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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0881.PDF
552 THE SECRET YEARS FLIGHT, II May 1951 airframe was transported by road to the installation airfield. An airscrew was mounted temporarily on the nose of the fuselage to give the impression that it was conventional type ! Reverting now to 1939, we may trace the chequered history of production. B.T.H. built the WiX, Wi, the WiA with re- designed blading and no water-cooling system, also flown in the E.28/39, and a more advanced unit, the W2. In passing it may be recalled that the first four units, all built by B.T.H., are still in existence. The first experimental model is held by Power Jets, Ltd., and, as already mentioned, is in the Festival Exhibition; Wi is preserved at the Science Museum, South Kensington; WiX at the Smithsonian Institute in the United States; and WiA at the R.A.F. College, Cranwell. During the 1939-40 period, in view of the rapidly mounting demands for Service aircraft, it is understandable that considerable weight of opinion was expressed against what appeared to be a diversion of effort. At one time it seemed that work would be stopped and development postponed until some later and less hazardous period. It must be recorded that Sir Henry Tizard, of the Aeronautical Research Council, thoroughly appreciated the potentialities of the turbojet, and it was largely as a result of his insistent advocacy that work was continued without serious interruption. Industry was still undergoing reorganization and reorientation for war purposes, and production of W2 units was transferred to the Rover Co. in 1940. The Rover version of the W2, termed by them the B23, had the usual reverse-flow combustion system. Some difficulty was experienced in fabricating these combustion chambers and later the Rover Co. built the B26, the first unit having straight-through combustion chambers. Combustion had been one of the most intractable problems, and in 1940 Whittle had made designs for two units, the W2Y and W3X, with straight- through systems. These designs antedated all the others. Early Production Air Marshal Tedder had planned for the B23 to b£ produced by the Rover, Vauxhall, and B.T.H. companies and Power Jets spent three months in briefing these firms. However, Vauxhall were eventually required to concentrate on road vehicle and tank engines, B.T.H. resources were claimed for some other activities and only Rover, who started factories in old cotton mills at Clitheroe and Barnoldswick in Lancashire, were allowed to con- tinue. Subsequently, the exigences of the war situation led to Rover being redirected to produce tank engines and to turbojet production being switched to Rolls-Royce. The Derby firm had already acquired soms experience by building, under con- tract from Power Jets, an experimental low-pressure Whittle unit, the WRi—and, of course, they possessed unrivalled know- ledge of the operation of supercharging compressors at altitude. Rolls-Royce produced a reverse-flow unit, the Welland, based on the Rover B23. This was the first use of the River designation so aptly applicable to a unit producing a smooth, continuous flow of power. Thereafter came the Derwent and Nene straight-flow units which went into full production and service. In a brief summary of a development of such magnitude it is impossible to give credit to all the individuals, firms and organiza- tions contributing in some measure at some stage to the final success of the project. Mention must be made, however, to the long and valued research on axial compressors by Hayne Con- stant and A. A. Griffiths, at Farnborough. This exercised great influence on the design of the Metrovick F.2 and Armstrong- Siddeley A.S.X axial flow turbojets. Other aircraft engine builders were also developing their own turbine units. In 1941 Major Halford designed the de Havilland Goblin turbojet which was first run on April 13th, 1942, and first flown, in a Gloster Meteor, 00 March 5th, 1943. Bristol and Napier each developed turboprop units, the Theseus and Naiad respectively. The aid of very many firms was enlisted in component manu- facture and development. The writer has a list, admittedly not exhaustive, of more than eighty concerns. Apart from the Shell Petroleum Co., already mentioned, a number of other firms participated in the development of the fuel combustion system. C.A.V. undertook production of burners, the Plessey Co. of fuel pumps and Ricardo and Co.