Jet aircraft in the 20's

The Coanda-1910 was the first jet-propelled aircraft ever built. It was constructed by Romanian inventor Henri Coanda. The aircraft was quite unconventional in design, and its most striking feature was its powerplant, since it featured a kind of thermojet, a hybrid of jet engines and piston engine technology.

The inventor Coanda was unaware of how powerful the engine was and during a test flight went airborne and crashed. WI instead of stopping his developements he kept trying to get his airvraft to fly? Would jets come about sooner? Would they see any action in WWI?
 
If at first you don't succeed, try try again. It would be interesting if he had.

Basically a jet engine is simpler and at the same time more powerful than a piston driven engine of the same size or larger. It is possible that it might have developed to the point where WWI aircraft would have been jet powered. It would have made for some dramatically different dogfights. I doubt it would have changed the outcome of WWI but it would have made it a more interesting war in some ways.

Since commercial air travel came in the mid-1920's certainly by then jets would have been pretty well perfected making that early air travel much faster, opening up the world much more.

I can see how it might have butterflyed several things over the years. WWII would have been a jet war all the way as far as the air war.

If the jet engine had been perfected that much earlier it might have led to the gas trubine engine replacing the piston engine in cars, trucks, and busses perhaps by the 1920's or 30's.

Interesting what might have happened if the jet had been invented and perfected that much earlier.
 
I don't see any jets in OTL 1920's. Why? Metalurgy - simply, there wasn't any materials yet that'd be able to withstand temperatures generated inside an engine for a reasonable amount of time - not to mention that early jet engines were very fuel-thirsty (limited range... even if the engine didn't set on fire)
 
engine

The development of the engine in to a fuctioning, reliable engine would have taken years, especially by a civilian during peace time. Then the question becomes whether or not the governments would buy and use the new engines.

There no doubt that jets would have flown in WW2, the question is... who would have had the fore sight to invest in them early on. With the Germans completely reinventing their air force, they could have picked up on it early. THe US, however had a history, at the time, no to invest in the most up-to-date equipement, and may have let the US air industry push them in to buying cheaper prop air craft, rather then having to invest and develope their own jet engines.

Does anyone know when the first operation jet engine was built by the US air industry?
 
Does anyone know when the first operation jet engine was built by the US air industry?

The first American jet Lockheed P-80 was handed over to the USAF in december 1945, while the first prototype the XP-80 flew on 8 january 1944.

The first German real jet (Messerschmitt Me 262)flew on 18 Juy 1942, the first operational Unit in the world (1/KG 51) was formed on 30 June 1944 (officially as a high-speed bomber).

In the UK the first jet prototype Gloster E28 flew on 15 May 1941, the first Gloster Meteor F1 was operational on 12 July 1944.

So there were operational jetfighters in WW2.
 
As Tizoc states, advances in metallurgy allowing truly high-performance jet engines may still have retarded things. Also, just because a plane has a reaction engine, it may not have a much better performance than an equivalent piston-engine plane if it is aerodynamically conservative. The p-59,He-176, He 178, and Gloster single engine prototype (I forget the name) did not exactly set the world on fire. Until the late 1930's lightly built biplanes were considered preferable as fighters to powerful, highly loaded monoplanes. A reaction powerplant on a biplane would not be the best mating of airframe and powerplant. Also, if memory serves, the Coanda engine was similar in concept to the "jet" engine used in the 1940 Camproni-Campini n1 - a piston-reaction hybrid which barely produced enough power to get the plane up to 200mph.
 
The first American jet Lockheed P-80 was handed over to the USAF in december 1945, while the first prototype the XP-80 flew on 8 january 1944.

The first German real jet (Messerschmitt Me 262)flew on 18 Juy 1942, the first operational Unit in the world (1/KG 51) was formed on 30 June 1944 (officially as a high-speed bomber).

In the UK the first jet prototype Gloster E28 flew on 15 May 1941, the first Gloster Meteor F1 was operational on 12 July 1944.

So there were operational jetfighters in WW2.

I don't think anyone is questioning that. The question is could jet engines have been perfected sufficiently early that virtually all aircraft by 1939-40 were jets - presumably the very high-performance types.
 
I think another question is would the military adopt a new concept (Jet) in the early 30's when piston driven a/c had better overall performance (range for example), reliability and lower cost?
It would have required new industries to manufacture the jet engines (as noted above regarding the metallurgy requirements) that many countries might not be willing to/have the resources to invest in during that time period.
 
