Sir Frank Whittle (1907 - 1996)

Sir Frank Whittle was born June 1, 1097. He was the son of a mechanic. He joined the Royal Air Force as an intern, after being rejected for being too small in height but was allowed entry on his third try in 1923. In 1928 he joined the fighter squadron and became a test pilot in 1931. He was only 22 when he started thinking about using a gas turbine engine to power an airplane. As a cadet Whittle had written a thesis arguing that planes would need to fly at high altitudes, where air resistance is much lower, in order to achieve long ranges and high speeds. Pistons engines and propellers where not going to be able to acheive this and he concluded that the only things that could handle this was going to be rocket propulsion or gas driven turbine propellers. He came to the conclusions that jet propulsion was something he didnt understand happening, and a piston engine would use to much fuel, so he went with the gas turbine. After his idea was turned down by the Air Ministry he want on to patent his idea himself. With private financial backing he was able to construct the first engine in 1935. It was successuly test in April 1937, but was only a lab test rig. It was never intended for an actual airplane, but it did demonstrate the feasibility of the engine. The modern turbojet engine used in many British and American aircraft is based on the prototype that Frank Whittle invented. In 1941 the engine was ready for a test run and was placed into aircrafts later that year. Americans were particularely interested in the idea and were able to use the technology to create their own aircraft by 1942 and became full operational by 1944.


Links:

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bljetengine.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Whittle.1946.arp.600pix.jpg

http://www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/125/achievements/whittle/telgraph.htm

http://www.aoxj32.dsl.pipex.com/NewFiles/FrankWhittle.html