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The Birth Of The Jet Plane

 

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The first prototype before being painted

On 8th April 1941 a top-secret event which was to revolutionize world aviation took place at Brockworth in the County of Gloucestershire.

After initial taxi trials the pilot PEG Sayer pushed the throttle lever forward until the engine indicator read 16,000 rpm and the Gloster E28/39, Britain's first jet aircraft, became airborne.

To avoid the possibility of bomb damage at Brockworth, a likely Luftwaffe target, this diminutive aircraft had been fitted with Sir Frank Whittle's revolutionary gas turbine engine at Regent Motors in Cheltenham, where the Regent Arcade now stands. During these initial trials the E28/39 or Gloster Whittle made three hops reaching a height of only 1.8m. This was sufficient to distinguish the Brockworth airfield as the site of the first allied jet flight and therefore an international aviation heritage site.

According to Sir Ralph Robins, the Chairman of Rolls-Royce, "Frank Whittle's pioneering work on the turbojet engine is probably the most important mechanical invention this century. Certainly there can be few, if any in the world, whose lives have not been affected by it". It is this event which forms the fulcrum of Gloucestershire Aviation Collection's JET AGE Museum.

How was it that Britain's first jet aircraft came to be designed, built and flown for the first time in the rural tranquillity of Gloucestershire?

The surprising fact is that Gloucestershire can boast a greater association with aviation and aerospace than any other county in Britain.

This long tradition, which saw many famous aircraft types that were built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company and Parnall in the south of the county to the Gloster Aircraft Company in the north, continues today in Rolls-Royce engines at Filton to Messier-Dowty and Smiths Industries Aerospace near Cheltenham.

Extract from Gloucestershire's Aviation Heritage and JET AGE Museum Publication

 

• Engine: 1x Power Jets W.1 centrifugal turbojet engine, making 860 lb of thrust

• Wing Span: 29'

• Length: 25' 3 3/4''

• Height: 9' 3''

• Weight: Empty 2,886 lb / Loaded 3,748 lb

• Maximum Speed: 466 mph

• Ceiling: 32,000'

• Crew: 1

• Armament: none (but provision for 2x .303 machine guns in each wing)

 

 

History

 

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The engine fitment in the G.40

Designed by George Carter with the close collaboration of Frank Whittle, work on the Gloster G.40 started in 1938, Two different configuration were looked at. The first with a short jet pipe and a twin boom carrying the tail unit, which was based on a Gloster design for a Napier powered fighter to meet specification F.18/37, liked by Frank Whittle, who could see his engine replacing the piston engine. The second a more conventional design with a long jet pipe the length of the fuselage and a single tail unit, the later being chosen because of the unknown factors of the jet flow on rear end of the twin booms. An official contract SB/3229 was issued on the 3/2/1940 by the British Air Ministry for two prototype aircraft (W4041/G and W4046/G),stipulating that the aircraft must had provision for two .303'' machine guns in each wing, construction starting right away.

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P.E.G. Slayer

The first prototype (W4041) was finished by April 1941 and on the 7/4/1941 was moved to Hucclecote for ground testing, some of which was done by Frank Whittle himself. By the end of April the aircraft was moved to the Gloster site at Cheltenham for some modifications, then in early May 1941 it was moved to Cranwell as it had a hard runway, were the W.1 engine was fitted ready for it's first flight.

On 15/5/1941 at 7.45pm P.E.G. Slayer lined the aircraft up on the runway to become the first British turbojet engined aircraft to fly. The second G.40 would not take to the air until 1/3/1943, being fitted with the Rover W.2B engine, however this aircraft was lost on the 30/7/1943 due to the aileron jamming at 35,000'. The first aircraft continued to fly with deferent engines, wings and other modification until the end of 1944, then in 1946 it was moved to the British Science museum were it remains to this day.

As a result of collaboration between jet engine inventor Frank Whittle and W.George Carter, Chief Designer at Gloster Aircraft, the company was chosen on February 3, 1940 to create and produce the first British jet-powered aircraft.

