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Just read his bio "Jet" and the updated version of it. A remarkable man. Bureaucracy obstructed him at every turn but he persevered. The RAF meanwhile supported him but the Air Ministry had some shortsighted men in key positions. The industrial engine corporations were vested in recip. engine and had little enthusiasm..."Not invented here" syndrome was alive and well. And he was a young RAF officer, no powerful backers and little demonstrated scientific experience...another crazy pilot. Bottom line, the Me 262 was operational much sooner than the Meteor because bureaucracy obstructed Whittle at every turn. One of the things I find remarkable is the Brits showed so much innovation and prompt development, in other areas: Radar, electronic countermeasures, amphibious tanks, etc., but jet propulsion was an orphan and would not have succeeded without Frank Whittle.
Sorry for the copy and paste. I also added some extra considerations. It is a bit more simple than that. The Air Ministry appointed the only person they knew that was qualified to judge his work. It happened to be A.A. Griffith, one of the fathers of the turbojet, specifically an axial version. He most likely pointed out an non-existing mistake in Whittle's calculations in order to dismiss his brilliant project. Call it a blatant conflict of interest. That made Whittle waste a good six years of his life, and deprived Britain from having a perfectly fit turbojet before the beginning of the war. Griffith was an engineer, not a politician... The Me 262 despite having a great airframe, also thanks to the exceptional supersonic wind tunnels that Germany used, had an operationally flawed engine. The Jumo was good for propaganda purposes, but it was operationally useless, lasting only a handful of hours, if handled by expert pilots and aces. Unless Germany could keep us with those falling apart turbojets, which is unthinkable, the Me 262's engine doomed the aircraft. Keep in mind that after the war only France tried to make those German engines into proper ones, and despite being funded by the French government, and having 120 Nazi engineers at their disposal, it took them eight endless years to make them work properly. In order to do that they also had to radically modify them. That is the measure of the German failure. Britain had been working on both axial and centrifugal turbojets all along, and by then they had good engines. The Soviets also discarded the German engines in favor of cloning Whittle's engine (Rolls Royce sold them 25 units and they immediately copied them ). His engine powered the formidable MiG-15, which in Korea faced (initially) the Lockheed F-80, powered by the same derived engine, which was given to the U.S. in great secrecy in 1941. A few Lockheed Shooting Stars also flew in Italy in late 1944, at the same time the flawed Me 262 was deployed. Whittle's engine was the U.S. first turbojet for both General Electric (tested on the Bell XP-59 in 1942) and Pratt & Whitney (licensed).
There are sometimes valid reasons for giving pioneers the cold shoulder when money is tight and brilliant semi practical new ideas are being touted. History is filled with situations that occur where shoestring programs get a bit of life support but "once there is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel" big money interests zoom past them and end up making a superior mass product and a big fortune off their long term sweat.
The man behind the faithful decision of halting Whittle’s dreams in 1929 was A.A. Griffith, one of the fathers of the turbojet, and Whittle’s sole judge appointed by the Air Ministry. I would call that an obvious conflict of interests, or if you prefer simple jealousy. Whittle managed to build his engine with very little funding received from private investors in late 1935, and it took him less than two years to do so!
@@Dronescapes I agree with most of what you say. However, based on my data point of two (two books read...in other words very little) I disagree with "Griffith was an engineer, not a politician..." He was a worst case bureaucrat which makes him a "politician" within the Air Ministry. And again, I am fascinated that almost no-one but Whittle and a few RAF fellow travelers could see the potential for the engine. What you say is correct in that it was just too "science fiction" to be considered do-able (field-able) in time for the war. Yet Britain exploited quite a few futuristic concepts...jet propulsion just didn't make the cut when it came to budgets. Meanwhile, while a "Crew Chief" in USAF I worked a T-33 Flight (3 jets) and worked with Whittles GE derivative J-33(?) engine. Removing the engine was a breeze! I loved that aircraft's 1940s technology. Crew Chief could work the entire jet without "specialist" support. Plywood cockpit floor(!), Yaw indicator was a nylon string in front of windscreen ! Got to fly in one as well. (and my USAF career covered "budget drills" as well so I have some insight to that pain) I would be interested in seeing/reading more on the trials and tribulations of the Jumo engine if you can point me to a source. Read something (forget where) recently saying decision to make Me262 a bomber was not what delayed fielding. Jumo engine unreliability did.
