The Jet Pioneers

It is fifty years since the first jet aircraft flew, and in that half century it has shrunk the world to an extent inconceivable in the 1930s and 1940s.
The Jet Pioneers is the fascinating story of the men who, before and during the Second World War, invented and developed the jet engine in Britain and Germany, comparing and contrasting the struggles and triumphs of the two men who were first in the field.
Hitherto untapped British sources reveal the jealousies and incompetence which all but threw away the world lead achieved by Frank Whittle, then a young RAF officer. And similar human factors delayed Dr Hans von Ohain in Germany and blunted the Luftwaffe's challenge to the Allied air forces.
Neither man in the race knew of the other's work; neither was an aero engine specialist; and, extraordinarily, during part of the most crucial time of invention each was a
university student too young and optimistic to listen to the men who told them it could not be done.
Do it they did, however, despite tragedy and skulduggery along the way. And since its invention. the military capabilities of the jet have been lethally exploited in every war fought since 1945, while its civilian uses have had as massive an impact on industry, commerce, travel and leisure as the steam engine had on the lives of our ancestors.


by Glyn Jones
Published by Methuen 1989 1st edition. 228pp illustrated, index, bibliography. 16x24 fine, including d/j.







Note:
"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "new edition" "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.

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