      Built to specification E.28/39, the contract stated: “The primary object of this aeroplane will be to flight test the engine installation, but the design will be based on requirements for a fixed-gun interceptor fighter as far as the limitations of size and weight imposed by the power unit permit.”

      With an estimated engine thrust of 1,200 lbs., maximum speed was expected to be 380 m.p.h.  With Whittle and Carter cooperating closely in the initial design stages, it was decided to create a small, low wing monoplane with a tricycle gear, with the engine mounted behind the pilot’s cockpit.  Construction of two E.28/39 prototypes began in late April 1940.

      The E.28/39 had an 81-gallon gas tank between the engine and the cockpit, giving the pilot excellent visibility from his forward position. The engine, known as the W.1, eventually produced 860 lbs. thrust, which meant that the armament of four .303 caliber machine guns and their associated ammunition had to be left out.

      The first prototype, W4041, was completed in mid-April 1941. Powered by a test engine known as the W.1X, which was made from spare parts and did not have the performance of the flight-rated W.1, the airplane was set for a series of test-runs on the grass airfield at the Brocklands factory, with Flight Lieutenant P.E.G. Sayer, Gloster’s Chief Test Pilot at the controls on April 7, 1941.  Sayer found that it needed 10,000rpm of the 13,000 rpm allowed to move the airplane, with poor acceleration.  Permitted r.p.m. was increased to 16,000 the next day, and during the second of two test runs the E.28/39 “hopped” three times, each hop being about 300-900feet at an altitude of around 6 feet.

      The E.28/39 was moved to Cranwell airfield - which had a hard-surface runway - for its flight tests, where the W.1 engine was installed.  On May 15, prospects for a first flight didn’t look good, due to adverse weather.  However, by 1900 the weather had improved sufficiently that Sayer prepared for takeoff at 1945.  He ran the engine to 15,500 r.p.m., holding position with the brakes.  After a run of about 1800 feet, Sayer felt sufficient control response to attempt lift-off, and the E.28/39 climbed into the early evening sky.  Sayer found the control responses light and responsive during the 17-minute first flight.

      Fourteen test flights were carried out over the next 13 days, with the E.28/39 being flown to 25,000 feet and an indicated airspeed of 300 m.p.h.

      Seven months elapsed from this first series of flights before the airplane was given the new W.1A engine and began flying from Edgehill airfield..  During the fifth flight of the second series, engine trouble appeared which took ten days to resolve.  On March 24, 1942, real trouble happened.  Sayer was climbing through 30,000 feet when he experienced serious engine vibration.  Throttling back, he returned to Edgehill, where it was discovered a turbine blade had failed.  On June 6, at 30,000 feet during a speed run, Sayer experienced a flame-out, which turned out to be due to a broken engine bearing.  With a new engine installed by August, Sayer again experienced engine failure on September 27, making it back to the airfield with such a bounce that the port wingtip touched ground and was crumpled.

      Sayer was killed three weeks later in a Typhoon, and his place was taken by Michael Daunt, who returned the E.28/39 to the air on November 6, 1942, after which it was transferred to Farnborough, where service pilots took over the test program.

      The second E.28/39, W4046, was finally equipped with a Power Jets W.2B engine and flew for the first time on March 1, 1943, with John Grierson at the controls.  Grierson made 12fligyts in the following two weeks and on April 17, 1943 made the first British cross-country jet flight, taking the second prototype from Edgehill to Hatfield to demonstrate it for Winston Churchill. 

      W4046 was delivered to Farnborough where it was fitted with a new W.2B providing 1,526 lbs. thrust.  On July 30, 1943, Squadron Leader D. Davie was on a high altitude test when the ailerons jammed.  Davies became the first pilot to successfully bail out of a jet aircraft, leaving W4046 at 33,000 feet.     W4041 was fitted with a W.2B/500 engine providing 1,700 lbs. thrust in the meantime.  On July 6, the high-speed “E” wing was finally installed.  In final series of contractor tests, Daunt established the top speed of the E.28/39 at 466 m.p.h.  The airplane was handed over to the RAF that September for a final series of tests ending in June 1944.