Don’t have anything on the Jumo, but we have very interesting interviews with Von Ohain. I think you can clearly see the difference between him and Whittle. It is also interesting to learn how he could not even foresee the obvious benefits of the turbojet. Von Ohain luckily received a treatment that was precisely the opposite of Whittle’s, but in terms of talent, I believe that Whittle was far, far ahead of his German counterpart, as also admitted by Von Ohain himself. We have his interviews both in parts and in full format. They are quite rare as well, so you should not miss them. It was hard to get them digitized from 16mm film.
A well-known misunderstanding about the Whittle engine is that the axial compressor is supposedly perfect today. Garret TFE731 engine family (Honeywell F124 & F125) disproves this. There's a centrifugal compressor and counterflow combustion chamber on an engine for supersonic aircraft. All the designs Whittle did are now "small", TFE731 is small too. Centrifugal compressors in numerous other small and ultra small jet and turboprop engines. For example, for UAVs and cruise missiles. Whittle knew what to do. His design in 1939 with a several axial before centrifugal stage. But such a solution is finalization difficult. By the autumn of 1944 RR Derwent engines were better than JUMO 004. Germany didn't have a few months of “superiority”. The difference in history is the range and reliability of Allied aircraft.
Easy: Whittles first Wu 0:42 1 worked in 4/37, Ohains HeS1 in 8/37. Both proof of concept, similarities in thrust. Ohain was an physicist, Whittle an engeneer. HeS3 was developed for flight tests in He 178, 8/39. Jumo004, Bmw03, HeS8 followed up within few years.
Considering that Whittle was delayed at least 6 years (1929 to late 1935), and up until then was virtually broke, and that Von Ohain was pampered and fully supported by Heinkel, also an aircraft manufacturer that made testing a breeze, but also impossible for Whittle to do the same, considering how much access Von Ohain had to Whittle’s work, or his complete lack of understanding of the benefits of a turbojet (his own words in the interviews we have on the channel), I would conclude that one was way ahead of the other, but suffered all possible obstacles. It is also interesting that the He 178 was mix powered, and nonetheless when deployed in late 1944, the Jumo engines were quite disastrous in operational terms, despite all those years of development and a multitude of German companies working on it (Daimler, BMW, Junkers, Heinkel). Whittle’s engine was the perfect solution at the time: reliable and easy to develop, exactly the contrary of German ones, or even British ones (Metrovick). Britain could have had the ideal solution well before the beginning of the war, and you can only thank A.A. Griffith’s faithful decision for depriving the country of his invention. I consider that an evident conflict of interests, or simple jealousy.
@@Dronescapes, More proof, JUMO 004 and BMW 003 were finished by German engineers using British heatproof alloys for 10 years in the USSR and France. Old Nene was ahead of them. The only thing that helped the German projects was a significant increase in size. Small BMW 003 became the French ATAR, and JUMO 004 became Soviet turboprop NK-12. I should add at once that heatproof alloys of JUMO 004 did not help in the USSR.
@@Dronescapes Would have, could have, if only...if frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their asses on the ground when they hopped. The only thing that matters is what DID happen. Hero of Alexandria invented the jet engine in the first century BC. Everything after that was refinement.
@Mishn0 Whittle, whether you like it or not, still invented the first (working) turbojet in April 1937, so I do not understand your comment. After the war, it was widely used in aviation, and almost everyone ignored the German engines. His engine was powered by the first U.S. aircraft to fly on U.S. soil in 1942 (given to General Electric in 1941), it of course, it powered the first British jet, powered the first operational U.S. jet fighter, became Pratt & Whitney's first turbojet, powered the first jet airliner in the world, and was famously copied by the Soviets, who used it in their formidable and lethal MiG-15 (which initially faced the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star, designed by the great Kelly Johnson, and also powered by Whittle's invention). It is still a great solution to this day and is widely used for helicopters. It is not bad for an inventor who was broke and ignored (and who you do not seem to know well). Hopefully, you will learn a thing or two about a true genius, and if you want to learn about his clearly much less brilliant counterpart (who also praises him), here are the Von Ohain exclusive and long-lost interviews: th-cam.com/video/BTk_8GCwuzk/w-d-xo.html The difference is stark, as Von Ohain did not have 1/2 the understanding Whittle had about the benefits of jet propulsion, which is probably why he had to copy from the British inventor here and there. It is pretty interesting how anyone makes fun of such a Genius. By the way, I am not British, but I have an innate admiration for brilliant people and find it hard to dismiss them so lightly just because I have the urge to be biased and not objective. Hopefully, you can watch both sides of these interviews and learn something (or probably a lot.) At least they are in their own words, so people in the future will not have to rely on made-up Wikipedia history.
@1968konrad Von Ohain's engine worked only in 1938 with proper 'gasolene' It is also interesting to note that the He 178 had a mix powered engine, also incorporating parts of what Von Ohain had learned from Whittle's work, which had been duly copied and distributed in Germany, as it had not been secreted/protected by the British government.
