The Wonder Jet - The 1950 story behind the jet engine

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

I love this old movie. After Frank Whittle's struggle with the British military establishment, who ignored his achievement for far too long, this great old 19 minute flick made sure that he eventually received part the accolade due to him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKxsfE5Na8A

Enjoy

[marki]

You have to love these old movies Chris. The off the cuff humour, trumpet blowing and wild visions of the future always make me smile. Still after surviving the horrors of WWII they really had a reason to be optimistic.

Mark

[AndrewJ]

Gday Chris

After Frank Whittle's struggle with the British military establishment, who ignored his achievement for far too long

They didnt ignore his achievement, they "nationalised" it
Cant give any open credit to him after that.
Ie Stiff upper lip, cant tell anyone,
just not the done thing old boy, and all that rot.
Meanwhile they pretty much gave his work away.
He was a true pioneering engineer.

Andrew

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Long live the Vampire! Love the movie Chris, thanks for sharing it!

[Gerald Sargent]

Yes he got little recognition and the Labor party then in power gave a complete engine to the Russians. I remember seeing, in UK, the first ever jet plane flying and later a Lancaster
which had two of its 4 engines replaced with turbines, to see that scorching across the sky with two feathered props was a signt. A bit later I watched an impressive display set up for the military which included D. Havillands son flying the Swallow in a spiral on a
horizontal axis with a convental monoplane keeping exact alignment flying alomg the axis.
He was some pilot, many though he was the first to break the sound barrier in the
swallow, he sadly died in this aircraft To this day no recogotion is given to Miles
Aviation whose design was given to the yanks and enable them to claim to be the first..
In all fairness I believe the Swiss had the first gas turbine working for power generation,
but I would not like to sweat to that, Whittle's great break through was to develope a
turbine that produced (considerabe) thrust, and Rolls Royce for the alloys for the blades
of the later turbines - Gerald

[AndrewJ]

gave a complete engine to the Russians

But only after they gave all the design data to the Americans
which resulted in the XP-59.
As much as it galls me to say it,
th Poms did some pretty good stuff in that era,
but were killed off by politics and lack of money.
As an example the later BAC TSR.2 would have been an amazing aircraft,
but all its new features ended up being appropriated by others.

Andrew

[Gerald Sargent]

Andrew, remember who cancelled the TSR2 contract that torpedoed
that project ? My employers at that time were doing TSR2 work. Gerald