      On April 28, 1946, the E.28/39 was installed at the Science Museum in Kensington, London, where it has remained on permanent public display.

 

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Statue  of Sir Frank Whittle

Plaque on base of the statue of Frank Whittle in Coventry, England

The Gloster E.28/39 was the first British aircraft to be powered by a jet engine, making its maiden flight in 1941. As such it represented a momentous breakthrough for British aviation, and would eventually lead to the development of the Gloster Meteor, the first operations British jet aircraft.

The Gloster E.28/39 was built around Sir Frank Whittle’s experimental W.1 jet engine. Whittle had been working on the gas turbine jet engine since 1930, but had failed to gain official support. In 1936 he had finally raised enough capital to found Power Jets Ltd, where work began on the U-type engine. This featured a centrifugal compressor and a single large combustion chamber, and made its first test run in April 1937, in what was the first ever running of an aircraft turbine engine.

In 1939, with war approaching, Whittle finally got official approval (and funding) to develop a jet engine for flight. This led to the W.1 engine, which featured a centrifugal compressor and ten small combustion chambers. Test versions of this engine were already up and running by September 1939, when the Gloster chief designer George Carter visited Power Jets. He was not impressed by this early engine, which produced around 400lb of thrust, made a horrific noise and ran so hot that some parts of the metal glowed red. Over the next year Whittle and his team would refine this early engine, with the final W.1 producing 860lb of thrust for take off during the official first flights in May 1941.

Carter was visiting Power Jets because Gloster had been chosen to produce the aircraft to go around the engine. One of his most recent designs had been the twin-boomed F.18/37, designed as a possible replacement for the Spitfire and Hurricane. That particular contract went to Hawker, where it produced the Typhoon, but Carter’s design was similar to one of Whittle’s ideas for a possible jet aircraft. Frank Whittle visited the Gloster works on 29 April 1939, where he examined the F.18/37, where he began to establish a good working relationship with Carter. In September 1939 the Air Ministry officially asked Gloster if they would be willing to design a jet-propelled aeroplane, and work began on the new jet.

The twin boom design was soon abandoned. The main problem with it was that the exhaust jet would pass directly over the tail surfaces, with unknown effects. Carter then suggested a canard layout, with the wings at the back and the “tail” at the front, a layout used on a number of modern high performance aircraft, amongst them the Eurofighter Typhoon. Power Jets rejected this design as too radical.

The final design adopted for the E.28/39 was much more conventional. The aircraft was a mid-winged monoplane, with the pilot in front of the wing spar and the engine behind it. The air intake was in the nose, with the cold air passing by the sides of the cockpit on its way to the compressor. The jet pipe was built into the fuselage, emerging just behind the conventional tail assembly. The only unusual feature of the aircraft design was the use of a tricycle undercarriage, with the third wheel in the nose rather than in the tail. The E.28/39 was the first British single seat aircraft to use this form of undercarriage. Carter and his team were still faced with some tricky problems, caused by the new engine. The intense heat created by the jet engine meant that the rear fuselage was likely to expand far more than normal. The control surfaces needed to be larger than on a propeller driven engine. 

The first formal specification for the aircraft, E.28/39, was issued to Gloster on 13 February 1940. This called for an aircraft capable of reaching 380mph at sea level, and of carrying four Browning machine guns. During 1940 this specification was modified twice, by Corrigendum No.1 of 7 June 1940, and Issue II of 27 December 1940. These saw the guns deleted and a radio added, and were prompted by a realisation that the Whittle W.1 engine was unlikely to provide enough power to carry a useful military load.

The new aircraft were given a number of different names. Officially it was the Gloster E.28.39, often shortened to the E.28. It was also known as the Gloster Whittle, or the GW for short, the Pioneer, the Squirt and the Weaver. Two aircraft were to be built, with serial numbers W4041 and W4046. These aircraft would be given the codenames Tourist 1 and Tourist 2 during trials at Edge Hill. 

Work on the fuselage frames was completed by 8 July 1940. Work then began on the metal covering, while work on the wings was well underway. The threat of German bombing then forced the British aircraft industry to disperse. Gloster moved the two E.28s from their main plant at Brockworth to Regent Motors, Cheltenham, where work on the fuselage continued. Finally, in early 1941 they were ready to be moved back to Brockworth.

