678

B R I T A I N ' S FIRST JET . .

road to Cranwell, which had the recommendations of wide

open spaces and a certain remoteness which was an
advantage from the point of view of war-time security.
There, further taxying was done on May 14 and the aircraft
was declared ready for flight, but next day the weather was
persistently bad until 7 p.m. P. E. G. ("Jerry") Sayer, one
of the best-liked and most competent of pilots who have
ever been in the test-flying business, was then chief test
pilot of Glosters and therefore the man on whom devolved
the crucial responsibility of making what was then believed
to be the first jet flight in the world.
And so on May 15, 1941, Jerry took the E.28 into the air
at Cranwell and carried out a very successful flight of
17min in the presence of Frank Whittle, George Carter
and a small band of the technicians most closely concerned
with the job. That the first flight was not a mere flash in
the pan was proved by the fact that within a fortnight
Jerry proceeded to do 14 more flights and complete ten
hours' flying (compared with the Heinkel 178, of which the
engine had blown up on its third flight).
My own connection with the E.28 came after the tragic
collision in a Typhoon which brought sudden death to Jerry
and left us all at Glosters feeling as if spring had been
taken out of the air. A few months later it happened that
the second prototype W4046, which had been fitted with a
Rover W.2B (this being the productionised version of the
W.l) was sent to Edgehill, in the interests of security, for
its first flight and I found myself nominated for the job on
exactly the same day as Michael Daunt was to take the
first F.9/40 Meteor prototype into the air on its maiden
flight at Cranwell.
On March 1, 1943, I carried out fairly extensive taxying
that is, sufficiently extensive to cause the E.28's brakes to
overheat and burstand I had a mad scramble to fly down
to Farnborough in a Miles Falcon to collect the only
available brake spares in the country. These were fitted
just in time for me to attempt to leave the ground on the
end of a jet, which was to be the first time either W4046
or its Rover-built engine had been airborne.

FLIGHT

International,

13 May

1971

I shall never forget the thrill of that first flight; the

feeling of the take-off was like being launched into the air
in a power-driven gliderthere was so little noise from the
engine and so little effort or vibration were transmitted to
the pilot. The run to unstick was about 330 yards in a
4 m.p.h. wind, and was followed by a resounding "clonk"
as the undercarriage came up. I was soon climbing away
at 180 m.p.h., but when I closed the canopy it made a most
peculiar whine, which was alarming until I realized what
it was. The rate of climb was indicated as 3,000ft/min but
I went only to 5,000ft because it was difficult to locate
myself in the haze and gathering darkness. On levelling off
I felt a peculiar pitching and shaking movement which
immediately made me think that something was wrong
with the aeroplane, but as all the gauges showed normal
readings and the sensations persisted, I realised I had run
into a turbulence condition known as "cobblestones" which
is more frequently met in the tropics. I had never experienced it before over England but thank heavens there was
nothing wrong with the E.28 or its engine.
After flying level for a few minutes I throttled back
to try the stall and it seemed to take ages to lose speed.
Although the stall with flaps and undercarriage down was
reached at 73 m.p.h. without much warning, the aeroplane
was quite good-mannered and there was no violent wingdropping.
Because there was no propeller drag and the glide with
full flap quite flat, I made my landing approach by S-turns
at 100 m.p.h. The landing itself was very easy but on
account of the shortness of the undercarriage, the ground
seemed to come at me pretty fast, rather like in a Comper
Swift where the ground clearance was also not great.
The main impressions of my first jet-propelled flight
were first of the simplicity of operation. The throttle was
the only engine control; there were no mixture or propeller
levers, supercharger or cooling-gill controls and the fuel
system had simply one low-pressure valve between the
tank and the engine pump, and one high-pressure valve
between the pump and the engine. There was no electric
booster pump. Secondly the absence of vibration or the
sensation of effort being transmitted to the pilot's seat
was outstandingthe complete reverse of the vibrocontinued on page 678a

Below, Sir Frank Whittle. His very first jet

engine, the W.U., ran on April 12, 1937,
and was joined by a second, the
WAX,
only in December, 1941. Left, the Power
Jets W.l which, built by British ThomsonHouston, ran for the first time on April 10,
1941, and propelled the E.28 into the sky
five weeks later. It is now in the Science
Museum. The engine developed a nominal
8601b thrust for a weight of 5601b (a thrust]
weight ratio of 1.53). Temporary uprating to
1,0001b thrust enabled the E.28 to reach

370 m.p.h.