Talk:Frank Whittle

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Contents

[edit] "Co-inventor"

I think the use of the term "CO-inventor" is incorrect. This implies that Whittle worked with von Ohain to develop the jet engine, which is of course not the case. Both men worked independently, and so both men invented it, not co-invented it. Graham 00:39, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

changed this statement in articleSc147 03:27, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Whittle applied for a patent on the jet engine in 1930 and it was granted in 1932 which means that the informtion became publicly available from 1932 - the Air Ministry didn't regard the idea as one that should be classified, so it was published as an ordinary patent and this patent was sent to Germany by the German Embassy in that year. This patent could also have been read by anyone anywhere in the world who was interested in the subject and who could be bothered looking for patents on it - that's the whole point of patents, to make ideas publicly available so that others can contribute to the idea and the inventor can benefit financially from his work because he has legal protection for his idea. BTW, Whittle's patent was allowed to lapse later when he coudn't afford to renew it, but he was still the first to patent a turbojet engine - most theoretical gas turbines before Whittle had been envisaged as being of turboprop types.
Whittle also had an engine running first.
Von Ohain deserves credit for his work on development of the turbojet but supporters of his would have to prove that he had never seen Whittle's patent to claim co-inventorship, rather in the same way as Newton and Leibniz both independently discovered differential calculus without knowledge of the other's work.
194.6.112.192 11:47, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
BTW, this was me before I registered. Ian Dunster (talk) 08:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NASA

A question: How could Whittle be speaking to a NASA conference in 1946, as stated in the picture caption, when the agency wasn't founded until 1958?

gershwinrb 12:14, 18 May 2005

[edit] This makes no sense...

"In addition to being useful at high altitudes, the engine essentially had one moving part, the compressor-drive shaft-turbine assembly. Reliability, weight and cost should all be lower for such a design."

Why whould anyone work on a less reliable design?

[edit] Facts mixed up

The first jet engine was invented NOT by Frank Whittle, but by the romanian Henri Coanda, who flew his jet engine wooden aircraft in 1910. He is also known for the Coanda Effect (fluids in movement that attach to a hard surface).

see it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Coanda

That wasn't a proper jet engine, it was a rudimentary hybrid piston engine (Thermojet). Whittle and Ohain developed the first proper jet engines. G-Man * 21:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] NPOV-check - Bias?

Well, I do see two problems with this article. First, the initial sentence is saying "Frank Whittle, [...] was a Royal Air Force officer who invented the jet engine.", while at the same time the article about Hans von Ohain states that von Ohain "was one of the inventors of jet propulsion." If the two guys truly worked independently of each other, and von Ohain convinced Whittle after the war that his work was truly independent (what should be enough for us), both should get the credit. The article about von Ohain seams more fair to me than the article about Whittle.

It never works that way in the world. For all we know there may be indirect ways that Ohain found out about Whittle's work that he may not even remember. Or not. The point is that it's impossible to prove that he didn't benefit from Whittle's patent; I doubt it in this case, but it's possible, and the inventor is the one that got there first. There's no bias in any normal sense of the word here.WolfKeeper 20:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Second, the next sentence in the article is much too much lurid to me: "Due to [...] lack of forsight on the part of the British Government in keeping sensitive patents secret, Hans von Ohain of Germany was able to beat him to production models, but Whittle's work and tireless efforts to produce his designs given official lack of interest are legendary.' This sentence is implying that von Ohain stole Whittle’s ideas because of lack of secrecy.

That's not how I read it, it says that he was able to get the resources faster to build a working engine. There's a big difference between an idea and a practical implementation of an idea.WolfKeeper 20:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, lurid terms like "tireless efforts" and "legendary" don’t belong in an encyclopaedia.

They can do if that is a reasonable interpretation of the situation, or many people are quoted as describing him like that.WolfKeeper 20:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Guys, I’m asking your for your opinion first before making any changes. What do you think about this? MikeZ 10:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The article should make it clear that von Ohain and Whittle's developments were in no way related. There is absolutely no reason to believe that von Ohain did not independantly come up with the idea, as did many other people (Franz, Griffiths, Jendasick for sure, more arguably Muller, the BMW team, etc). von Ohain did not see Whittle's patent until he attempted to file his own, and the patent examiner showed it to him. The two designs are somewhat different, and the examiner felt they different enough to grant von Ohain a patent anyway. Let us not forget that AA Griffiths had already built his testbed engine in 1927, but I don't see anyone claiming either of these guys ripped off his idea. Maury 22:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

wittel got screwed over by every one in the end, give him the credit for what he invented, he having the idea to fly fast and fly high, identifying that piston engien driven propellers wernt up to it and that the expansion of the gasses from a gasturbine to form a jet is well documented, he had produced a paper on it durin his time at cranfield, and on the other hand hans did work for a rather unscrupuless, technicalogicaly hungry government after all. the jet that hans made was also very under developed, only running for a few hours before requireing rebuild, and having a horific fule consumption. where as the jet whittle developed found its way to the rollse royce drawing bord, vire rover, and powered jets like the meteor, vampire, and the engines for the Mig-15 under licence( thanks to a government cock up) shooting down sabers in the korean war

[edit] After the War

In this section, the last statement of the quote:

"...became part-time from 1978 to 1979. The part time post enabled him to write a textbook on gas turbine thermodynamics. It was at this time that he met von Ohain..."

implies that Von Ohain met Sir Frank for the first time in the late 70s. However, Von Ohain himself says that he first met Whittle in 1966. Whittle gives an affirmative response. See p. 20 towards the bottom in the verbatim typescript of a two-day conference, An Encounter Between the Jet Engine Inventors, held at Wright-Patt in 1978: http://www.ascho.wpafb.af.mil/encounter/Chap1-20.htm The full transcript is available at http://www.ascho.wpafb.af.mil/encounter/encounter.htm Pages 19-20 also clarify when and how Von Ohain first learned of Whittle’s patent and when he learned that Whittle was actually working on a jet engine. I have not made any corrections in the main text.64.175.36.155 09:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right, it's poorly worded. Fix away! Maury 13:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Useful references

For anyone wishing to read further on Whittle and von Ohain's early work, as well as the respective national efforts to get a turbojet engine into service, I can recommend:

Jet - The Story of a Pioneer by Sir Frank Whittle - Frederick Muller, London 1953
The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution by Edward W. Constant - Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1980.

Ian Dunster (talk) 07:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)