Memorial Gloster E28 (Gareth Tarr).
Lutterworth
young Frank had to battle back after rejection. He came sixth in his apprenticeship exams but only the top five went to Cranwell as officer cadets to become pilots; fortunately one of the top five failed the medical. It was at this stage that Frank’s creative ideas took hold and in 1928 he wrote a thesis ‘Future Developments in Aircraft Design’ in which he worked out that a gas turbine wouldn’t be affected by altitude and therefore an aircraft could fly beyond 500mph. Others such as Junkers in Germany were working on similar ideas at the time but Frank was the only one to do calculations to prove a jet turbine could work.
It was time to move on from theory, so a 22 year old Frank showed his plans to Group Captain Baldwin, who referred him to the Air Ministry. There he came up against a man called Arnold Griffith who had been working on his own unsuccessful ideas for gas turbine-powered flight. Griffith advised the Air Ministry that Whittle’s ideas had no merit and so the proposals were rejected. Another set-back, but Whittle showed his ideas to an RAF pilot, Pat Johnson, who thought they were brilliant and advised him to get them patented. In 1931 Whittle obtained a patent for his turbo-jet design.
In 1932 Whittle started the Officers’ Engineer- ing Course at Henlow, and then he was sent to Cambridge University. Although Frank was developing his ideas he couldn’t afford the £5 to renew his patent, so after three years this lapsed, giving the rest of the world freedom to develop his ideas. At this stage help was to come from two friends: R Dudley Williams (a fellow cadet) and J C B Tinling, who helped establish Power Jets Limited which was registered in November 1935. With Air Ministry support the company developed Frank Whittle’s ideas and the first prototype engine was run at the British
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Thompson-Houston works at Rugby on 12th April 1937. This early engine proved unreliable and Power Jets moved to the safety of a disused factory in Lutterworth. The engine was successfully developed despite the company’s shaky finances and by June 1939 the Air Ministry had bought it, giving Power Jets the contract to develop it. The Power Jets employees had to sign the Official Secrets Act, an indication of how serious the project had now become. Gloster Aviation was commissioned to build an aircraft designed by George Carter to run the engine now known as the W1. At the time the Germans had been developing their own ideas and the Heinkel He178 first flew in 1939 although it was only capable of staying airborne for six minutes.
On 15th May 1941 the Gloster E28/39 completed its first flight, lasting 17 minutes. A further 10 hours of test flying was granted, the test pilot being Gerry Sayer. From this the production aircraft was created. Called the Gloster Meteor and using a W2 engine, the aircraft entered service in July 1944. One of its first tasks was to bring down ‘Doodlebugs’. Power Jets was nationalised in 1944. After the Second World War Whittle received £100,000 for the patents he had earlier relinquished for the nation and in 1948 he was knighted by King George VI.
2016 represents the 75th anniversary of the Gloster E28/39’s first flight. Before the talk a first- day cover from 1978 celebrating 60 years of the RAF and featuring a painting of that first jet flight was auctioned for BTM funds for £70. It was perhaps fitting that on the day of the Brooklands talk about his father, Ian Whittle had attended the memorial service of Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown who had done so much to develop aircraft and who captivated Brooklands Trust Members with his talks at the Museum.
Gareth Tarr
Sir Frank Whittle – first day cover (Gareth Tarr).
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