Jeticicm

The inventor of the turbojet engine walked off the Queen Elizabeth last week, on his way to receive the U.S. Legion of Merit. Slim, smart Air Commodore Frank Whittle of the R.A.F. was brimming (in a reserved, don't-spill-a-drop British manner) with enthusiasm for the jet age.

Britain's experimental jet-powered passenger plane, the Nene-Lancastrian, said Whittle, was "an almost alarming-success." Flying on jets alone, she was uncannily quiet. "You can hear the engines of other planes. Imagine what that means to flying! Almost everybody gets tired on airplanes. It's the noise and vibration that does it. In a jet plane you can rest."

The jets' high fuel consumption? Not a permanent obstacle. Said Whittle: "Jets don't waste fuel when they're doing what they're designed for: flying fast at high altitude. But when they have to circle slowly around at low altitude waiting to land, they use enormous quantities."

On supersonic speed, Whittle was not as optimistic. The obstacle of the shock wave (which racks a plane as it nears the speed of sound) is still unlicked. Swept-back wings, he felt, would push the speed limit upward, but they could push no plane across the sound threshold.

Even speeds now reachable, he mused, were pretty sticky for the pilots. "Bailing out is a bit of a problem. If a pilot bails out of a plane speeding 600 m.p.h., the air slows him down so suddenly that he gets a decelerating force of about 30 'Gs.' [Every part of his body weighs 30 times as much as normal.] This is a bit too much." To live, said Whittle, "the pilot will have to be tossed out in some sort of streamlined box," so he won't slow down too quickly.

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