—who throughout acted as con- sultants on combustion problems—of control equipment. During the period of production by Rover, the Lucas Co. of Birmingham was brought in to build the sheet-metal components, combustion chambers, and tailpipes, and subsequently it developed the com- plete range of pumps, burners and controls which eventually became standard equipment on the Rolls-Royce Derwent and Nene units, and later on certain others. For combustion experiments, the outstanding need was always compressed air. In the early days, Power Jets obtained permission to make use of a large compressor which had been installed at Dartford in connection with the boring of the Thames Tunnel, Installation of Wl unit in the Gloster £.28/39 experimental aircraft. First flight May \4th, 1941. VJ7 work on which had been suspended during the war. They took their components down to the site and tested in a shed. Later, Lucas required a compressor for their combustion experiments and, typical of the enlightened co-operation of the authorities at that time, were allowed to take the stand-by compressor at Dart- ford and transport it to the factory they had set up in Lancashire. For testing compressors air was required on an even larger scale, and at one period compressor tests were conducted at the Bedford Power Station by running the stand-by steam-turbine set, to the dismay of the station engineers and the mystification of the local residents. This arrangement served in the interim whilst the necessary manoeuvres were conducted to divert a Le Mont boiler, intended for a destroyer, to Whetstone, where the English Electric Co. had installed a steam turbine for a specially designed compressor test station. While acknowledging Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle'sinventive genius, his pioneering spirit and his consumate skill as an aerodynamicist, it must not be forgotten that he was also anoutstanding pilot. When drafted to the C.F.S. at Wittering in 1929, he had already established a reputation as a fighter pilot onSiskins with No. 111 Squadron at Hornchurch. At the Hendon Displays in 1929, 1930 and 1931 he was chosen to give exhibitionsof crazy flying. He logged many hundreds of hours as a test pilot. Between 1930 and 1935 he made many of the test nights for Melvill Jones' investigation of boundary-layer phenomena—the early tufting experiments. Later he conducted a long series of tests on cata- pulting from the Ark Royal on a Fairey 3F floatplane. It was at C.F.S. that the long association of Whittle with W. E. P. Johnson commenced. Johnson was serving as an instruc- tor and himself achieved fame as the first man in the world to make —in April, 1931—a solo "bund" take-off and later to complete a full programme of aerobatics solely on iastruments. He had been trained as a Patent attorney and, eajoying the confidence of Whittle, helped him draft his early patents. He joined Power Jets soon after its formation, supervised the installation of the WI engines in the Gloster E.28/39 and is now managing director of Power Jets (Research and Development), Ltd., the company holding the nationally-owned patents in the gas-turbine field. It is not too much to claim that these early years have changed the course of events. They have revolutionized aircraft design and altered all earlier conceptions of speed of transport. They mark not merely a progressive step but a giant stride forward— literally a phase change. The struggle to win recognition and support is, perhaps, familiar. The relatively short period in which the projects were realized and the prophecies fulfilled, and surpassed, is truly remarkable. A new industry has been built up 'which has already won a prominent position in our vitally important export programme. Sir Frank Whittle and these early years are assured their place in history. The claim that the Gloster E.28/39 with Whittle Wi turbojet made the first successful jet-propelled flight cannot be contro- verted, although both Germany and Italy had demonstrated the possibility earlier. On August 27th, 1939, the day Germany moved into Poland, a Heinkel 178 powered by a simple turbojet designed by H. von Ohain was flown, but crashed in about fifteen minutes. The .sponsors were discouraged, war require- ments intervened, and it was not until July 18th, 1942, that the Messerschmitt 262 flew on two Junkers Jumo 004 turbojets. In Italy, S. Campini propounded a system of jet propulsion in which a conventional piston engine was used to drive the compressor. The airflow took up the heat radiated from the engine, the exhau't gases were added, and finally liquid fuel was burnt in the tailpip-'j somewhat in the manner of an afterburner. A special Caprcni aircraft, C.C.2, equipped with this system was flown for tea minutes on August 27th, 1940. More than a year later, on NOVCIP- ber 30th, 1941, a much-modified version of the C.C.2 was flown from Milan to Rome, with a stop of unspecified duration at Pi;i> in two and a half hours. It was reported to be undergoing te :s at Guidonia research station but nothing further was heard of -t. F. c. a-
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