This article outlines the important developments in the history of the development of the air-breathing (duct) jet engine. Although the most common type, the gas turbine powered jet engine, was certainly a 20th-century invention, many of the needed advances in theory and technology leading to this invention were made well before this time.
The jet engine was clearly an idea whose time had come. Frank Whittle submitted his first patent in 1930. By the late 1930s there were six teams chasing development, three in Germany, two in the UK and one in Hungary. By 1942 they had been joined by another half dozen British companies, three more in the United States based on British technology, and early efforts in the Soviet Union and Japan based on British and German designs respectively. For some time after the World War II, British designs dominated, but by the 1950s there were many competitors, particularly in the US with its huge arms-buying programme.
Prehistoric times Ordovician period: the first known cephalopods: they swim by a natural built-in reciprocating hydrojet.
Ancient times 1st century AD: Aeolipile described by Hero of Alexandria – steam jet/rocket engine on a bearing
The leadup (1791–1929) 1791: John Barber receives British patent #1833 for A Method for Rising Inflammable Air for the Purposes of Producing Motion and Facilitating Metallurgical Operations. In the patent he describes a gas turbine and various applications for it including propulsion of ships, barges and boats by reaction. 1884: Charles Algernon Parsons patents the steam turbine. In the patent application he notes that the turbine could be driven "in reverse" to act as a compressor. He suggests using a compressor to feed air into a furnace, and a turbine to extract power to run the compressor. Although intended for factory use, he is clearly describing the gas turbine. 1887: Gustaf de Laval introduces nozzles design of small steam turbines. 1900: Sanford Alexander Moss publishes a paper on turbocompressors. He builds and runs a testbed example in 1903. 1903: Ægidius Elling builds a gas turbine using a centrifugal compressor which runs under its own power. By most definitions, this is the first working gas turbine. 1906: The Armengaud-Lemale gas turbine tested in France. This was a relatively large machine which included a 25 stage centrifugal compressor designed by Auguste Rateau. The gas turbine could sustain its own air compression but was too inefficient to produce useful work. 1907: Victor Kavarodine builds the first pulsejet engine based on his 1906 patent. 1908: René Lorin patents a design for the ramjet engine. 1908: Georges Marconnet patents the first valveless pulsejet and suggests its use in aircraft. 1910: Romanian inventor Henri Coandă builds the Coandă-1910 which he exhibits at the International Aeronautic Salon in Paris. It uses a ducted fan for propulsion instead of a propeller. Years later he claimed that it burned fuel in the duct and was thus a motorjet, but historians debate this claim, and his claims that the aircraft flew in December 1910 before crashing and burning.Coandă, Henri (1956) Royal Air Force Flying Review 1915: Albert Fonó devised a solution for increasing the range of artillery, comprising a gun-launched projectile which was to be united with a ramjet propulsion unit. This was to make it possible to obtain a long range with low initial muzzle velocities, allowing heavy shells to be fired from relatively lightweight guns. 1916: Auguste Rateau suggests using exhaust-powered compressors to improve high-altitude performance, the first example of the turbocharger. 1917: Sanford Alexander Moss starts work on turbochargers at General Electric, which goes on to be the world leader in this technology. 1917: James Stocker Harris patents a "Motor Jet" design on behalf of his brother inlaw Robert Alexander Raveau Bolton. 1920: W.J. Stern reports to the Royal Air Force that there is no future for the turbine engine in aircraft. He bases his argument on the extremely low efficiency of existing compressor designs. Stern's paper is so convincing there is little official interest in gas turbine engines anywhere, although this does not last long. 1921: Maxime Guillaume patents the axial-flow turbine engine. It uses multiple stages in both the compressor and turbine, combined with a single very large combustion chamber. Although sightly different in form, the design is significantly similar to future jet engines in operation. 1923: Edgar Buckingham at the United States National Bureau of Standards publishes a report on jets, coming to the same conclusion as W.J. Stern, that the turbine engine is not efficient enough. In particular he notes that a jet would use five times as much fuel as a piston engine. 1926: Alan Arnold Griffith publishes his groundbreaking paper Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design, changing the low confidence in jet engines. In it he demonstrates that existing compressors are "flying stalled", and that major improvements can be made by redesigning the blades from a flat profile into an airfoil, going on to mathematically demonstrate that a practical engine is definitely possible and showing how to build a turboprop. 1927: Aurel Stodola publishes his "Steam and Gas Turbines" - basic reference for jet propulsion engineers in the USA. 1927: A testbed single-shaft turbocompressor based on Griffith's blade design is tested at the Royal Aircraft Establishment. Known as Anne, the tests are successful and plans are made to build a complete compressor-turbine assembly known as Betty. 1929: Frank Whittle's thesis on future aircraft design is published. In it he talks about the needs for high-speed flight and the use of turbojets as the only reasonable solution to the problem of propeller efficiency. 1929: Boris Stechkin publishes first theory of supersonic ramjet, based on compressible fluid theory.