I guess you really need learn history. Perhaps you want to read Von Ohain’s book where is credits Whittle as the inventor, or listen to his own interviews, right here on the channel, where he admits that Whittle was way ahead of him. Never forget that, when it comes to axial vs. centrifugal, Whittle’s nemesis penned a seminal paper on axial c9mpressors in 1926, when Von Ohain was a teenager still clueless about the mysterious jet propulsion. In 1929, ages before Von Ohain, Whittle chose to ditch the axial solution because he was too smart, it because he was unaware of it. He realized that it would take decades to develop it to its full potential and also make it reliable, which is precisely what the Germans did not understand, which is also why by the end of WWII their engines were pretty disastrous and ended up largely ignored (except the French). Just so you are aware, in the early 40s the British also had an axial turbojet (Metrovick), but they did not bother pursuing it at the time, precisely because of all the issues it had, and the ti e it would require to iron then out, exactly as predicted by Whittle more than a decade earlier. What you consider a German achievement is in fact something very different: it was a typical German blunder. Daimler, BMW, Junker and Heinkel could not get a proper engine, despite the magnitude of resources, by the time Nazis were defeated. When deployed at the end of 1944, the Jumo engine was a joke that lasted only a few hours (when handled by expert pilots). It was a propaganda prototype, just good for a pathetic show of force, but absolutely useless in practical terms. You confused desperation with achievement. Considering that Whittle was delayed by at least 6 years by Griffith’s faithful decision, you can only imagine how perfect Whittle’s engine could have been during WWII, as it was reliable and very easy to develop, in short it would have been really useful and ready before the beginning of the war. The centrifugal turbojet dominated, nonetheless, the decade after the end of WWII, becoming the U.S. first turbojet, General Electric’s first turbojet, Pratt & Whitney’s as well, and was famously copied by the Soviets and used in their formidable MiG15, proving quite effective during the Korean War. Eventually axial turbojets took over, but those were not German, and it took the French and 120 Nazi engineers eight years of work to make them war, but not before radically modifying those flawed Jumo engines and seeking help from both the Americans and the Brits.
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Just read his bio "Jet" and the updated version of it. A remarkable man. Bureaucracy obstructed him at every turn but he persevered. The RAF meanwhile supported him but the Air Ministry had some shortsighted men in key positions. The industrial engine corporations were vested in recip. engine and had little enthusiasm..."Not invented here" syndrome was alive and well. And he was a young RAF officer, no powerful backers and little demonstrated scientific experience...another crazy pilot. Bottom line, the Me 262 was operational much sooner than the Meteor because bureaucracy obstructed Whittle at every turn. One of the things I find remarkable is the Brits showed so much innovation and prompt development, in other areas: Radar, electronic countermeasures, amphibious tanks, etc., but jet propulsion was an orphan and would not have succeeded without Frank Whittle.
Sorry for the copy and paste. I also added some extra considerations.
It is a bit more simple than that. The Air Ministry appointed the only person they knew that was qualified to judge his work. It happened to be A.A. Griffith, one of the fathers of the turbojet, specifically an axial version.
He most likely pointed out an non-existing mistake in Whittle's calculations in order to dismiss his brilliant project.
Call it a blatant conflict of interest.
That made Whittle waste a good six years of his life, and deprived Britain from having a perfectly fit turbojet before the beginning of the war.
Griffith was an engineer, not a politician...
The Me 262 despite having a great airframe, also thanks to the exceptional supersonic wind tunnels that Germany used, had an operationally flawed engine.
The Jumo was good for propaganda purposes, but it was operationally useless, lasting only a handful of hours, if handled by expert pilots and aces.
Unless Germany could keep us with those falling apart turbojets, which is unthinkable, the Me 262's engine doomed the aircraft.
Keep in mind that after the war only France tried to make those German engines into proper ones, and despite being funded by the French government, and having 120 Nazi engineers at their disposal, it took them eight endless years to make them work properly. In order to do that they also had to radically modify them. That is the measure of the German failure.
Britain had been working on both axial and centrifugal turbojets all along, and by then they had good engines.
The Soviets also discarded the German engines in favor of cloning Whittle's engine (Rolls Royce sold them 25 units and they immediately copied them ).
His engine powered the formidable MiG-15, which in Korea faced (initially) the Lockheed F-80, powered by the same derived engine, which was given to the U.S. in great secrecy in 1941.
A few Lockheed Shooting Stars also flew in Italy in late 1944, at the same time the flawed Me 262 was deployed.