I don't think anyone is questioning that. The question is could jet engines have been perfected sufficiently early that virtually all aircraft by 1939-40 were jets - presumably the very high-performance types.

It was an answer on the question about the first American jet. The E-28 was the prototype of the Meteor, a pre-production Meteor was called the E-29
The jet engines which were produced in WWII, were not enough developed to operate st full performance, the plane around the engine was not suited for the power source. So I think that a fleet of aircraft at the start of the war is impossible.
 
1910
Coanda-1910 flys haltingly

1911~1914
Small improvements in the Motor, and Compressor lead to more stable power
WW1 starts
1915
In attemps to get around the Gun/Propeller Problem several German Plane designers offer Coanda-1910 jet engines.
Limited power and Range, keep the number of these produced to a minium, but some find a place in Combat.
1918
Improvements in Gasoline Motors and Compessors, has boosted the power of Coanda-engines, In late 1918 a large order of these engines are produced, but to late to be fitted to Aircraft.

1920
Several dozen Coanda-Engines find their way to the US, where they are fitted to Race Boats, setting new water speed records.

1925
A Canadian and American Coanda-powered race Boats go head to head in lake Michigan to the Cheers of hundreds of Chicagians, Unfortunitally the Canadain wins.

1926~1929
Race Boat designers and Mechanics, invest Thousands in Inproving the preformace of the Coanda-Engine

1931
Gian Galeazzo Ciano, Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari wins the Roman Aeiral Gran Race In a all Metal, Twin Engine, Coanda equiped Seaplane.

1933
To a wildly enthuisiatic Crowd that includes his Father in Law, Gian Ciano does it [Wins] again.

1935
In England Frank Whittle produces the first Turbo- jet engine.

1936
Camproni-Campini Produces a Coanda powered Monoplane Fighter, for the Itailian Air Force.

1937
A Itailian Camproni-Campini, Coanda-09 go up against arussian Polikarpov I-16 Type 6, in the first jet powered Fighter action since the end of WW1.
Hitiler orders the Luftwaffe to buy jet Planes from Itally

1938
Britian begins a Research project to prefect Frank Whittle's Tubro-jet [this is 2 years eariler than OTL],
Britian also begins building Coanda powered planes.

1941
during May at the very end of the Battle of Britian the first British Turbo jet fighters, appear.

1942
First British/German all turbo jet dog fight.
 
Actually, there's way to do it around 9/39 without bypassing piston engines: improve turbosupercharging.
wikipedia said:
The turbocharger was invented by Swiss engineer Alfred Büchi. His patent for a turbo charger was applied for use in 1905....One of the first applications of a turbocharger to a non-Diesel engine came when General Electric engineer Sanford Moss attached a turbo to a V12 Liberty aircraft engine. The engine was tested at Pikes Peak at 14,000 feet (4,300 m) to demonstrate it could eliminate the power losses usually experienced as a result of reduced air pressure and density at high altitude.
That being true, turbo WW1 fighter engines are EZ. Turbocompound in the '20s is also EZ, & before '30, the turbo is producing more power than the "core". From there, it's a small step to eliminate the "core" & go pure turbine. The big issue is metals technology, but if turbos develop under military pressure from before WW1, that's solvable by 1939.
 
Well, it is verry possible for Gogu Constantinescu to have one less invention :):

"a hydraulic machine-gun synchronizer (or interrupter gear) - which allowed airplane-mounted-guns to shoot between the spinning blades of the propeller). The Constantinesco synchronization gear (or "CC" gear) was first used operationally on the D.H.4s of No. 55 squadron R.F.C. from March 1917, during World War I, and rapidly became standard equipment, replacing a variety of mechanical gears."

Text from here .

Iama
 

Hendryk

Banned
A working jet engine in the 1920s may lead to further research into the ramjet, whose principle was established back in 1908, but which wasn't developed further until the late 1930s due to the difficulty of reaching the required speed threshold. See my thread Solid State Propulsion.
 

Markus

Banned
I don't see any jets in OTL 1920's. Why? Metalurgy - simply, there wasn't any materials yet that'd be able to withstand temperatures generated inside an engine for a reasonable amount of time - not to mention that early jet engines were very fuel-thirsty (limited range... even if the engine didn't set on fire)

Me too, but for different reasons. Piston engines and propellers are a know technology with a lot of potential that can be used easily.
 
Geoffrey De-Havilland always maintained he could have put jet aircraft in service in WWII if Beaverbrook and the Air Ministry had let him.
 
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