• Current opened records

  • Whittle, Air Commodore Sir Frank

Aero-engine designers
Life dates:
  • 1907 - 1996
Biography:
  • Sir Frank Whittle was born on 1 June 1907 in Coventry, Warwickshire, the son of Moses Whittle, a mechanic who owned a small engineering company, and his wife Sara Alice (née Garlick). Whittle entered the Royal Air Force as an apprentice and qualified as a pilot at the RAF College Cranwell. He was posted to a fighter squadron in 1928 and served as a test pilot in 1931-2. He then pursued further studies at the RAF engineering school and at University of Cambridge (1934-7). Whittle set out his vision of jet propulsion in 1928, in his senior thesis at the RAF College, but his ideas were perceived as impractical. Whittle obtained his first patent for a turbo-jet engine in 1930, and in 1936 he joined with associates to found a company called Power Jets Ltd. Whittle sought to keep his engine designs simple and Power Jets’ WU ‘First model’, first run in 1937 and also known by Whittle as the first ‘experimental’ engine, was the first turbojet engine to be built and run in the world, although it was a proof-of-concept engine never intended for flight.

    The outbreak of the Second World War finally spurred the British government into supporting Whittle’s development work. Work on the WU engine was discontinued in 1941 as it had already been superseded by a newer, flightworthy engine design, Power Jets W.1. In 1939 this engine was selected to power the Gloster E.28/39. Ground testing of a non-flightworthy version of the W.1, installed in the E.28/39, began in April 1941 and the aircraft flew under jet power for the first time the following month. Increasingly refined versions of the W.1 engine continued to be installed in E.28/39 prototypes. Meanwhile, development of Power Jets W.2 was authorised in 1940 in coordination with the Air Ministry's issue of specification F.9/40, which called for prototypes of a new twin-engined jet fighter aircraft. At the behest of the British government, the W.2 was developed by car manufacturer Rover in its former engine factory at Barnoldswick, Lancashire, but Rolls-Royce Ltd subsequently assumed control of the W.2 project, with Frank Whittle and his team at Power Jets acting in an advisory capacity. The British government took over Power Jets Ltd in 1944, by which time Gloster Meteor jet aircraft were in service with the RAF. Whittle’s company was nationalised as Power Jets (Research &Development) Ltd and shortly after the end of the Second World War merged with the Turbine Division of the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough.

    The nationalisation negotiations were stressful and Whittle spent months in hospital recovering from nervous exhaustion, resigning from as Power Jets (Research & Development) Ltd in early 1946. He became technical advisor on engine design and production to the Controller of Supplies (Air), but retired from the RAF on grounds of ill health in 1948 with the rank of air commodore. That same year he was knighted. The British government eventually atoned for their earlier neglect by granting him a tax-free gift of £100,000. He worked briefly as technical adviser to BOAC, Shell and Bristol Aero Engines. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1986. In 1977 he became a research professor at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He married Dorothy Lee in 1930 (divorced 1976) and married American Hazel Hall in 1976. Whittle died on 8 August 1996 in Columbia, Maryland, USA.
Principle aero-engines designed:
  • Jet aircraft engine patent (1932); Power Jets WU (Whittle Unit) (1939); Power Jets W.1 (1940); Power Jets W.2 (1941).
Publications:

  • Frank Whittle, Jet: The story of a pioneer (1953); John Golley, Whittle - The true story of Sir Frank Whittle (1987); John Golley, Genesis: Frank Whittle and the invention of the jet engine (1997); Andrew Nahum, Frank Whittle: Invention of the jet (2004); G B R Feilden, ‘Whittle, Sir Frank (1907-1996), Oxford dictionary of national biography (2004); John Golley, Jet: Frank Whittle and the invention of the jet engine (2010); Hermione Giffard, Making jet engines in World War II: Britain, Germany, and the United States (2016); Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet man: The making and breaking of Frank Whittle, genius of the jet revolution (2021).

Records 1:

  • Churchill Archives Centre 

    Collection catalogue at https://archives.chu.cam.ac.uk/collections/guide-holdings/, see Whittle, Air Commodore Sir Frank (1907-96) 

    Personal and research papers, publications, lectures and technical drawings deposited by Frank Whittle 1926-94 (97 boxes,12 rolls) [WHTL97].

Records 2:

  • The National Archives 

    Papers re development of jet engine, including notebooks, drawings, photographs and reports 1928-59 [AIR 62]; papers re patent applications 1930-41 [TS/293, 329, 334, 361-2, 379-82, 389, 392, 396, 412]; agreement between Falk & Partners, Flight Lieutenant Frank Whittle, Rolf Dudley Williams and James Collingwood Burdett Tinling and the Air Council 1936 [TS28/387]; Ministry of Supply contracts, disputed claims, re Frank Whittle jet propulsion engines 1946-49 [AVIA 53/47]; records of National Gas Turbine Establishment and predecessors, incl Power Jets Ltd 1938-33 [AVIA28-31]; Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, centrifugal v axial flow compressors report by Sir Frank Whittle 1949 [DSIR 23/17990].

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Records 7:

  • Jet Age Museum 

    Photographs: Frank Whittle and Dan Walker of Power Jets c.1939 [GLOJA00261-76], W1 engine with Frank Whittle 1951 [GLOJA00763], 4th prototype Meteor with Frank Whittle and others n.d. [GLOJA00251-31-32], Frank Whittle and Thomas Sopwith in front of the E28/39 at Dorchester Hotel, London, 1951 [GLOJA00005-21-24], album re Frank Whittle and other designers 1975-96 [GLOJA00006-03-16]; newspapers containing article series by Frank Whittle about the development of jet flight 1963 [GLOJA00351-03]; letter from Frank Whittle to Daily Telegraph about how jets developed 1962 [GLOJA00261-13-02].

Records 8:

  • National Aerospace Library 

    Photographs n.d. [87131 p.432, 82903 p.385, 83655 p.384, 81172 p.508, 80566 p.438]; provisional patent specifications 1931-39 [49594: f historic pamphlet 3].

Records 9:
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