A brief history of jet engines

 

A brief history of jet engines

• ~1800s: Using simple models, English inventor Sir George Cayley (1773–1857) figures out the basic design and operation of the modern, wing-lifted airplane. Unfortunately, the only practical power source available during his lifetime is the coal-powered steam engine, which is too big, heavy, and inefficient to power a plane.
• 1860s–1870s: Working independently, French engineers Joseph Étienne Lenoir (1822–1900), German engineer Nikolaus Otto (1832–1891), and Karl Benz developed the modern car engine, which runs on relatively light, clean, energy-rich gasoline—a much more practical fuel than coal.
• 1884: Englishman Sir Charles Parsons (1854–1931) pioneers steam turbines and compressors, key pieces of technology in future airplane engines.
• 1903: Bicycle-making brothers Wilbur Wright (1867–1912) and Orville Wright (1871–1948) make the first powered flight using a gas engine to power two propellers fixed to the wings of a simple biplane.
• 1908: Frenchman René Lorin (1877–1933) invents the ramjet—the simplest possible jet engine.
• 1910: Henri-Marie Coandă (1885–1972), born in Romania but mostly working in France, builds the world's first jet-like plane, the Coandă-1910, powered by a large air fan instead of a propeller.
• 1914: US space pioneer Robert Hutchings Goddard (1882–1945) is granted his first two patents describing liquid-fueled, multi-stage rockets—ideas that will, many years later, help fire people into space.
• 1925: Pratt & Whitney (now one of the world's biggest aero-engine makers) builds its first engine, the nine-cylinder Wasp.
• 1928: German engineer Alexander Lippisch (1894–1976) puts rocket engines on an experimental glider to make the world's first rocket plane, the Lippisch Ente.
• 1926: British engineer Alan Griffith (1893–1963) proposes using gas turbine engines to power airplanes in a classic paper titled An Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design. This work makes Griffith, in effect, the theoretical father of the jet engine (his many contributions include figuring out that a jet engine compressor needs to use curved airfoil blades rather than ones with a simple, flat profile). Griffith later becomes a pioneer of turbojets, turbofans, and vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft as the Chief Scientist to Rolls-Royce, one of the world's leading aircraft engine makers.
• 1928: Aged only 21, English engineer Frank Whittle (1907–1996) designs a jet engine, but the British military (and Alan Griffith, their consultant) refuse to take his ideas seriously. Whittle is forced to set up his own company and develop his ideas by himself. By 1937, he builds the first modern jet engine, but only as a ground-based prototype.
• 1936: Whittle invents and files a patent for the bypass turbofan engine.
• 1933–1939: Hans von Ohain (1911–1998), Whittle's German rival, simultaneously designs jet engines with compressors and turbines. His HeS 3B engine, designed in 1938, powers the Heinkel He-178 on its maiden flight as the world's first turbojet airplane on August 27, 1939.
• 1951: US aerospace engineer Charles Kaman (1919–2011) builds the first helicopter with a gas-turbine engine, the K-225.
• 2002: General Electric's GE90-115B turbofan becomes the world's most powerful engine, with a maximum thrust of 569kN (127,900 lbf).
• 2019: The General Electric GE9X, based on the GE90, uses a high bypass ratio of 10:1, fewer fan blades, and better materials to deliver 10 percent better fuel efficiency and 5 percent lower fuel consumption with less noise and fewer emissions. It produces significantly less thrust, however (around 470kN or 105,000 lbf).