The first jet aircraft

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andya700

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I have to say, that I am a bit pedantic when it comes to accuracy, particularly relating to history and all that.
I remember being told by my dad in the sixties and seventies, and schoolteachers, and books, that the first jet aircraft was the Gloster E28 using an engine designed by Frank Whittle, which first flew in 1941.
However, this is just not the case, and other aircraft designed in Italy and Germany had flown two years before.
Why do people still perpetuate lies about history, when the truth is so easy to research?
 
get a life!

Seriously?

You felt the need to post that ... i could understand if planewatchersweelky.co.uk but...
 
I too was a bit surprised by your post, but this is Out of Focus so.....

I don't think people are intentionally perpetuating lies. I think it is more they simply believe something. If you believe the first jet aircraft was a Gloster they you are not going to check it.

Dave
 
I visited my local 'Jet Age Museum' nr Gloucester recently where they celebrate the Gloster marque of aircraft and have as a centrepiece of the museum a replica of the E28. I guess a combination of propaganda, wishful thinking and confusion has lead us in the belief that the jet engine was invented by Frank Whittle. The museum's website states:

"Although the German Heinkel 178 was the first jet to fly it was from the Whittle jet engine, patented in 1930, that every jet aircraft is descended. Wartime secrecy and the potential to develop a weapon that would vanquish the Nazis meant this momentous event went by unannounced; not even the Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP) could be bothered to send a professional camera crew to record he event".

http://www.jetagemuseum.org
 
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Perhaps your father simply meant the first British jet aircraft :rolleyes:
 
If it's what you're taught and nobody ever tells you different it's what you'll believe. In this case who knows the reasons why but it probably had something to do with some mid 20th century Britain is great in the face of crumbling empire thing.
 
It's like people believing Bell invented the telephone, rather than pinching the idea whilst the real inventor was too ill to renew the patent.
 
Llamaman said:
It's like people believing Bell invented the telephone, rather than pinching the idea whilst the real inventor was too ill to renew the patent.
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The details of Bell's patenting of the modern telephone is far more complicated than that, and still legendary in patent law circles.

Stating that he simply nicked the idea is as laughable as believing that the two of them were the only two involved in the development of the technology.
 
My whole family have been involved with the jet age museum in Gloucester, have been since about 1993. Both me and my brother worked there all throughout our childhood and my father is the restoration manager, and also hand build our e28 replica

No one there has ever said the e28 was the first jet to fly, it wasn't.. It was however the first BRITISH jet to fly and the engine design is the one that was continued and is still in use today. The German design was different.

The history books also say the e28 first flew at Cranham, which is technically not true. It did several short hops at Brockworth airfield in Gloucester, the hops were longer than the Wrights brothers first "flight" so should also be deemed as flights.
 
And while we are on the subject or rather way off topic :D
The Diesel engine was a German invention? think again....

The first heavy oil (Diesel engine) was built in the foundry in Fenny Stratford, (On the outskirts of what was to become Milton Keynes)
And there is a commemorative plaque on the wall of the convenience store ( I think thats where the old foundry stood)


The world's first successful heavy oil engines were invented and built by Herbert Akroyd Stuart in Fenny Stratford. There is a plaque commemorating this at the westerly end of Denmark Street in Fenny Stratford opposite The Foundry public house – though the location of Akroyd Stuart's workshop is usually given as "Bletchley", which is a larger town adjoining Fenny Stratford.

These engines were precursors to what is now known as the Diesel engine: Rudolf Diesel based his designs (1892) on Akroyd Stuart's proven inventions (1890) of direct (airless) fuel injection and compression ignition.
An experimental model was tried out at the offices of the Fenny Stratford Times Newspaper, and the first production models were installed at the nearby Great Brickhill Waterworks where they were in operation from 1892 to 1923. (It has been argued that engines of this type might have become known as "Akroyds", had Diesel not been a rather paranoid person not prone to giving other inventors credit.
 
It's the same in many things, everyone wants a claim to fame. The Festiniog railway like to claim they were the first Narrow Gauge railway to use steam power, they weren't, it was done in Germany a few years before. The like to claim they have the oldest working steam locomotive - they don't, not one shred of 1860s locomotive survives in it...
 
Lynton said:
get a life!

Seriously?

You felt the need to post that ... i could understand if planewatchersweelky.co.uk but...
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Why, thank you for your heartfelt comments, I shall look at them and consign them to the literary refuse tip.
 
