Talk:Hans von Ohain: Difference between revisions

Hans von Ohain. After intensive research by the British Lirary and the Inst.of Mechanical Engineers I am assured that Ohain did not have a patent on jet engines.The two patents he had in 1936 and 1938 did not deal with jet engines and he said that he was annoyed that Whittle's 1931 patent did not allow one.Since he got the idea from Whittle'patent his application was refused.Ohain'contribution to the development of the jet engine was minimal and the German Air Ministry desperate for jet engines in 1938 ignored Ohain design which was extremely bad and would never have served as a jet engine.Whittle development was delayed because until 1936 there were no suitable steel for the turbine. I was on the RAF's Special Duties List from 1940 to1945 doing R&D on jet engines.

        W.BAILEY BSc CEng PEng MIMechE

I'm not sure I can accept any of these statements. For one, the patent in question dates from 1935, not 36 (although it was granted in 1937). The patent was kept secret, and all such records were destroyed during the war. Before you claim it simply didn't exist, note that some of the diagrams from the original did survive, and show a design with real differences with Whittle's design. We also know that von Ohain was presented with a copy of Whittle's patent by the patent examiner after he filed, but was granted a patent anyway as the examiner felt the differences were great enough to be defendable.

I am assuming you are confused by the fact that if you look for a patent with the name "Hans von Ohain" on it, you will instead find a different patent for some sort of electrical gadget. Note that he received 30 patents while working at Heinkel, of which only and handful survive. You can read all about it here:

[1] [2]

I am very curious how it is that someone at the British Library convinced you otherwise.

But it is really the rest of the statements I have to pick a bone with. You start by claiming that von Ohain developed his ideas from Whittle's. Many British authors make this claim, but let me be clear on this, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that this is the case.

Nor is there any reason to even suspect this is the case; there were at least five separate teams working on gas turbine engines by 1937, Whittle (centrifugal, Power Jets), Griffiths/Constant (axial, RAE), von Ohain (centrifugal, Heinkel), Wagner/Müller (axial, Junkers and later Heinkel), and Lysholm in Stockholm (don't know). In fact, the article above (on patent law) notes a similar design dating to 1921, and I am aware of eve The idea was clearly "out there", and most of these early efforts appear to be largely or completely independant.

Note that the article above, on patent law, references a 1921 patent on the topic. If you wish to claim that von Ohain simply copied Whittle, I will ask you to explain how it is then that you believe Whittle didn't simply copy this earlier design? Also note that my article on the timeline of jet power points out a number of attempts to build gas turbine engines for industrial use starting in the early 1900s. Someone was going to be first to make a jet engine work, and that someone just happened to be von Ohain.

Let's not forget that Whittle himself was eventually convinced that von Ohain's development was completely independant and the two became good friends and would often go on speaking tours together. I'll accept Whittle's word on this one.

Then you claim "ignored Ohain design which was extremely bad and would never have served as a jet engine", which seems to fly in the face of the obvious fact that his engine did fly, and was the first to do so. There was nothing wrong with the design, and nothing to suggest that it wouldn't have worked fine in production. Work on the HeS 8 was deliberately stopped because the 003 and 004 were considered better long-term bets, as well as politically more acceptable. Hans Mauch wanted all jet development to take place at the major engine companies, and since von Ohain was working at Heinkel, it was seriously frowned upon. Heinkel eventually managed to avoid this via his purchase of Hirth Motoren, but by the time the teams (Müller had recently moved to Rostok as well) were moved to their new location, Schelp had already stopped work on their designs in favour of the HeS 011.

And finally you note "Whittle development was delayed because until 1936 there were no suitable steel for the turbine." Well that's largely beside the point. Whittle's work was delayed primarily for one reason; he had no money. THAT is why von Ohain's engine was the first to fly, because Heinkel took him under his wing and set him up with a complete shop and testing systems, vital parts of any development project that Whittle didn't receive until 1938/39. Don't get me wrong, I fully believe that Whittle's design was better than Ohain's, and that had he been given the same level of support his design would be flying first. But he wasn't, and it didn't. It's that simple.

