Jet Engines: Books - History and Construction (1/2)

The Jet Engine (5th Edition)

The Jet Engine provides a complete, accessible description of the working and underlying principles of the gas turbine.

Features:
- Accessible, non-technical approach explaining the workings of jet engines, for readers of all levels
- Full colour diagrams, cutaways and photographs throughout
- Written by RR specialists in all the respective fields
- Hugely popular and well-reviewed book, originally published in 2005 under Rolls Royce's own imprint.

Jet Engines - Fundamentals of Theory, Design and Operation

For those who wish to broaden their knowledge of jet engine technology and associated subjects. It covers turbojet, turboprop and turbofan designs and is applicable to civilian and military usage.

Starting with an overview of the main design types and fundamentals, it goes on to look at topics such as air intakes, compressors, and exhaust systems. Thrust augmentation and engine systems follow with chapters on environmental considerations and airframe integration concluding the work.

Jet - Frank Whittle and the Invention of the Jet Engine

On 12 April 1937 Frank Whittle became the first person to successfully start and run a turbojet engine. In May 1941 the engine took to the air in an experimental Gloster-Whittle aircraft, but despite the RAF's desperate need for air supremacy over her enemies, little support was forthcoming from the military establishment.
It was the enthusiasm of the American General 'Hap' Arnold that took the next stage of development to the USA and within six months Whittle's invention was powering more American Jets than British.
This is the story of the genius throttled by British government bureaucracy, for even when in 1943 Rolls-Royce became involved with the successful design and manufacture of engines based on Whittle's concepts, his company was nationalised and banned from engine production!
Although gagged for decades by the secrecy of that period, the story can now be told in full and these revelations provide a fascinating insight into the attitudes of the wartime government and military establishment, attitudes that led to one of the greatest inventions of all time being offered freely to those who were to become Britain's main aircraft manufacturing competitors.

This book was previously known as "Genesis of the Jet: Frank Whittle and the invention of the Jet Engine". As part of this new release we have included a supplement by Ian Whittle and a copy of the patents registered in Berlin back in 1931 currently on display at the Deutsches Museum in Germany.

Turbojet History and Development 1930-1960 (Volume 1) - Great Britain and Germany

This first of two volumes looks at the pioneering work of British and German designers and manufacturers, starting with the very first jet engines designed by Frank Whittle before World War Two. Technical details are set in their matrix of events, personalities, politics and world history.
The text is supported with almost 300 black & white photographs and drawings and the book is complete with appendices, including engine data tables.

Turbojet History and Development 1930-1960 (Volume 2)

In the second and final volume of this complete history of the early years of the jet engine, Tony Kay covers all the countries to embark on jet engine development after the leads established by Great Britain and Germany before World War Two.

Most important amongst these countries, in terms of turbojet development, are the United States, France and the USSR, but the book also covers the engines produced by Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Hungary, Japan and Italy.

Superby illustrated with hundreds of photographs of engines - turbojet, turboprop, turboshaft and turbofan - and the aircraft that they powered.

Making Jet Engines in World War II - Britain, Germany, and the United States

Our stories of industrial innovation tend to focus on individual initiative and lone breakthroughs. With "Making Jet Engines", Hermione Giffard uses the case of the development of jet engines during World War II to offer a different way of understanding technological innovation, revealing the complicated mix of factors that go into any decision to pursue an innovative, and therefore risky technology.

Giffard compares the approaches of Germany, Britain and the United States, showing that each approached jet engines in different ways because of its own particular war aims and industrial expertise.

Germany (Junkers, Bramo, BMW, Daimler-Benz), which produced more jet engines than the others, did so largely as replacements for more expensive piston engines.
Britain (Rolls-Royce, De Havilland, Armstrong-Siddeley, Bristol, Napier), on the other hand, produced relatively few engines but, by shifting emphasis to design rather than production, found itself at war's end holding an unrivaled range of designs.
The US (General Electric) emphasis on development, meanwhile, built an institutional basis for postwar production.

Taken together, Giffard's accounts make a powerful case for a more nuanced understanding of technological innovation, one that takes into account the influence of the many organizational factors that play a part in the journey from idea to finished product.