Invention Of Jet Engine

The jet engine was invented by aeronautical engineer Frank Whittle, patented in 1930 and bench-tested in 1937. But the first jet engine into the air was invented independently by the German engineer Hans von Ohain, and first flew in August 1939.

The idea of jet propulsion is fairly simple, being the embodiment of Newton's Third Law of Motion that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction: in essence, a jet of gas or liquid leaving the back of a vehicle at force will propel the vehicle forwards. Scientists had experimented with the idea for centuries, and a steam-driven jet engine was used to power a boat as early as 1781, yet Frank Whittle's invention was so revolutionary that it took several years to gain official acceptance.

In 1928 Whittle (England) wrote a paper suggesting the use of jet propulsion or gas turbines as an alternative to internal combustion for powering aircraft. The following year he made the breakthrough of combining the two ideas, using a gas turbine to power a jet engine, and on 16 January 1930 he filed a patent for his turbojet engine, which was granted in 1931. (In 1941 he filed the first US patent for a jet engine, which was granted on 16 July 1946.) Lack of money or encouragement meant that Whittle did not develop his idea any further until 1936. He formed a company called Power Jets, built a prototype, and on 12 April 1937 demonstrated the world's first turbojet engine. Four years later, Britain's first jet fighter, the Gloster-Whittle E.28/39, took to the air.

But it was not the world's first jet fighter: Hans von Ohain (Germany) had been working on jet engines in Germany since 1933, and patented a centrifugal-type turbojet engine in 1934. In June 1938 von Ohani's engine was flight-tested beneath a modified Heinkel He 118 and on 24 August 1939 a He 178 made the first flight by a turbojet-powered aircraft, followed by an official demonstration three days later. Whittle and von Ohain both later emigrated to America, where in 1987 they were jointly awarded the National Air and Space Museum Trophy in recognition of their work.

Source - The Book of Inventions by Ian Harrison