Maury 13:41, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Where He Got The Idea

I once heard from someone who knew von Ohain personally that he told people that he conceived the idea for the jet engine and it's eventual design from dreams he had. Does anyone know about this? Has he ever said anything like that before?

Whittle invented Jet Engine

I think the debate is surely about who invented the jet engine concept. That was Sir Frank Whittle. Most people agree with this, and there is archive footage and documents to support this. The only people likely to diagree are either German or argumentative and spiteful. UK children, English children, should be taught this - Frank Whittle basically 'gave' his design to the people (due to lack of funds and perhaps a general lack of ego which resulted in him forgoing the millions he could have earned through patents). His polite, humourous nature is also documented, along with the detrimental affect his struggle for acceptance had on his health.

As for saying 'I fully believe Whittle's design WAS better than Ohain's'....well, it IS better, and I think you'll find it is exactly the same engine you'll find behind each jet plane in the sky. Perhaps you could argue that they are biased but each pilot I meet and each person in the RAF counts FW as the inventor. He may have become good friends with Ohain but that only means that FW acknowledged that Ohain was an engineer who's lifeswork was also jet engineering. It does not mean he patted him on the back and said 'oh yes, you helped me invent it'!

BBC programme on the jet engine (with Jeremy Clarkson) covered it well. As the programme says, had the proper patent been in place, FW would have been richer than is imaginable. Because he invented the jet engine you see?!

Whittle was not the only one to invent the jet engine. The jet engine concept was widely known at the time. Can I make it any more clear than that?

There are real-world physical testbed models of turbine engines that date back to about the turn of the century, almost 30 years before Whittle's first paper. Not papers, real-world working models. There are numerous patents for jet engines that are essentially identical to modern designs, one of the best dating to 1921 when Whittle was 14 years old. Over three years before Whittle's paper or patent, his countryman AA Griffiths was already building his first testbed design. I think you impugn Griffiths' honor more than anyone else's, if anyone can stake a solid claim to the title as the inventor of the jet engine (as opposed to turbine engine), it's clearly AA Griffiths. He was making serious proposals to use turbine engines for aircraft propulsion in 1924, when Whittle was 17 and just entering the RAF.

You also seem to illustrate a real lack of knowledge of jet engine design when you state in your second paragraph that Whittle's is the same engine you'll find today. That's just wrong. The von Ohain design was a centrifugal compressor with a centrifugal turbine, Whittle's had a centrifugal compressor and an axial turbine, Griffith's and Anslem's were axial / axial. Today, the VAST majority of jet engines are axial / axial. Whittle-style centrifugal / axial engines largely disappeared by 1960, and centrifugal stages are seen only as the HP compressors of high/low setups (cf. PWC PT-6). And it's also widely documented that Whittle did credit von Ohain with his developments being independent. Your speculation about his statements is nothing more than wishful thinking.

If you can explain how Whittle went back in time and invented the engine before he was born so that he could inspire the experiments circa 1905 , I'm all ears. If you can demonstrate how his 1930 paper somehow inspired Griffiths' one from 1924, I'll be just as impressed. And given that you claim that "there is archive footage and documents to support this", I'm sure you'd be perfectly happy to present all this evidence. Right? Instead of just making unsupported claims and ad hominem attacks about being German or spiteful? (how FidoNet circa 1985!)

Maury 01:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Nationalists' debate

When will you once for all stop a struggle which both (Whittle and Ohain) had settled !? This world will never live in peace with men like you Jaypee1 09:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Creator of first working jet plane

Article could go further than co-inventor, to state that Whittle created the idea, but that Hans von Ohain created the first working jet plane. Could even have a go at the British authorities, and praise the Nazis, probably one of the few times it would be appropriate to do so. Londo06 23:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)