Jet Engines

Propellers did not work well when the tips of their blades reached the high speeds that airplane manufacturers wanted. Companies looked for a type of engine that did not use a propeller.

In the 1920s, an aircraft engineer called Frank Whittle had produced plans for a new type of aircraft engine. Instead of using a propeller, it produced a jet of gas. His first jet engine was working by 1937. One of his engines was fitted to an aircraft, which made its first flight on May 15, 1941.

Although Whittle had invented the jet engine, his was not the first jet plane to fly. In Germany, Hans von Ohain had

THE AEOLIPILE

A man named Hero of Alexandria made a very simple jet engine about

2,0 years ago. It was called the aeolipile, which means wind ball.

It was a hollow metal ball with small nozzles (pipes), one on each side. The two nozzles pointed in opposite directions. The ball was supported so that it was free to spin. When the ball was filled with water and heated over a fire, the water changed to steam. The steam jetted out of the nozzles and made the ball spin.

been working on jet engines separately from Whittle. One of his jet engines was fitted to a Heinkel He-178 aircraft, which made the world’s first jet-powered flight on August 27, 1939.

The jet engine belongs to a family of engines called gas turbines, or turbine engines. Today, all but the smallest air­planes and helicopters are powered by turbine engines, because they pack a lot of power into a small space.