June 2004 - Issue 6

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The History of Commercial Aviation

Pilots

Airplane Builders

Inventors

Frank Whittle

Considered a mathematical genius, Whittle advanced from apprentice to officer at Britain’s Royal Air Force.

Frank Whittle was born in 1907 to a working class family in Coventry, England. He had been fascinated by aviation since he was a young boy. In fact, his favorite toy as a four-year-old was a tin model of the Bleriot XI. Hoping to become a pilot, Whittle applied to Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) when he was only 15 years old. He was rejected at first based on his physical shortcomings, but was accepted six months later after a growth spurt increased his stature. While he had made it into the RAF, it was as an apprentice. Apprentices didn't learn how to fly, only officers did. At the time, only one percent of all RAF apprentices advanced to become officers, which likely meant for Whittle a career servicing planes, rather than flying them.

Whittle took part in the RAF's Model Aircraft Society where he gained notice for his engineering ability. Colleagues were calling him a mathematics genius. Whittle was soon plucked from the obscure ranks of apprentices and chosen to join the RAF's Officers Training College at Cranwell. While there, Whittle learned about one of the great predicaments of early aviation.

As opposed to low-altitude aircraft, planes that cruise at high altitudes are able to fly much faster and farther because they encounter far less turbulence, which means less resistance. The higher altitudes also enable planes to take advantage of the earth's natural jet stream. Interestingly, though, the higher a propeller-driven plane flies, the worse its piston engine performs due to the thinner air. In other words, a piston engine simply can't power a plane to fly high enough in order for the plane to gain that huge increase in speed. At just 21 years of age, Whittle proposed a revolutionary alternative to the piston engine which would solve this dilemma. Whittle's 1929 thesis would lay the foundation for the successful creation of the jet engine.

In 1948, King George VI bestowed knighthood upon Whittle for his development of the jet engine.

Whittle's proposed engine drew in air through a series of compressors. The air entered a combustion chamber, where it was mixed with fuel and ignited. As the resulting hot gas blasted out the back of the chamber, it pushed the engine forward. The exiting hot gas turned a shaft that spun a turbine - which drew in more air, creating an ingenious loop of intake and combustion.

By the following year, Whittle had further developed his engine design and registered a patent for his invention. Whittle met with leaders of Britain's Air Ministry to gain the support necessary in order to develop the jet, but the Air Ministry dismissed his ideas. They claimed that the raw materials needed to withstand his engine's tremendous temperature and stress did not exist at that time.

It wouldn't be until nine years later, with war looming in Europe, that the Air Ministry finally gave Whittle the necessary funding in order to begin production of his jet engine. By that time, Whittle had formed his own company, Power Jets, which had successfully proven that his design, indeed, would work. Britain's lack of early support for the jet allowed Germany to actually become the first nation to fly a jet plane. The Heinkel He 178 flew on August 24, 1939 with Hans Von Ohain's HeS 38 jet engine.

On May 15, 1941, at an air base in Coventry, Whittle's jet engine finally made its first flight in an experimental plane called the Gloster Pioneer. With British industry under attack in the midst of WWII, rapid development of the revolutionary engine was not feasible. England would need to rely upon the United States to produce the jet engine. One of Whittle's engines was packed up and shipped off to General Electric, where American manufacturers would freely enjoy the fruits of Whittle's hard labor.

Back in England, Whittle soon found himself shut out of an industry he helped create. Rolls Royce and de Havilland convinced the British government that they alone should build the jet engines. Britain nationalized Whittle's Power Jets, which was now limited only to development and test work - not actually manufacturing the engines it designed. It was a great disappointment to Whittle who decided the only honorable thing left was to resign from the company he founded. Not long after resigning, Whittle suffered a major nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. Adding insult to injury, the RAF forced Whittle to retire from his life-long military service due to his deteriorating health.

Seemingly attempting to make amends, the British Government presented Whittle with the "Inventor Award" in 1946. The honor came with a prize of £100,000. Whittle split the award among the workers at Power Jets who worked tirelessly alongside him. In 1948, King George VI bestowed knighthood upon Whittle, or as he was now known as, Sir Frank Whittle.

Whittle's legacy was profound. In the coming years, the jet engine would change the face of travel, allowing greater numbers of passengers to travel more quickly and to further away destinations than ever before. After World War II, airline manufacturers would race to reap the rewards of Whittle's new technology and become the first to produce the first successful commercial airliner.