Work on the engines was also progressing well. In November 1940 Power Jets put together a loosely built version of the engine, the W.1X, which was used to help assemble the airframe. They also began work on a second W.1X that would be suitable for the airframe chassis trails and taxi tests and the W.1 flight engine itself.

The first E.28, W4041, was ready for chassis trials in March 1941. The taxi test W.1X engine was installed, and on Sunday 6 April the first engine run was carried out in the hanger at Brockworth, with the jet pipe sticking out of the hanger doors. On this occasion the engine ran for ten minutes in its first run and eleven in its second.

On the following day, Monday 7 April, the E.28 made its first short taxi tests. The engine was restricted to 13,000rpm. The aircraft began to move when the engine reached 10,000rpm. It demonstrated poor acceleration but good steering, before it the aircraft was moved back to the hanger to prepare for longer tests on the following day.

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On the morning of 8 April 1941 the second taxi test were performed. This time the engine was restricted to 15,000rpm, and the aircraft moved more freely. During these taxi tests Frank Whittle had a short spell at the controls, which was captured on film.

On the afternoon of 8 April the engine power was increased again, this time to 16,000rpm. Jerry Sayer, Gloster’s chief test pilot, took the controls, making three runs. On all three runs the E.28/39 left the ground, reaching a height of six feet above the ground, and flying for 100-200 yards. The E.28/39 had made its first flight.

The first official flight came on 15 May 1941, at Cranwell. The aircraft had been transported to Cranwell on 4 May. By this time the W.1X engine had been replaced by the W.1 flight engine, and the over-sensitive throttle corrected. On 14 May the E.28 made its first taxi test with the new engine.

On 15 May 1941 the E.28 made its first proper flight. The aircraft took off at 19.40 and landed at 19.57, after a flight of 17 minutes, again with Jerry Sayer at the controls. Between 15 and 28 May, the E.28/39 made seventeen flights, logging 10 hours 28 minutes of flying time, including an official demonstration on 21 May in front of the Secretary of State for Air.

By the time the E.28 made its first flights, work had already begun on its successor, the Gloster Meteor. It had been realised that the early Whittle engines did not offer enough power for military aircraft, and so a twin engined design was adopted for the new aircraft. Once again George Carter would lead the early design team.

This did not end the useful life of the E.28/39. Having proved that it was indeed possible to build a jet powered aircraft, the two E.29s were then used as test beds for further development. Tragically Jerry Sayer was killed on 21 October 1942, while flying a Hawker Typhoon. He was followed as test pilot by his former deputy, Michael Daunt, and by Group Captain H.J. Wilson, the chief test pilot at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough. A dedicated airfield was created at Edge Hill, where W4041 was used to test new versions of the W.1 engine, as well as testing the W.2/500/3 engine in 1942. It was also used to familiarise new pilots with jet aircraft and made its last flight on 20 February 1945. It is now on display in the Science Museum in South Kensington.

The second W.28, W4046, had a much shorter life. It did not make its first flight until 1 March 1943, nearly two years after the W4041, powered by a W.2B/110 engine. On 17 April 1943 the W4046 made the first cross country jet flight, from Edge Hill to Hatfield, where on 19 April it was demonstrated to Winston Churchill, before returning to Edge Hill on 20 April.

From 3 May until 30 July 1943 W4046 was operated by the RAE at Farnborough, making a total of 111 flights in that time. It actually made more flights in five months than the W4041 did in four years. On 30 July, while being flown by Squadron Leader Douglas Davie, the commanding officer of the RAE’s turbine flight, the ailerons jammed at 37,000ft during a turn to the right. The aircraft flipped over, and the jet engine flamed out. The canopy broke open and Davie was thrown clear of the aircraft. He had to free-fall for the first 20,000 feet before he reached a height were he could open his parachute, suffering from frostbite during the fall. The aircraft itself was destroyed in the crash.

 

 

The Gloster E-28 / 39