In article ,
Peter Stickney wrote:
In article ,
(ANDREW ROBERT BREEN) writes:
In article ,
Keith Willshaw wrote:

"Erich Adler" wrote in message
We could discuss Allied centrifugal jets that lost out in the long
run. German engineers told them that in 1945.

Uh, no. You're thinking "Metropolitan-Vickers in 1943"

Or GE in 1941 (TG-100/T-31)
Or GE in 1944 (TG-180/J35)
Or Westinghouse in 1943 (X19/J30)
Or...

Yep - though IIRC the Metrovick engine was the first allied axial-
flow turbine to fly (what's rather startling is that within
a few months M-V had developed it into a *turbofan* - the F3 -
although that never flew)

Axial compressors, and their potential benefits, were well known long
before with Whittle or von Ohain ran their engines. In fact, one of
the reasons that the RAF was so reluctant to find Whittles'
experiements was becasue the Air Minitry's tame Gas Turbine expert,
Griffith, was so enamoured of his own over-complicated, unsuccessful
axial complressor designs that he refused to believe that compressors
could, in fact, be that simple.

Agreed, seconded..
Once they did accept that something that simple could work, all marks
to the ministry (and to the allies in general) for deciding that a
slightly-less-than-ideal engine which could be built *right now*
and made reliable *real soon now* was prefereable to an obstensibly
better design which wasn't going to work well any time in the near
future (and you could always push the axial flow designs along while
productionising the centrifugal-flow engines)

American and US companies were already working on axial flow designs
before the end of the war. They knew very well that the centrifugal
design had a limited scope for development but they also knew
it would be easier to produce a reliable engine that way. This
turned out to be correct.

Could argue that - in Britain at least - we lost interest in the
centrifugal flow engine just a touch too early. There was very little
interest in the Nene, IIRC, which is why it was regarded as OK to
sell the design to Russia (while hanging on tight to the Sapphire
and Avon). Of course, the Nene worked very well in MiG15 (and also,
IIRC, in the Tunnen as well as a few other designs). In fact it must
have been the last centrifugal flow engine to power an aircraft in
combat - when did the Indian Sea Hawks go?

And at twice the power of anything the Germans ever achieved. The J33
and J35 both ran in early 1944, The Rolls Nene, developed as a
response to the J33, ran in late '44. Westinghouse was running the
J30, mentioned above, the J32 9.5" diameter missile engine, and the
J34, and Metrovick had the Beryl in production adn were working on the
Sapphire by the time anyone on the Allied side got to touch a German
engine.

Surely the Avon must have been in early development by then as well,
though it didn't work very well until Hooker got put in charge of it.

And why one Adolf Galland - who flew both - rated the Meteor as
a better fighter than the 262. It had *much* better engines.
I'll grant that he did say the 262 might have been better if it
had Derwents, but it would be interesting to try and mate the two.

An interesting noe in the report of U.S.A.A.F testing of war prize Me
262s at Freeman Field, Ohio, after the war is available on the Defence
Technical Information Center site:
http://stinet.dtic.mil/

One comment in the report was that they did no specific single-engine
testing - They got plenty of single-engine time due to engine failure.

*lovely*. Just what you want.

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
"Time has stopped, says the Black Lion clock
and eternity has begun" (Dylan Thomas)