Whittle supported by British Thompson-Houston

Suppose Frank Whittle garners supports from British Thompson-Houston in 1930 for his ideas about turbojets. They begin with an investment of 60, 000 pounds ans manage to develop a working prototype jet engine. What happens as a result?
 
Well it would speed some things up since going from memory they often had to build individual parts and single engines, plus reuse other parts from experimental engine to engine as they were so short of cash which ended up being a false economy but not something they could be changed at the time. How much I couldn't exactly say since its been a while since I read about this stuff. Having the backing of an established respectable firm is going to potentially make things easier attracting extra finance or support from the various government departments.
 
Once Power Jets/Whittle had capital in 1938 they built the first engine pretty quickly. Whittle also lost the patent in 1935, and as a double irony Thompson-Houston is a GE derivative, making huge leaps and profits in jet engines to this day (Peebles Ohio etc)
 
Whittle also lost the patent in 1935...
That's actually been something I've been meaning to start a thread to ask about since I know next to nothing about how patents work - if he had been able to renew his patents and also take out others in overseas countries how much control would he have over the jet engine industry internationally? Will probably do it tomorrow at some point.


... and as a double irony Thompson-Houston is a GE derivative, making huge leaps and profits in jet engines to this day (Peebles Ohio etc.).
Not the UK subsidiary. It was apparently bought out and taken over by British owners in 1928, being merged with the similar Metropolitan-Vickers companies to form Associated Electrical Industries although they kept the separate brand names in operation. At least according to the Genocide.
 
Apologies, it's a nickname that kind of developed for Wikipedia. :) Their page for British Thomson-Houston for which I got the details of their merger with parts of Metropolitan-Vickers to become Associated Electrical Industries in 1928 is here.
 
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