Yes, you may…
Right out of Capt. Mid-Night…
The Air Ministry was not so much afraid that the Germans may learn anything from the engine design, but they may have learnt the metallurgical secrets.
I have heard that the Germans lacked the alloys -did have the metallugical knowledge (The pre series 004´s had a much longer life expectancy), but not the components.
The Caproni “jet” was a dog if there ever was any, and as it used a piston engine to deliver the jet thrust, wasn´t what is normally called a jet, and would have flown far better had the engine driven a propeller instead.
The problem with the German jets wasn’t just the alloys, although that in itself caused a whole load of subsequent problems (for instance, they were using actively cooled turbine blades 20 years before anyone else - due to the metallurgy - and that gave them airflow nightmares). There was also something seriously wrong with the second generation of German jet engines, but I’ve never managed to find out what. They were allegedly very advanced, but every single country that tried to work on them postwar dropped them completely and used Whittle derivatives, even when to do so was politically very difficult (c.f. Soviet Union!).
Quite right. The German’s were up on metallugy, but had virtually no tungsten, titanium etc. throughout the Hitler years, so could not even experiment. Speer mentions in “Inside the Third Reich”, how they had fallen behind in this area.
You are right about the Caproni too, point though, is that popular histories suggest that ‘jets’ were a big shock wonder -weapon in 1944-- aviators and engineers of the time were vey aware of them.
I didn’t know that, although I did know that GE experimented with injecting water into the compressors in their post-war experimental engines with little success.
They were allegedly very advanced, but every single country that tried to work on them postwar dropped them completely and used Whittle derivatives, even when to do so was politically very difficult (c.f. Soviet Union!).
The Soviet Union used the Whittle pattern because, on his own initiative, the head of the British Board of Trade in the 1947 Labour Government (post Churchill), one Harold Wilson-- sent 100 copies, plus blueprints of the Rolls-Royce Nene ( the same that powered the later F80s and the Sabre F86 ). The Russians produced it as the Klimov RD45. MI5, and many others, believed that Wilson (later Prime Minister) was a Soviet agent. He also killed a dozen advanced British aviation projects including the TSR2 and the ‘Super-Harrier’.
That still happens - the Harrier jump jet does exactly this, and there are a number of Combined Cycle Gas Turbine power stations that do the same, although for different reasons.
Except the Soviets had the German “super” jet designs, along with their designers, since 1945 - and never managed to make them work properly.
But USSR never abandoned the idea of Axial jet and consistently developed prototypes ( i.e.e the Jumo004) untill we got the first really working and effective RD-7 in 1952.
and p.s. to get the Nine 2 was’t really “political difficult”
Except the Soviets had the German “super” jet designs, along with their designers, since 1945 - and never managed to make them work properly
It worked enough well for practical use yet in beginning of 1950…
…point though, is that popular histories suggest that ‘jets’ were a big shock wonder -weapon in 1944-- aviators and engineers of the time were vey aware of them.
I guess it might have been a shock too all not informed, and the number of informed people was kept deliberately low.
On the contrary–it was one of the worst kept secrets of the war.
This is a quote from 'Flight Magazine of January 1944.
The Whittle-Carter Combination
THE most jealously guarded secret in modern aviation
history, and at the same time the bestknown,
was suddenly revealed on January 6th
when a joint statement was issued by the War Department,
Washington, on behalf of the Royal Air Force and
the U.S. Army Air Forces, mentioning for the first time
the existence of the jet-propelled Gloster monoplane.
You can read the full article here [URL=“http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1944/1944%20-%200061.html”]
The whole of 1943 and 1944 issues are peppered with hints as the journalists were obviously ‘in the know’ and covered their tracks by referring to US developments and as the article suggests–you could hardly test a jet plane near an English city without two million people knowing all about it. There is a very knowing article in the September 1941 issue.
Now the existence of Allied jet fighters was made public in January 1944— the ME 262’s first reported combat contact was in July that year against an RAF Mosquito-- although there were sporadic actions against against Allied aircraft from August 1944 onwards, the ME262 did not get into action in serious numbers until December 1944, most production having been destroyed on the ground. From August 1944 there are detailed articles in aviation magazines on the specs of the ME262 and other German jets. I would guess that as Allied Intelligence well knew of the deployment of the ME262 they spread as much information as they could so there was no “Shock horror”, especially among aircrews.
I dunno, would you care to walk up to Stalin and ask him to let you approach the Imperialists for help? As it turned out he was OK with it, but IIRC the people who asked were pretty scared of his possible reaction.
My understanding is that postwar Soviet jet engines are derived from a mixture of prewar Soviet work and the Rolls-Royce engines imported. I’d love to get more details (any recommendations for good books on the subject?), but my understanding is that the captured German jet engine designs never really led anywhere, eventually being abandoned as developmental dead ends.
Stalin is reputed to have said to have said “What fool would give up his secrets?” It seems Atlee, Cripps and Wilson were such fools.
My understanding is that postwar Soviet jet engines are derived from a mixture of prewar Soviet work and the Rolls-Royce engines imported. I’d love to get more details (any recommendations for good books on the subject?), but my understanding is that the captured German jet engine designs never really led anywhere, eventually being abandoned as developmental dead ends.
Try
Gunston, Bill. World Encyclopedia of Aero Engines. Cambridge, England. Patrick Stephens Limited, 1989. ISBN 1-85260-163-9
The following link is to a rather dated relic of the cold war-- a report on Soviet ‘aquisition’ of Western technology. Interesting, it refers to my earlier post on metallurgy technology, that the Soviets had ‘Nimonic’ Nickel Alloy technology in their RD-45 Nene copy.
