THE FIRST jet-powered flight is a story of pioneering determination, rooted in Coventry and Warwickshire, which changed the future of transport.
This year is the 90th since Coventry-born inventor Frank Whittle patented his jet engine. Against lack of funds and indifference from military superiors, Whittle created an engine that would revolutionise global travel.
To mark the anniversary, a feature film including interviews with Frank Whittle will be re-released.
Sir Frank had the original idea for a propeller-less aeroplane in 1929, but it wasn’t until facing the military pressures of the Second World War that he was able to test his first jet-powered plane.
The plane, a Gloster E28, took to the skies for 17 minutes from RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire.
Sir Frank spoke at length to Coventry-based film producer Nicholas Jones, who made ‘Whittle – The Jet Pioneer’
In the film, he tells his amazing yet poignant life story in his own words, starting with his moving stories of childhood in Coventry.
He grew up in Leamington, where he studied mechanics in the old library, before he joined the air force in 1923, aged 15.
Mr Jones said: “In November 1929 Frank was a young pilot officer in the RAF, training to be a flying instructor. He loved flying – but despaired of the noisy propeller and piston aircraft he flew. He felt there had to be a better way to fly. This drove him to think of a solution – and he came up with the jet engine.
“But it was no easy task. My film shows him explaining how he conceived the idea of a ‘turbo-jet’ – an engine with a gas turbine to produce a propelling jet.
“When filming, I asked Sir Frank what inspired this brainwave in the autumn of 1929. He couldn’t really tell me. “Maybe I was having a bath or something” he says in my film. It’s quite possible the jet engine began in a bathtub.”
Frank Whittle filed his patent for the ‘turbo-jet’ 90 years ago, which required him to explain how he could produce an actual working engine from his concept. All the jet engines powering aircraft today are descended from Whittle’s first jet.
‘Whittle – The Jet Pioneer’, made for History Channel. is re-released on DVD and download to mark the 90th anniversary, available via quantafilms.co.uk.
Mr Jones said: “The film is available in the hope that more people will get to know the truly inspiring story of how Whittle – a working class boy who defied the odds to became an RAF officer – eventually shrank the world with his invention.
“I always say he didn’t just change the face of the Earth with his jet engine: he enabled us to see what it looks like.
“Today, we make over four billion journeys between us each year in a jet airliner. He has quite a legacy.”
