Frank Whittle

Frank Whittle
British Government · Public domain · source
Name	Frank Whittle
Caption	Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle
Birth date	1 June 1907
Birth place	Earlsdon, Coventry, England
Death date	8 August 1996
Death place	Columbia, Maryland, United States
Nationality	British
Known for	Invention of the jet engine
Education	Royal Air Force College Cranwell
Occupation	Royal Air Force officer, engineer, inventor
Spouse	Dorothy Mary Lee (m. 1930)
Awards	KBE, CB, FRS, OM

Frank Whittle. Sir Frank Whittle was a pioneering Royal Air Force engineer officer whose invention and development of the turbojet engine revolutionized aviation and aeronautics. His persistent work, conducted against significant official skepticism, led to the first flight of a British jet aircraft and laid the technological foundation for modern air travel. Whittle's contributions were later recognized with a knighthood and numerous prestigious awards from scientific and engineering institutions.

Early life and education

Born in Earlsdon, Coventry, he displayed an early aptitude for engineering and a passion for flight. Despite modest beginnings, he gained entry to the Royal Air Force College Cranwell in 1923, where he excelled as a flight cadet. His 1928 thesis, titled "Future Developments in Aircraft Design," first theorized the concept of high-speed, high-altitude flight powered by a gas turbine for propulsion. After Cranwell, he attended Peterhouse, Cambridge, graduating with first-class honors in the Mechanical Sciences Tripos in 1936, further solidifying his theoretical knowledge.

Development of the jet engine

While serving as a test pilot at the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment at Felixstowe, Whittle privately patented his design for a turbojet engine in 1930. Initial disinterest from the Air Ministry and major engineering firms like Armstrong Siddeley led him to found Power Jets Ltd in 1936 with backing from investment bankers O. T. Falk & Partners. The first bench test of his experimental engine, the Whittle Unit (WU), occurred in 1937 at the British Thomson-Houston works in Rugby. This success eventually secured Air Ministry funding and a development contract with the Gloster Aircraft Company, leading to the historic first flight of the Gloster E.28/39 powered by the Whittle W.1 engine in 1941. Parallel but independent development was occurring in Nazi Germany by Hans von Ohain and Ernst Heinkel.

Military career and later life

His entire early career was spent within the Royal Air Force, where he rose to the rank of Air Commodore. The immense stress of leading the jet program during the Second World War severely impacted his health. After the war, he suffered a nervous breakdown and retired from the RAF on medical grounds in 1948, receiving a substantial knighthood that year. He subsequently worked as a consulting engineer for BOAC and accepted a research professorship at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. In 1976, he moved permanently to the United States, becoming a professor at the University of Maryland and later a NASA consultant, before his death in Columbia, Maryland.

Legacy and honors

Whittle is universally acknowledged as a father of the jet engine, and his company, Power Jets, was nationalized after the war to form the basis of Britain's jet propulsion industry. He received numerous accolades, including the prestigious Order of Merit and being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Major awards in his name include the Royal Aeronautical Society's Gold Medal and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' ASME Medal. His legacy is commemorated by statues in his hometown of Coventry and at Heathrow Airport, and the Whittle Laboratory at the University of Cambridge continues advanced propulsion research.

Category:1907 births Category:1996 deaths Category:British aerospace engineers Category:Royal Air Force officers Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire