Sir Frank Whittle, author of Jet: The Story of a Pioneer, was a Royal Air Force pilot and aviation engineer known as the inventor of the jet engine. He obtained his first patent for a turbo-jet engine in 1930, and in 1936 co-founded Power Jets Ltd. In May 1941, his engine was fitted to a Gloster E.28/39 airframe — the plane’s maiden flight from RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire heralded the beginning of the jet age. Frank retired from the RAF in 1948 with the rank of air commodore, and that same year he was knighted. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1986. To commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War Two, his son Ian reflects on Sir Frank’s life in 1945.
Frank as a junior officer in 1929, when he proposed the turbojet
My father’s company, Power Jets, was nationalised in 1944. From then until 1946, he was on the board of the government company that emerged under a slightly different name. At the time, he was working on the design for the aft-fan engine that also incorporated the after-burner system he had patented in 1936 — the modified W2/700. This was expected to propel the experimental Miles aircraft (M52) intended to be the first in the world to go supersonic. He was also working on the development of what would have been the world’s first hi-bypass turbo-fan engine — the LR1. Both projects were cancelled by the government in 1946 — as was the M52. These decisions resulted in Frank resigning from the board and putting himself in the hands of the RAF to do whatever they would wish him to do.
Frank holding his slide rule
1945 was a year of change for my father. He was still a serving officer in the RAF, but Power Jets had become publicly owned and entirely dependent on government funding. He found himself subject to the needs of the large independent aero-engine manufacturers who objected to a government company in competition. However, on three occasions he briefly got away from it all and flew the Meteor jet fighter. Apart from the Wright brothers, he was the first person to pilot an aeroplane powered by an engine of his own design. At other times, he found himself sent off to deliver lectures at various venues to describe the impact and differences when changing from piston engine/propeller propulsion to jet propulsion.
As a little boy, I remember him coming home after flying the Meteor along the high-speed run at Herne Bay. “How fast did you go, Daddy?” I asked. “Oh, about 450,” he replied. “Is that all?” I said with some disgust, and turned away to do whatever it was that I was doing. I had expected him to tell me 600 miles per hour. When I asked him about this, many years later, he said he was quite crestfallen by my reaction. He also explained that, as he was flying at about 50 feet above the surface of the sea, he really was unable to pay much attention to his airspeed indicator — his attention was focussed on keeping the aeroplane steady and level. And anyway, he would have been speaking of knots, not mph!
Featured image credit: Photo of Gloster Meteor by Alexis Threlfall on Unsplash.
