First turbojet engines (1930–38)

 1930: Whittle presents a complete jet engine design to the Air Ministry. They pass the
paper to Alan Griffith at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, who says the idea is
impracticable, pointing out a mathematical error, noting the low efficiency of his design,
and stating that Whittle's use of a centrifugal compressor would make his proposal
useless for aircraft applications.
 1930: Whittle receives official notice that the Air Ministry is not interested in his
concepts, and that they do not even feel that it is worthy of making secret. He is
devastated, but friends in the Royal Air Force convince him to patent the idea anyway.
This turns out to be a major stroke of luck, because if the Air Ministry had made the idea
secret, they would have become the official owners of the rights to the concept. In his
patent, Whittle cleverly hedges his bets, and describes an engine with two axial
compressor stages and one centrifugal, thus anticipating both routes forward.
 1930: Schmidt patents a pulsejet engine in Germany.
 1931: Secondo Campini patents his motorjet engine, referring to it as a thermojet. (A
motorjet is a crude form of hybrid jet engine in which the compressor is powered by a
piston engine, rather than a turbine.)
 1933: Hans von Ohain writes his thesis at the University of Göttingen, describing an
engine similar to Frank Whittle's with the exception that it uses a centrifugal "fan" as the
turbine as well as the compressor. This design is a dead-end; no "centrifugal-turbine" jet
engine will ever be built.
 1933: Yuri Pobedonostsev and Igor Merkulov tests hydrogen powered GIRD-04 ramjet
engine. First supersonic flight of a jet propelled object achieved with artillery-launched
ramjets later that year.
 1934: von Ohain hires a local mechanic, Max Hahn, to build his a prototype of his engine
design at Hahn's garage.
 1934: Secondo Campini starts work on the Campini Caproni CC.2, based on his
"thermojet" engine.
 1935: Whittle allows his patent to lapse after finding himself unable to pay the £5
renewal fee. Soon afterward he is approached by ex-RAF officers Rolf Dudley-Williams
and James Collingwood Tinling with a proposal to set up a company to develop his
design and Power Jets, Ltd is created.
 1936: von Ohain is introduced to Ernst Heinkel by a former professor. After being grilled
by Heinkel engineers for hours, they conclude his idea is genuine. Heinkel hires von
Ohain and Hahn, setting them up at their Rostock-area factory.
 1936: Junkers starts work on axial-flow turboprop designs under the direction of Herbert
Wagner and Adolf Müeller.
 1936: Junkers Motoren (Jumo) is merged with Junkers, formerly separate companies.
 1936: A stationary gas turbine is installed at the Sun Oil refinery in Marcus Hook,
Pennsylvania
 1936: French engineer René Leduc, having independently re-discovered René Lorin's
design, successfully demonstrates the world's first operating ramjet. The Armée de l'Air
orders a prototype aircraft, the Leduc 010, a few months later.
 April, 1937: Whittle's experimental centrifugal engine is tested at the British Thomson-
Houston plant in Rugby
 September, 1937: The Heinkel HeS 1 experimental hydrogen fuelled centrifugal engine is
tested at Hirth.[citation needed]
 September, 1937: von Ohain's Heinkel HeS 1 is converted to run on gasoline. Ernst
Heinkel gives the go-ahead to develop a flight-quality engine and a testbed aircraft to put
it in.
 1937: Hayne Constant, Griffith's partner at the RAE, starts negotiations with
Metropolitan-Vickers (Metrovick), a British heavy industry firm, to develop a Griffith-
style turboprop.
 1937: At Junkers, Wagner and Müller decide to re-design their work as a pure jet.
 1938: Metrovick receives a contract from the Air Ministry to start work with Constant.
 1938: György Jendrassik starts work on a turboprop engine of his own design.
 April, 1938: Hans Mauch takes over the RLM rocket development office. He expands the
charter of his office and starts a massive jet development project, under Helmut Schelp.
Mauch spurns Heinkel and Junkers, concentrating only on the "big four" engine
companies, Daimler-Benz, BMW, Jumo and Bramo. Mauch and Schelp visit all four over
the next few months, and find them uninterested in the jet concept.
 1938: A small team at BMW led by Hermann Östrich builds and flies a simple thermojet
quickly prompting them to design a true jet engine.
 1938: The Heinkel He 178 V1 jet testbed is completed, awaiting an engine.
 1938: The Heinkel HeS 3 "flight quality" engine is tested. This is the first truly usable jet
engine. The engine flies on a Heinkel He 118 later that year, eventually becoming the
first aircraft to be powered by jet power alone. This engine is tested until it burns out after
a few months, and a second is readied for flight.
 1938: Wagner's axial-flow engine is tested at Junkers.
 1938: Messerschmitt starts the preliminary design of a twin-engine jet fighter under the
direction of Waldemar Voight. This work developed into the Messerschmitt Me 262.