Re: Sir Frank Whittle

Cub Driver wrote:
> The consensus is that von Ohain never saw the patent, and not even
> Whittle claimed that the German embassy scarfed up copies of the
> patent.
>
> For one thing, von Ohain's engine was totally different than
> Whittle's. For another, it worked better and earlier.
>

I am not so sure about your claim that von Ohain never saw the patent,
or that his engine worked earlier. On the other hand, I admit I haven't
personally dug into the archive material. What I can offer is something
I ran into the other day. It is from a report of the Society of
Experimental Test Pilots, from the 20th SETP Symposium Proceedings,
September 22-25, 1976. Apparently at this symposium Sir Frank Whittle
gave a luncheon address. From this address:

"As you all know, the Germans were almost in step with us. In some
ways, they were a bit ahead; in other ways, they were a bit behind.
Hans von Ohain, whom I know quite well, was the first German engineer
to build a jet engine. He has told me that he found my patents were a
damn nuisance. We had our first engine on the bench in April, as I told
you. He had their first engine on the bench in September of 1937. It
was almost like fruit ripening on a tree all at the same time. But, the
Germans didn't follow up either on his engine or on the Heinkel 178 the
he flew it in. They turned instead to the axial-flow-type engine which
you see here in the Me-262 which went into production just about the
time the Meteor was going into production. They flew first - the He-178
flew before the E-28 -- but we had an engine on the bench first. So,
it's very hard to say -- the argument goes on an on -- who was first?
One thing we can claim is that the engine in the E-28, and the E-28
itself, were part of a continuous flow of progress whereas the Heinkel
and Hans von Ohain's project stopped and they switched to the axial
flow Me-262."

He also made a very interesting comment on the patents at the beginning
of his address:

"This is the patent drawing -- the first patent. It doesn't look much
like the jet engines as they later became. To some extent that was
deliberate. The Ministry didn't want to put it on the secret list. They
thought I was too stupid to know that a gas turbine wouldn't work. So,
our problem was to satisfy the patent office, and not give too much
away. That explains some of the features of that drawing"

Anyway, that still doesn't settle it but it still makes for interesting
reading.

.

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