Having read around the subject a little bit, it seems that Whittle is generally credited with the invention of the modern jet engine rather than being the creator of the first jet aircraft which is universally understood to be German. There's controversy too over the lack of support from the establishment for Whittle's engine and the possibility that the plans were pinched by Germany!

I wonder what a Ladybird book of the 1960's would say on the matter?
 
I'll add the TV. Which we all know was invented by John Logie Baird, except the one he invented was rubbish, and the actual crt TV we adopted was invented elsewhere. I can't even remember by whom but it's not important because we all know who invented TV :thinking:

I didn't know about the the phone thing though.
 
andy700 said:
I have to say, that I am a bit pedantic when it comes to accuracy, particularly relating to history and all that.
I remember being told by my dad in the sixties and seventies, and schoolteachers, and books, that the first jet aircraft was the Gloster E28 using an engine designed by Frank Whittle, which first flew in 1941.
However, this is just not the case, and other aircraft designed in Italy and Germany had flown two years before.
Why do people still perpetuate lies about history, when the truth is so easy to research?
Click to expand...

Well for a start the internet wasn't around in those days. Take the Battle of Waterloo. Depending on where you stood as an eyewitness close to Wellington or Blucher and you have two different versions of decisive leadership and history and who was responsible for Napoleons defeat. Whilst Wellington is accredited with the victory a lot of academics and historians think that the battle wouldn't have been won if Blucher didn't turn up with his army when he did and this was the decisive moment through his leadership that won the battle.
 
Blank_Canvas said:
the battle wouldn't have been won if Blucher didn't turn up with his army when he did and this was the decisive moment through his leadership that won the battle
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And they say history never repeats it self?
WWII and the USA anyone? :D
 
The winners write the history books.
 
Cobra said:
And they say history never repeats it self?
WWII and the USA anyone? :D
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It's well documented that Churchill had the intelligence that Japan were going to bomb Pearl Harbour but choose not to tell the Americans which brought them into the war.
 
Your dad was a lying fecker then :D
 
u8myufo said:
Your dad was a lying fecker then :D
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Unfortunately, so were my teachers, or to be more precise my history teacher.
Mind you, my dad was probably just repeating the lies of the "feckers" who taught him.
 
Blank_Canvas said:
Well for a start the internet wasn't around in those days.
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The reason why I started this post, is because I am reading a very interesting book at the moment (published in 1998 when the internet was relatively new), called "Last Talons of the Eagle" (secret Nazi technology which could have changed the course of WW2) by Gary Hyland and Anton Gill.
It is quite ironic that the German designers/engineers were held back (not to the same extent) by the same forces in the UK which held back Whittle and his fantastic work developing the jet engine - the "establishment".
Even when the Germans had the ME262 jet fighter (which was championed by their "pinup" fighter ace - Adolf Galland), the Nazis preferred to attempt to develop a more powerful version of the ME109 (the ME209) propellor driven aircraft.
 
Serious question.

Why does it matter who "invented" what?
I'd put money on the person credited with invented anything did so on the back of work begun by others.
 
Who invented colostomy bags?
 
viv1969 said:
Serious question.

Why does it matter who "invented" what?
I'd put money on the person credited with invented anything did so on the back of work begun by others.
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I know that you are keen on "facts" Ruth, so if you look at the very first post you will see that it is devoid of the word "invented":)
The post is about the FIRST jet aircraft to fly.
 
andy700 said:
I know that you are keen on "facts" Ruth, so if you look at the very first post you will see that it is devoid of the word "invented":)
The post is about the FIRST jet aircraft to fly.
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Subsequent ones do.
 
Blank_Canvas said:
It's well documented that Churchill had the intelligence that Japan were going to bomb Pearl Harbour but choose not to tell the Americans which brought them into the war.
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Interesting fact, I never knew that.
So Churchill was either an arse or a clever tactician
I suspect a little of both ;)

viv1969 said:
I'd put money on the person credited with invented anything did so on the back of work begun by others.
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You only have to look at research, the "Dr" or "Professor" credited with discovery, or invention, had a team that did the leg work / got their hands dirty.
 
**And a quick word from our sponsors**

Quit with the personal jibes guys.
Thank you kindly :thumbs:
 
Alan Clogwyn said:
The like to claim they have the oldest working steam locomotive - they don't, not one shred of 1860s locomotive survives in it...
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That's just the same as Triggers brush but it was the same brush he started with :)
 
Gaz J said:
That's just the same as Triggers brush but it was the same brush he started with :)
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Almost - Trigger's broom was at least still a broom, the amount of work done by the FR makes it more like a transformation into a mop!
 
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