As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, WTOP presents “250 Years of America,” a multipart series examining the innovations, breakthroughs and pivotal moments that have shaped the nation since 1776.
AAR is proud to partner with WTOP to bring you this series.
Britain’s Sir Frank Whittle is the forgotten co-founder of the jet engine.
A Royal Air Force officer in the 1920s, Whittle wrote a thesis for his graduation from flight school. His topic was on future ways to fly faster, higher and safer.
In 1930, Whittle designed and sought a patent on his first jet engine.
His idea languished and failed to gain traction during the turbulent times of the Great Depression and pre-World War II political uncertainty in Europe. The timing wasn’t right and the engine needed more research and development, but the idea was sound and technically feasible.
But as Whittle explained in this 1990s documentary, before he died in 1996, he believed if aviation was to expand and become the societal game changer he and others wanted it to be, planes would have to fly higher and faster, to be able to avoid weather and ultimately be safer than those powered by piston engines and propellers.
“If you wanted to go very fast and far, you would have to go very high, as high as 50,000 feet. Where the piston wouldn’t work and the propeller wouldn’t work,” he said.
Years before, a French inventor had filed a patent in that country for a jet engine, but it was technically not possible at the time and was never developed.
In the 1930s, German engineers were also working on their own jet engine prototypes.
A brilliant pilot and engineer, Whittle was accepted to Cambridge and he and others kept refining and improving his original idea.
It wasn’t until 1939, while almost running out of money, that the world changed.
The engine showed promise. With Europe now in an expanding war, Whittle’s ideas were getting the attention of military leaders in Britain, especially as Germany was far ahead on numerous technology issues relating to war fighting.
With the U.S. now on the cusp of entering World War II and just two months before Pearl Harbor, the newly developed British engine was introduced in secret to American military leaders at an event in Boston, as disclosed in a newsreel film.
“The jet story began the night of Oct. 4, 1941, with the arrival of the highly secret engine assembly at a Boston airport,” the narrator said.
More refinements were done in the U.S. by America’s civilian and military engineers.
During World War II, jet engines revolutionized aviation as planes flew higher and faster and were more lethal.
These combat jets laid the groundwork, just a few years later, for what would take place in commercial aviation when jet travel in the 1950s made it possible to fly around the world in hours, rather than days.
Professor Joe Schwietterman, a transportation and aviation expert and teaches transportation studies at DePaul University of Chicago, said, “When the 707 came online, that just made air travel, fast, elegant and reliable.”
The narrow-body Boeing 707 revolutionized passenger aviation in the 1950s. Today, its impact is felt with newer jets that use some of that original design from more than 60 years ago.
As for Frank Whittle, his post military career was distinguished. He received numerous military and civilian awards for the creation of the jet engine and military jets are widely recognized as one of the key factors why the U.S., England, France and Russia were victorious in World War II.
In the 1970s, Whittle moved to the U.S. and was an instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
He and his German rival, Hans von Ohain, eventually became friends after von Ohain himself moved to Dayton, Ohio and worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as its Chief Scientist. The two engineers gave lectures around the country about their work.
It was during one discussion that von Ohain volunteered that if Germany’s leaders had been aware of Whittle’s work in the late 1930s, World War II might have never started.
“If Hitler or Goering had heard that there is a man in England who flies 500 mph in a small experimental plane and that it is coming into development, it is likely that World War II would not have come into being,” von Ohain said in a book written by historian Margaret Conner, called Hans von Ohain, Elegance in Flight.
Whittle died in Maryland in 1996 at age 89. His cremated remains were returned to England and he was given a funeral with full military honors at Westminster Abbey and he was interred at St Michael’s Church at Royal Air Force Cranwell, in what is the spiritual home of the Royal Air Force and a beloved aviation memorial.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2026 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