First turbojet engines (1930–38) 1930: Whittle presents a complete jet engine design to the Air Ministry. They pass the paper to Alan Griffith at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, who says the idea is impracticable, pointing out a mathematical error, noting the low efficiency of his design, and stating that Whittle's use of a centrifugal compressor would make his proposal useless for aircraft applications. 1930: Whittle receives official notice that the Air Ministry is not interested in his concepts, and that they do not even feel that it is worthy of making secret. He is devastated, but friends in the Royal Air Force convince him to patent the idea anyway. This turns out to be a major stroke of luck, because if the Air Ministry had made the idea secret, they would have become the official owners of the rights to the concept. In his patent, Whittle cleverly hedges his bets, and describes an engine with two axial compressor stages and one centrifugal, thus anticipating both routes forward. 1930: Schmidt patents a pulsejet engine in Germany. 1931: Secondo Campini patents his motorjet engine, referring to it as a thermojet. (A motorjet is a crude form of hybrid jet engine in which the compressor is powered by a piston engine, rather than a turbine.) 1933: Hans von Ohain writes his thesis at the University of Göttingen, describing an engine similar to Frank Whittle's with the exception that it uses a centrifugal "fan" as the turbine as well as the compressor. This design is a dead-end; no "centrifugal-turbine" jet engine will ever be built. 1933: Yuri Pobedonostsev and Igor Merkulov tests hydrogen powered GIRD-04 ramjet engine. First supersonic flight of a jet propelled object achieved with artillery-launched ramjets later that year. 1934: von Ohain hires a local mechanic, Max Hahn, to build his a prototype of his engine design at Hahn's garage. 1934: Secondo Campini starts work on the Campini Caproni CC.2, based on his "thermojet" engine. 1935: Whittle allows his patent to lapse after finding himself unable to pay the £5 renewal fee. Soon afterward he is approached by ex-RAF officers Rolf Dudley-Williams and James Collingwood Tinling with a proposal to set up a company to develop his design and Power Jets, Ltd is created. 1935 Virgilio Leret Ruiz is granted a patent (submitted January 1935, granted March 1935) in Madrid for a 'continuous reaction turbocompressor, for propulsion of aircraft, and in general all types of vehicles'. Work commenced at the Hispano-Suiza factory in 1936, months after Leret's execution by Francoist forces. 1936: von Ohain is introduced to Ernst Heinkel by a former professor. After being grilled by Heinkel engineers for hours, they conclude his idea is genuine. Heinkel hires von Ohain and Hahn, setting them up at their Rostock-area factory. 1936: Junkers starts work on axial-flow turboprop designs under the direction of Herbert Wagner and Adolf Müeller. 1936: Junkers Motoren (Jumo) is merged with Junkers, formerly separate companies. 1936: French engineer René Leduc, having independently re-discovered René Lorin's design, successfully demonstrates the world's first operating ramjet. The Armée de l'Air orders a prototype aircraft, the Leduc 0.10, a few months later. April, 1937: Whittle's experimental centrifugal engine is tested at the British Thomson-Houston plant in Rugby September, 1937: The Heinkel HeS 1 experimental hydrogen fuelled centrifugal engine is tested at Hirth. September, 1937: von Ohain's Heinkel HeS 1 is converted to run on gasoline. Ernst Heinkel gives the go-ahead to develop a flight-quality engine and a testbed aircraft to put it in. 1937: Hayne Constant, Griffith's partner at the RAE, starts negotiations with Metropolitan-Vickers (Metrovick), a British heavy industry firm, to develop a Griffith-style turboprop. 1937: At Junkers, Wagner and Müller decide to re-design their work as a pure jet. 1938: Metrovick receives a contract from the Air Ministry to start work with Constant. 1938: György Jendrassik starts work on a turboprop engine of his own design. April, 1938: Hans Mauch takes over the RLM rocket development office. He expands the charter of his office and starts a massive jet development project, under Helmut Schelp. Mauch spurns Heinkel and Junkers, concentrating only on the "big four" engine companies, Daimler-Benz, BMW, Jumo and Bramo. Mauch and Schelp visit all four over the next few months, and find them uninterested in the jet concept. 1938: A small team at BMW led by Hermann Östrich builds and flies a simple thermojet quickly prompting them to design a true jet engine. 1938: The Heinkel He 178 V1 jet testbed is completed, awaiting an engine. 1938: The Heinkel HeS 3 "flight quality" engine is tested. This is the first truly usable jet engine. The engine flies on a Heinkel He 118 later that year, eventually becoming the first aircraft to be powered by jet power alone. This engine is tested until it burns out after a few months, and a second is readied for flight. 1938: Wagner's axial-flow engine is tested at Junkers. 1938: Messerschmitt starts the preliminary design of a twin-engine jet fighter under the direction of Waldemar Voight. This work developed into the Messerschmitt Me 262.
1939, Flight Arkhip Mikhailovich Lyulka develops early turbofan engine at Kharkov Aviation Institute. BMW's team led by Hermann Östrich tests their axial-flow design. Bramo starts work on two axial-flow designs, the P.3301 and P.3302. The P.3301 is similar to Griffith's contrarotating designs, the P.3302 using a simpler compressor/stator system. Bramo is bought out by BMW, who abandon their own jet project under Östrich, placing him in charge of Bramo's efforts. Summer: Jumo is awarded a contract to develop an axial-flow engine, starting work under Anselm Franz. Müller decamps with half the team to Heinkel. Frank Whittle's patent drawing for his engine is published in the German magazine Flugsport.