The report also suggests that the Soviets basically bought, borrowed or filched whatever they could from Western technology–but I think we all knew that.
More here
[URL=“http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/best_enemy/chapter_06.htm#first%20soviet%20jet%20engine”]
The comparatively simple RD-45 proved troublesome due to Soviet inexperience with engineering and materials, but was further improved to produce the VK-1 which differed from the Nene in having larger combustion chamber
The Soviets partially tackled the metallurgical issue by touring the Rolls-Royce plant in specially-designed shoes intended to pick up metal shavings for later analysis. The VK-1F added the afterburner.
Further to my earlier post re the ‘secrecy’ of jet-propulsion.
Here’s a very clumsy piece of Ministry of Aircraft Production disinformation from the August 1941 ‘Flight’ magazine. I am sure that it was no co-incidence that the Gloster prototype had started test flights three months before the article and one can guess that the article’s writer G.Geoffery Smith had witnessed one of the flights (so much for secrecy, an 8mm home-movie colour film taken illicitly of the very first flight by one of the ground crew has recently surfaced).
Unable to boast of the development, he wrote a series of artcles that allude to experiments in every country except the UK and US, especially about the ‘dead-end’ developments.
The Flightgolbal website is a treasure-trove of contemporary information.
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1941/1941%20-%201949.html?search=jet%20propulsion
This is true mr cato.
The RD-45 was unsuitable for relatively primitive soviet tehnological equipment in 1947-49.So the Klimov VK-1 was a way to adopt it to soviet inductrial possibilities.
What is interesting. The RD-45 wasn’t a first soviet copy of foreign jets.
In 1946 the firs soviet jet RD-10 was made (full copy of Jumo 004) and RD-20/21( BMW004). It were installed on first soviet jet Mig-9 and Jak-15.
The life expectancy of soviet made Jumo004 reach …the 150 hours, that was more then original germans due to lack of nickel in Germany.So already in 1946-47 the Germans made axial engines work enough well.
However the well know lack of first geamsn axials jet were low thrust that make the first jets slow-accelerated… It was a serious problem.Thought it worked just fine in hight altitude and big speed, however it wasn’t major characteristic for first-age subsonic jets.
So the soviet have to buy and adopt the British Turbo-jet Nine2 to Mig-15:)it was a compromiss desicion for its time.
The problems with the German axial compressors were nothing to do with life expectancy, if that makes sense. If that was their only problem, the Soviets could just have copied the metal used in the Nene turbine blades and that would have fixed it. Rather, there are major control and stability problems with axial compressors. I know the first generation German jet engines suffered from these, and my suspicion is that the second generation engines suffered even more badly.
The real genius of Whittle was that while he understood that Axial compressors were the future, he also understood that they would take an enormous amount of work to get to a useful state - and that a centrifugal compressor would allow them to avoid this. He wasn’t the first to come up with the idea, or even the first in the UK (A.A. Griffith was working on Axial turbojets some time before Whittle). He built the first practical engine, however, and for that reason is remembered as the father of the jet engine.
Stalin never ignored any possibility of help if it has deal to top State sequrity or defence.The Jet engine was a such critical field.
Plus Stalin wasn’t needed to ask Imperialist for help . Sometimes the hight educated and motivated poples absolutly voluntary provided the top secrets datas to soviet intelligent service. See the Manhattan project…
My understanding is that postwar Soviet jet engines are derived from a mixture of prewar Soviet work and the Rolls-Royce engines imported. I’d love to get more details (any recommendations for good books on the subject?), but my understanding is that the captured German jet engine designs never really led anywhere, eventually being abandoned as developmental dead ends.
The postwar soviet jet engines designs were actualy mixture of british and German experience. The Soviet pre-war own design were obsolet hopeless. coz during the war all works with jets were cut down. So the best that we had in 1945 were cuptured Jumo004 and group of GErman engineers.They work in USSR untill 1947, then returned back to DDR.
They has done not a much …just as i said the RD-10/20/21 that were not enought proper for it time.
Howerer the germans RD-20 were in base of all further soviet Axial enjines. Strictly, the German axial jet were superiour for its time,the turbo-jets like Whittle pattern was low-speed compromiss and it was in service only for short time, until the axial has conquered the air finally. Future belongs to germans born axial jet engines .
Of course the blades wasn’t just a problem, coz when the RD-20 was ready for use in 1946 it was still too weak to pull the fighter.There were needs at least couple of RD-20 ( like it was in Mig-9) to reach minimal speed.But two engines scheme for fighter wasn’t also superior . So finaly the first axial were repleaced by Turbojet.But works went on.
The potential, that lies in Jumo004 was much bigger than in Nine2. It was proved by time.
Agreed, the potential of axial flow compressors was much greater (indeed, the Nene was rapidly replaced by axial flow turbojets such as the Avon in the UK as well). What I remain to be convinced of (and would love references to dead tree books I can dig through, if you know of any in English translation) is that the Soviet axial compressors derive from the German work. As I understand it, the prewar Soviet Jet work was based on axial compressors, and there was a significant amount of work on steam turbines which is also directly applicable.
Yes Arkhip Lyulka in USSR worked on the Jet turbin.
He actualy created in Leningrad the first at world working prototype of double jet Axial turbofan in 1939-1941, however it wasn’t fully ready ( roughtly 70%) even for primary flying testings.
In june 1941 all works were stopped until the war war over.
So the question is, how much of the postwar Soviet Axial jet engines were descended from this work, and how much from the German work? I suspect the majority was actually from this prewar Soviet work.