Jet Aircraft - History

History

A number of jet powerplants were suggested from the first instances of powered flight. René Lorin, Morize, Harris proposed systems for creating a jet efflux. In 1910 the Romanian inventor Henri Coandă filed a patent on a jet propulsion system which used piston-engine exhaust gases to add heat to an otherwise pure air stream compressed by rotating fan blades in a duct.

The "turbojet", was invented in the 1930s, independently by Frank Whittle and later Hans von Ohain. The first turbojet aircraft to fly was the Heinkel He 178 prototype of the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, on August 27, 1939 in Rostock (Germany).

The first flight of a jet engined aircraft to come to popular attention was the Italian Caproni Campini N.1 motorjet prototype that flew on August 27, 1940. It was the first jet aircraft recognised by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (at the time the German He 178 program was still kept secret). Campini had proposed the motorjet in 1932.

The British experimental Gloster E.28/39 first took to the air on May 15, 1941, powered by Sir Frank Whittle's turbojet. After the United States was shown the British work, it produced the Bell XP-59A with a version of the Whittle engine built by General Electric, which flew on October 1, 1942. The Meteor was the first production jet as it entered production a few months before the Me 262.

The first operational jet fighter was the Messerschmitt Me 262, made by Germany during late World War II. It was the fastest conventional aircraft of World War II – although the rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet was faster. It had first flown in 1941 but mass production started in 1944 with the first squadrons operational that year, too late for a decisive effect on the outcome of the war. About the same time, mid 1944, the United Kingdom's Gloster Meteor was being committed to defence of the UK against the V1 flying bomb – itself a jet-powered aircraft – and then ground-attack operations over Europe in the last months of the war. In 1944 Germany introduced into service the Arado Ar 234 jet reconnaissance and bomber, though chiefly used in the former role. USSR tested its own Bereznyak-Isayev BI-1 in 1942, but the project was scrapped by Joseph Stalin in 1945. The Imperial Japanese Navy also developed jet aircraft in 1945, including the Nakajima J9Y Kikka, a modified, and slightly smaller version of the Me 262 that had retractable wings. By the end of 1945, the US had introduced their next jet fighter, the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star into service and the UK its second fighter design, the de Havilland Vampire

The US introduced the North American B-45 Tornado, their first jet bomber, into service in 1948. Although capable of carrying nuclear weapons it was used for reconnaissance over Korea.

On November 8, 1950, during the Korean War, United States Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown, flying in an F-80, intercepted two North Korean MiG-15s near the Yalu River and shot them down in the first jet-to-jet dogfight in history.

The UK put the English Electric Canberra into service in 1951 as a light bomber. It was designed to fly higher and faster than any interceptor.

BOAC operated the first commercial jet service, from London to Johannesburg, in 1952 with the de Havilland Comet jetliner. The Comet was initially ahead of rivals, but a series of crashes gave time for the Boeing 707 to enter service in 1958 and dominate the market for civilian airliners.

Turbofan aircraft began entering service in the 1950s and 1960s, and this is the most common type of jet in use today.

The Tu-144 supersonic transport was the fastest commercial jet plane at Mach 2.35 (1,555 mph, 2,503 km/h). It went into service in 1975, but soon stopped flying. The Mach 2 Concorde aircraft entered service in 1976 and flew for 27 years.

The fastest military jet plane was the SR-71 Blackbird at Mach 3.35 (2,275 mph, 3,661 km/h).