Power Jets
| Limited company | |
| Industry | Aircraft jet engines |
| Fate | Merged with RAE forming NGTE Pyestock |
| Founded | 27 January 1936 |
| Founder | Sir Frank Whittle |
| Defunct | 1945 |
| Headquarters |
Rugby, Warwickshire (initially in 1936) Lutterworth (from January 1938) |
|
Area served
|
UK |
|
Key people
|
James Collingwood Tinling, Sir William Hawthorne |
| Products | Gas turbines |
| Services | Gas turbine research |
| Divisions | Whetstone |
Power Jets Ltd was a British company set up by Frank Whittle for the purpose of designing and manufacturing jet engines. The company was nationalised in 1944, and evolved into the National Gas Turbine Establishment.
Founded on January 27, 1936, the company consisted of Whittle, Rolf Dudley-Williams, James Collingwood Tinling, and Lancelot Law Whyte of investment bankers O T Falk & Partners.
Initial premises were hired from British Thomson-Houston (BTH) at Rugby, Warwickshire. In addition to the founder members, the company initially 'borrowed' some fitters from BTH to assist in the project and later Power Jets was able to get 'one or two' people on loan from the Royal Air Force. By the beginning of 1940 the company had a total workforce of about twenty five. In 1938 Power Jets had moved from Rugby to BTH's works in Lutterworth.
A major breakthrough for the company came in 1940 when at the prompting of Stanley Hooker, Ernest Hives, chairman of Rolls-Royce, visited Lutterworth, and offered to make any parts Whittle required at Rolls-Royce's Derby experimental shop.
The Power Jets WU design was the first turbojet to run, being first tested on April 12, 1937, and the Power Jets W.1 powered the Gloster E.28/39, the first jet aircraft to fly in the United Kingdom. The W.1 was also the first jet engine built in the United States where, as the General Electric I-A, it was the first US-built jet engine to run, and as the production General Electric J31 it powered the Bell P-59A Airacomet.
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Wikipedia