Warbird Information Exchange

There's a new book out about RAF engineer Sir Frank Whittle's jet aircraft designs. I'm not sure if it's the paper or the book making the claim, but they state that had the RAF backed jet aircraft design in 1939, that the war could have been won by 1942 rather than Germany getting a hold of Whittle's patent and developing it on their own. Really? Sounds interesting. I think their claim that the RAF could have crushed Germany by 1942 is overzealously simplistic. There's no way that a jet could have been operational to make that much of a difference in 1942. Think of all the advancements from '43-44 that would have been skipped. While a nice idea, I just don't see that as plausible at all.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ghter.html

Thoughts?

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Sure, Charles Lindbergh flew the plane... but Tom Rutledge built the engine!

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That the Germans wouldn´t have been able to develop their own jetengines without Whittle´s designs? I seriously doubt it. And that the German development was pushed by Whittle´s patent must be proved first. I´d say: Good story, but credibility must be checked before I´d believe it on face value. Operational RAF jets in time and in numbers to crush Germany by 1942? No way. Just my thoughts.

Michael

You may want to look at The Jet Race and the Second World War by Sterling Michael Pavelec, published in 2007 by the Naval Instutute Press for a pretty solid history of jet development in each country.

Randy

Did the more advanced state of the development of German jet engines have any affect whatsoever on the outcome of the war? I really don't think so.

The Germans did not follow Whittle's "model". He focused on centrifugal design* and Germans focused on axial flow concepts.

*The Brit engines [and USA copies] were based on centrifugal designs. Whittle built by Rover, RR Derwent, RR Nene, RR Goblin, RR Ghost eg.

Dig into Henri Coanda and look @ what he developed in 1910 in France-controversy over whether or not it actually flew, he said 'yes' others said 'naw!'

A lot of the issues with German jet power dealt with political gamesmanship and dithering by the RLM and the Generals who were against them before they were for them and couldn't decide which projects to back. Heinkel had a pretty good basic airplane the 280 but he was out of favor with Milch and the party bosses.

The 262 had some fairly serious issues (some of which it was discovered in looking @ captured documents long after the war, like aileron airflow problems which caused the airplanes to snap over violently @ high airspeeds as airflow went over the top of the 'up' aileron in the cove area instead of staying underneath) but it was very heavily armed and could pound a B-17 or B-24 to shreds in one pass. It got mildly swept wings to recapture he center of balance lost when the original engines were swapped out for the 004's, an increase in speed was a fortunate gift of the wing redesign.

It was the equivalent of dropping a P-51D into the 1934 Thompson Races, significantly faster and mind altering to those who first encountered them.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

It may have taken off but it certainly didn't land. Doesn't count .

Well, it flew into a wall so I'd say that constitutes a return to earth, otherwise, if it's still flying around 101 years later we need to find out what it's remarkable fuel efficiency secret is!!

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-