Father of the jet engine takes centre stage in film

[dutchman]

Leamington played a crucial role in the creation of the jet engine, says the producer of an exclusive and intimate film about its inventor.

To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the jet engine’s first fight in the USA, which falls on Tuesday next week, television and film producer Nicholas Jones has released a DVD that centres around a lengthy interview held in 1986 with former Leamington schoolboy and father of the technology, Sir Frank Whittle.

Having met him on several occasions through Whittle’s relationship with his father, Mr Jones, who runs his own company, Quanta Films, from an office in Milton Keynes, grew to know the man he describes as a “genius” and found him extremely fascinating.

Mr Jones said: “When I was eight years old, I remember reading about Frank Whittle. I thought the idea of the jet engine was really interesting. I never imagined that 20 years later, I would be filming him.

“My father wanted to write a book about jet aircraft and Whittle agreed to meet us. What began as a shorter version for the History Channel progressed into a feature-length documentary.

“I was constantly being contacted by people who had an interest in the jet engine who wanted to know more. A lot of people identify with Whittle because he really was an ordinary boy.”

Mr Jones, who has devoted much of his time “ploughing through” the hundreds of pages of Whittle’s biography, found out that, during his time as a pupil at Binswood College for Boys in Leamington after the First World War, the family went through a tough period of poverty.

He said: “I suspect that he spent a lot of time at the old Leamington library in Avenue Road because it was a lot more comfortable than being at home. There, he became fascinated by what was then a new technology called gas turbines. Somehow it planted a seed in his mind.

“Leamington was crucial to the forming of the jet engine. If he had not studied in the library, it might not have happened.”

Whittle - the Jet Pioneer is available by calling 01666 826366 or it can be purchased online, where people can read more about the film.

[dutchman]

[dutchman]

How Coventry inventor Sir Frank Whittle started the jet age 75 years ago today


Late version Gloster Meteor

Britain's first jet aircraft took to the skies 75 years ago today.

The Gloster E28/39, powered by Coventry inventor Sir Frank Whittle’s pioneering propulsion system, took off from RAF Cranwell on May 15, 1941, marking the start of the jet age.

The engines were later incorporated into the Gloster Meteor, the first British jet fighter and the Allies’ only operational jet aircraft during the Second World War, capable of flying at more than 600mph.

Sir Frank was born in Earlsdon in 1907 and later moved to Leamington. He left school in 1923 to join the RAF as an apprentice aircraft fitter.

He had applied to patent his design for the jet aircraft engine concept by January 1930 and successfully test-ran the first model at the British Thomson Houston factory, later GEC, in Mill Road, Rugby, in 1936.

Sir Frank was given Coventry’s Award of Merit in 1966.

He died in 1996 and was named the man of the millennium in a Coventry Cathedral poll and number 42 in a BBC poll of the 100 greatest Britons.

The Air Commodore’s legacy lives on in Coventry, with Coventry University honouring the great inventor with a building at their city centre campus named after him.

Outside the city’s Transport Museum there are the Whittle Arches and a statue of the great man.

There’s a Whittle scuplture in Rugby and a full-size replica of the Gloster E28/39 on a roundabout in Lutterworth, where he also carried out much of his research.

The first ever jet aircraft, the Heinkel He178, was flown by the Germans in August 1939.

They got the details right this time!

[dutchman]