Re: Sir Frank Whittle
- From: "Eunometic" <eunometic@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 28 Oct 2005 06:47:30 -0700
tomcervo wrote:
> "Whittle's genius lay in designing and building an engine that
> could be produced with the techniques and materials available
> at the time."
>
> And in the end that's the genius that matters. In a similar vein,
> Francis K. Mason noted the difference between the Me-262 and the
> Gloster Meteor. The 262 was rushed into production, bugs and all, as a
> last-ditch expedient by an air force facing imminent defeat; the Meteor
> was phased into production and service in a logical, timely manner, by
> an air force on the verge of victory in no need of desperate meaures,
> and remained in service for more than a decade.
> The 262 was faster, but the RAF's system was superior. That's the
> system that Whittle came out of.
Almost of the technology used and developed for the Meteor is still in
use.
On the other hand the axial compressors both of the reaction and
impulse type that were developed by BMW, Heinkel Hirth and Junkers for
the German Jets of WW2 are.
Double sided impellors as used on the Meteors engines are not in use
anymore. Their frontal area is simply too impracticably large. The
Lutwaffe bueorcrats in charge of the 10 year 4 stage Jet development
program were aware of this.
Air cooling of hollow turbine blades as developed by the Germans is
still in use.
Perhaps the only thing that lasted more than 5-10 years as a technology
that came from the British engines is the first of the quite good
nimonic series of alloys: there were 80% nickel and 20% Chromium with
small traces of zirconium and other metals. The Germans were forced
to use the alloys Tinadure (8 Titanium, 15% nickel and 12% Chromium
balance steel) or Cromadur (14% nickel, 18% manganese, balance steel)
becuase of their extremly restricted supplies of these metals (they
were indispensible for machine tools and armour hardening). Indeed the
Prototype Jumo 004A jet engine of the Me 262 used high nickel chrom
alloys and had twice the reliabillity of the substituted alloys used in
the far more refined Jumo 004B.
As far as having the best system note that Frank Whittle struggeled
with minimal help for decades whereas von Ohain received quick private
sponsorship while on the other hand the RLM (Reichs Luftfahrt
Ministerium) or german air ministry technocrat Helmuth Schelp mapped
out an ambitious 10 year 4 stage jet engine program that was properly
funded and was to culminate with Concord sized engines.
Its hard to see how the less agressive British program could have
succeded half as much as the German one had they been faced with the
raw materials shortages the Germans had. Even when equiped with more
powerfull engines the Meteor III and IV would have been hard pressed to
succed against the swept wing technolgy that was in advanced
development and testing in Germany. The Germans were well aware of
issues such as spanwise flow and had solutions.
Incidently without Whittle or von Ohain jet engines would still have
been developed at about the same rate. Stationary gas turbines were
already in use and airborn jet engines were comming out of attempts to
increase jet thrust is piston engine exhaust and out of the american
turbo supercharger program. A jet engine is simply a turbo
supercharged piston engine with the piston engine replaced by a
continious combustion chamber in fact the US program lagged the German
program by only a little.
.
- References:
- Sir Frank Whittle
- From: flybywire
- Re: Sir Frank Whittle
- From: Keith W
- Re: Sir Frank Whittle
- From: tomcervo
- Sir Frank Whittle
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