Whittle's engine was the U.S. first turbojet for both General Electric (tested on the Bell XP-59 in 1942) and Pratt & Whitney (licensed).
There are sometimes valid reasons for giving pioneers the cold shoulder when money is tight and brilliant semi practical new ideas are being touted. History is filled with situations that occur where shoestring programs get a bit of life support but "once there is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel" big money interests zoom past them and end up making a superior mass product and a
big fortune off their long term sweat.
The man behind the faithful decision of halting Whittle’s dreams in 1929 was A.A. Griffith, one of the fathers of the turbojet, and Whittle’s sole judge appointed by the Air Ministry.
I would call that an obvious conflict of interests, or if you prefer simple jealousy.
Whittle managed to build his engine with very little funding received from private investors in late 1935, and it took him less than two years to do so!
@@Dronescapes I agree with most of what you say. However, based on my data point of two (two books read...in other words very little) I disagree with "Griffith was an engineer, not a politician..." He was a worst case bureaucrat which makes him a "politician" within the Air Ministry. And again, I am fascinated that almost no-one but Whittle and a few RAF fellow travelers could see the potential for the engine. What you say is correct in that it was just too "science fiction" to be considered do-able (field-able) in time for the war. Yet Britain exploited quite a few futuristic concepts...jet propulsion just didn't make the cut when it came to budgets.
Meanwhile, while a "Crew Chief" in USAF I worked a T-33 Flight (3 jets) and worked with Whittles GE derivative J-33(?) engine. Removing the engine was a breeze! I loved that aircraft's 1940s technology. Crew Chief could work the entire jet without "specialist" support. Plywood cockpit floor(!), Yaw indicator was a nylon string in front of windscreen ! Got to fly in one as well. (and my USAF career covered "budget drills" as well so I have some insight to that pain)
I would be interested in seeing/reading more on the trials and tribulations of the Jumo engine if you can point me to a source. Read something (forget where) recently saying decision to make Me262 a bomber was not what delayed fielding. Jumo engine unreliability did.
Don’t have anything on the Jumo, but we have very interesting interviews with Von Ohain.
I think you can clearly see the difference between him and Whittle.
It is also interesting to learn how he could not even foresee the obvious benefits of the turbojet.
Von Ohain luckily received a treatment that was precisely the opposite of Whittle’s, but in terms of talent, I believe that Whittle was far, far ahead of his German counterpart, as also admitted by Von Ohain himself.
We have his interviews both in parts and in full format.
They are quite rare as well, so you should not miss them.
It was hard to get them digitized from 16mm film.
A well-known misunderstanding about the Whittle engine is that the axial compressor is supposedly perfect today. Garret TFE731 engine family (Honeywell F124 & F125) disproves this. There's a centrifugal compressor and counterflow combustion chamber on an engine for supersonic aircraft.
All the designs Whittle did are now "small", TFE731 is small too. Centrifugal compressors in numerous other small and ultra small jet and turboprop engines. For example, for UAVs and cruise missiles. Whittle knew what to do. His design in 1939 with a several axial before centrifugal stage. But such a solution is finalization difficult. By the autumn of 1944 RR Derwent engines were better than JUMO 004. Germany didn't have a few months of “superiority”. The difference in history is the range and reliability of Allied aircraft.
Easy: Whittles first Wu 0:42 1 worked in 4/37, Ohains HeS1 in 8/37. Both proof of concept, similarities in thrust. Ohain was an physicist, Whittle an engeneer.
HeS3 was developed for flight tests in He 178, 8/39. Jumo004, Bmw03, HeS8 followed up within few years.
Considering that Whittle was delayed at least 6 years (1929 to late 1935), and up until then was virtually broke, and that Von Ohain was pampered and fully supported by Heinkel, also an aircraft manufacturer that made testing a breeze, but also impossible for Whittle to do the same, considering how much access Von Ohain had to Whittle’s work, or his complete lack of understanding of the benefits of a turbojet (his own words in the interviews we have on the channel), I would conclude that one was way ahead of the other, but suffered all possible obstacles.
It is also interesting that the He 178 was mix powered, and nonetheless when deployed in late 1944, the Jumo engines were quite disastrous in operational terms, despite all those years of development and a multitude of German companies working on it (Daimler, BMW, Junkers, Heinkel).
Whittle’s engine was the perfect solution at the time: reliable and easy to develop, exactly the contrary of German ones, or even British ones (Metrovick).
Britain could have had the ideal solution well before the beginning of the war, and you can only thank A.A. Griffith’s faithful decision for depriving the country of his invention. I consider that an evident conflict of interests, or simple jealousy.
