was to become a pilot. N idea of the revolution that the Hugh Trenchard, Marshal of the jet engine would bring. The secret flight Royal Air Force, made many important in Germany of the Heinkel He-178 contributions to the RAF, but none more on Aug. 27, 1939, led to revolutions so than his concept of apprentice train- in aviation, warfare, transportation, ing. Trenchard insisted that his enlisted politics, and the world economy. and noncommissioned personnel have The Converging Paths of A functioning jet engine was real- a sound education. Then he wanted ized at about the same time by two his average RAF airman to have three independent inventors, British Frank years’ training as an apprentice before Whittle and German Hans Pabst von entering service as a mechanic or other Ohain. They could not have differed skilled worker. more in personality. Trenchard believed that only educat- Whittle and von Ohain Whittle, an extremely proficient Royal ed and well-trained men could become Air Force pilot, was quick tempered professional airmen. To sweeten the and acerbic, and he did not suffer fools pot, he further stipulated the top five By Walter J. Boyne gladly. apprentices in each class could become Von Ohain, an academic, was much cadets and receive flight training. younger, only recently graduated from Whittle was rejected on his first his university, and possessed of a warm, attempt to join the Boy Apprentice engaging personality enhanced by a Training program for poor physi- natural diffidence. cal fitness, but followed a diet and They approached the problem of exercise regime that allowed him to creating a jet engine differently as well. pass his next attempt. He reported for Whittle totally immersed himself in the training in September 1923. It was the hands-on work, subcontracting out only best investment in personnel the RAF those elements that were too complex for would ever make. him to build. He was constantly applying Whittle performed well enough to theory to, and deriving theory from, the be selected for pilot training and was a engine as it progressed. natural pilot. He graduated second in his In contrast, von Ohain was not a class despite some crashes, nonregula- mechanic and taught himself to be an tion low flying, and a few disciplinary engineer only after he had received his problems. doctorate. He hired a skilled mechanic Whittle earned his high class ranking to create the original model engine and by excelling in his studies—in spite of then worked within the framework of his reluctance to engage in team sports. a large aircraft company to bring the He was troubled by a sharp temper that engine to fruition. would affect his dealings with others for Whittle was totally unaware of von much of his life. Ohain’s work. Von Ohain was conscious At the RAF College at Cranwell, he of other efforts to patent a jet engine, but wrote a groundbreaking paper, “Future did not draw upon any of the available Developments in Aircraft Design.” It knowledge. His preferred operating style postulated that speeds of 500 mph or was to work out his own ideas first, then more could only be achieved in the see what others had done. stratosphere and that a new form of pro- The two men had three things in pulsion—rocket or gas turbine—would common: initial governmental failure be required. to recognize the immense potential of On graduation, Pilot Officer Whittle their experiments; totally inadequate was posted to No. 111 Squadron at rewards for their great invention; and Hornchurch, flying the Armstrong-Whit- extravagant exploitation of their efforts worth Siskin IIIA. In September 1929, by others. he was posted to the famed Central Flying School at Wittering to learn how Out of the Midlands to become an instructor pilot. Frank Whittle was born in Coventry, His distress at leaving the atmosphere England, in 1907 to a working class of an operational squadron was offset family. His father was an inventive by additional free time. More impor- mechanic who, despite his lack of a tant, he met others who believed in his technical education, provided Frank idea of a gas turbine. One of these was with the incentive to excel techni- Flight Officer W.E.P. Johnson, who had cally. Young Whittle fulfilled a dream been a patent agent in civil life. Whittle by joining the Royal Air Force as an settled on a new type of gas turbine, AIR FORCE Magazine / January 2006 71 ber 1936. Some preliminary testing of A Concise History of Jet Propulsion Whittle’s engine took place in March Jet propulsion is an application of Isaac Newton’s 1697 Third Law of Motion: For 1937, the same month that Griffith every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Thrust out the back moves the furnished an official Air Ministry report aircraft forward. that essentially declared the jet engine A turbine was patented by John Barber in England in 1791. noncompetitive with conventional power In 1884, Charles A. Parson designed a turbine intended to convert the power of steam directly into electricity. plants. The “WU” (for Whittle Unit) In 1903, Norwegian Aegidius Elling built the first turbine that sustained itself in was fired for the first time on April running. 12, 1937. Romanian inventor Henri Coanda attempted to fly a primitive jet aircraft in 1910, The initial firing of the jet engine using a four-cylinder internal combustion engine to drive a compressor at 4,000 revo- lutions per minute. It was equipped with what today might be called an afterburner, was a near disaster. The engine ran producing an estimated 500 pounds of thrust. Countless loyal Coanda fans insist that away, reaching a then-incredible 8,000 the airplane flew. Others say it merely crashed. revolutions per minute before Whittle In 1918, General Electric established a gas turbine division. There, Sanford A. was able to shut it down. Moss moved closer to the true jet engine with his GE turbosupercharger that used There followed a series of nerve- hot exhaust gases to turn a turbine that drove a centrifugal compressor used for supercharging. The device was critical to the success of the B-17, B-24, P-38, and racking trials, each one fraught with many other airplanes. the possibility of a catastrophic ex- In later life, Moss would laughingly remark that he did not know how close he came plosion. Whittle’s life was often in to inventing the jet engine. danger as he stayed with the engine, By 1920, Alan A. Griffith developed a theory of turbine design, based on gas flow past airfoils rather than through passages. Later he was a proponent of the turboprop trying to control it—and sometimes engine—and an opponent of Whittle. succeeding. There were other experimenters contemporary with Frank Whittle and Hans von The combination of financial and Ohain. American Nathan Price developed a 3,500-pound-thrust engine, and Clar- developmental problems undermined ence “Kelly” Johnson designed an advanced fighter to use it, but the Army Air Corps Whittle’s health. He was now on the RAF considered it so advanced that it was unlikely to be completed before World War II was over. The Army Air Corps therefore rejected it. special duty list, able to devote his full time to the redesign and manufacture of his engine. one using neither a piston engine nor solved the problem of jet propulsion. In Testing on the new engine began in a propeller. practice, he was challenging the limits April 1938. Results were mixed. For a Johnson smoothed the way for Whittle of everything known about compres- while, sustained runs of more than an to present his ideas to the British Air sors, turbines, metals at high tempera- hour were being made, but the engine Ministry. There, Whittle ran into the tures, and the physics of compressed eventually broke down and was rede- bureaucratic opposition that would air flow. signed and rebuilt. delay the development of his engine Whittle learned how to build a jet It was not until the summer of 1939 by five critical years. The agonizing engine by building one. that the Whittle engine began running process would also do much to wreck Power Jets always lacked money, but at sustained speeds of up to 16,000 his health. Whittle’s persistence and frugality kept RPM. Under the guidance of Alan A. Griffith, it alive through many lean years. The declaration of war on Germany on the Air Ministry’s position was that the The critical initial experiments in Sept. 3, 1939, at last induced the British materials needed to endure the heat and combustion did not begin until Octo- Air Ministry to pursue the advantages stress implicit in a gas turbine were not available. The ministry also felt that the gas turbine would require too much fuel to be practical. Unfortunately for both Whittle and the United Kingdom, Griffith had a basic conflict of interest, favored piston engines, and had a proprietary interest Photo/Eddie Creek collection in the subject.