Lockheed J37

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The J37, known inside Lockheed as the L-1000, was the first turbojet engine designed in the United States. It was not considered important at first, and by the time it was British designs were already entering production. The design was built to the extent of testbed examples, but never entered production.

Work on the design started in 1939 as part of their L133 fighter design, and was presented to the US Army Air Corps in 1940. The Air Corps proved uninterested and declined to fund development.

Later that year the Tizard Mission arrived in the US and presented many technological advances being worked on in England, including information on Frank Whittle's jet engine designs. Rumors of similar work in Germany and the well-publicized flights in Italy suggested that practically everyone but the US was working on jets, and getting a design of their own suddenly took on the utmost importance. Vannevar Bush, Tizard's counterpart in the US, decided the best solution was to simply license the British designs.

Work started again in 1943 under a USAAF contract, now known as the XJ37 after standardized naming was introduced, but the design was never delivered. The project was passed around several companies up to the 1950s, but was never put into production. Little information on the design itself is available.