@@Dronescapes, More proof, JUMO 004 and BMW 003 were finished by German engineers using British heatproof alloys for 10 years in the USSR and France. Old Nene was ahead of them.
The only thing that helped the German projects was a significant increase in size. Small BMW 003 became the French ATAR, and JUMO 004 became Soviet turboprop NK-12. I should add at once that heatproof alloys of JUMO 004 did not help in the USSR.
@@Dronescapes Would have, could have, if only...if frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their asses on the ground when they hopped. The only thing that matters is what DID happen. Hero of Alexandria invented the jet engine in the first century BC. Everything after that was refinement.
@Mishn0 Whittle, whether you like it or not, still invented the first (working) turbojet in April 1937, so I do not understand your comment.
After the war, it was widely used in aviation, and almost everyone ignored the German engines.
His engine was powered by the first U.S. aircraft to fly on U.S. soil in 1942 (given to General Electric in 1941), it of course, it powered the first British jet, powered the first operational U.S. jet fighter, became Pratt & Whitney's first turbojet, powered the first jet airliner in the world, and was famously copied by the Soviets, who used it in their formidable and lethal MiG-15 (which initially faced the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star, designed by the great Kelly Johnson, and also powered by Whittle's invention).
It is still a great solution to this day and is widely used for helicopters.
It is not bad for an inventor who was broke and ignored (and who you do not seem to know well).
Hopefully, you will learn a thing or two about a true genius, and if you want to learn about his clearly much less brilliant counterpart (who also praises him), here are the Von Ohain exclusive and long-lost interviews:
th-cam.com/video/BTk_8GCwuzk/w-d-xo.html
The difference is stark, as Von Ohain did not have 1/2 the understanding Whittle had about the benefits of jet propulsion, which is probably why he had to copy from the British inventor here and there.
It is pretty interesting how anyone makes fun of such a Genius.
By the way, I am not British, but I have an innate admiration for brilliant people and find it hard to dismiss them so lightly just because I have the urge to be biased and not objective.
Hopefully, you can watch both sides of these interviews and learn something (or probably a lot.) At least they are in their own words, so people in the future will not have to rely on made-up Wikipedia history.
@1968konrad Von Ohain's engine worked only in 1938 with proper 'gasolene'
It is also interesting to note that the He 178 had a mix powered engine, also incorporating parts of what Von Ohain had learned from Whittle's work, which had been duly copied and distributed in Germany, as it had not been secreted/protected by the British government.
Ohain is the first and his engine is better than whittle’s.
I guess you really need learn history.
Perhaps you want to read Von Ohain’s book where is credits Whittle as the inventor, or listen to his own interviews, right here on the channel, where he admits that Whittle was way ahead of him.
Never forget that, when it comes to axial vs. centrifugal, Whittle’s nemesis penned a seminal paper on axial c9mpressors in 1926, when Von Ohain was a teenager still clueless about the mysterious jet propulsion.
In 1929, ages before Von Ohain, Whittle chose to ditch the axial solution because he was too smart, it because he was unaware of it.
He realized that it would take decades to develop it to its full potential and also make it reliable, which is precisely what the Germans did not understand, which is also why by the end of WWII their engines were pretty disastrous and ended up largely ignored (except the French).
Just so you are aware, in the early 40s the British also had an axial turbojet (Metrovick), but they did not bother pursuing it at the time, precisely because of all the issues it had, and the ti e it would require to iron then out, exactly as predicted by Whittle more than a decade earlier.
What you consider a German achievement is in fact something very different: it was a typical German blunder.
Daimler, BMW, Junker and Heinkel could not get a proper engine, despite the magnitude of resources, by the time Nazis were defeated.
When deployed at the end of 1944, the Jumo engine was a joke that lasted only a few hours (when handled by expert pilots).
It was a propaganda prototype, just good for a pathetic show of force, but absolutely useless in practical terms.
You confused desperation with achievement.
Considering that Whittle was delayed by at least 6 years by Griffith’s faithful decision, you can only imagine how perfect Whittle’s engine could have been during WWII, as it was reliable and very easy to develop, in short it would have been really useful and ready before the beginning of the war.
The centrifugal turbojet dominated, nonetheless, the decade after the end of WWII, becoming the U.S. first turbojet, General Electric’s first turbojet, Pratt & Whitney’s as well, and was famously copied by the Soviets and used in their formidable MiG15, proving quite effective during the Korean War.
Eventually axial turbojets took over, but those were not German, and it took the French and 120 Nazi engineers eight years of work to make them war, but not before radically modifying those flawed Jumo engines and seeking help from both the Americans and the Brits.