Milestone for Westinghouse

With a blast of newspaper ads last week, Westinghouse Electric Corp. boasted it had "the world's most powerful jet engine qualified for production." The new model of its J40 turbojet, said Westinghouse, produces "more than 25,000 h.p. at flight speeds," will go into the Navy's McDonnell Demon and Douglas Skyray fighters.

Aircraft men smiled at Westinghouse's sweeping claims. Horsepower "at flight speeds" is a misleading phrase, since jet horsepower varies with a plane's speed, altitude and other factors. The standard measure of jet power is pounds of static thrust at 375 m.p.h. at sea level. In those terms, the J-40's thrust is somewhere around 10,000 Ibs. But this was with afterburner attachments (which eat fuel so fast they can only be used in short bursts). Without afterburners, guessed American Aviation Daily, the J-40's thrust is closer to 8,500 Ibs.

Nevertheless, this made the J40 momentarily the most powerful, because it has "qualified" for production--i.e., passed 150 hours of test on stand. Pratt & Whitney's J57 engine, which produces 10,000 Ibs. thrust without burners, has not yet been "qualified," although it is already flying in the B-52.

If not quite as advertised, the J40 is. nevertheless, a milestone in Westinghouse's progress in the engine field. Westinghouse, which was' the first company to produce an American-designed jet engine in World War II, now also supplies the engines which power several Navy fighters. President Gwilym Price has poured on the coal to expand Westinghouse, not only in jets but in other propulsion fields. Among them: gas turbines (for locomotives), atomic power (for submarines and supercarriers), marine engines (for the superliner United States and Arctic icebreakers). As a result of Price's efforts, enginemaking is now 20% of Westinghouse's business and he plans to make it more. Said he: "We live in a footloose age, in a world of motion."

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