FRANKS FOR THE MEMORY
IT was on this day 92 years ago that a patent would be granted that would have far reaching consequences for Derby. On June 28, 1930, RAF pilot Frank Whittle – later to become “Sir Frank Whittle – patented his design for a jet engine.
Earlier the previous year the young pilot and engineer had conceived how to make a new kind of aero-engine that would replace the noisy piston engines that powered the propeller planes he flew. He called it a “turbo-jet”. The jet age had just begun.
He once recalled who the idea came to him: “The penny dropped. I thought, throw away that propeller and substitute a gas turbine for the piston engine”.
And rather like the apocryphal take of Pythagoras, he recalled: “The idea just came out of the blue. Maybe I was having a bath!”
His turbine would drive a front compressor that sucks in air, which is then ignited to produce a jet of hot gas. This escapes out of the back of the engine, pushing the aircraft forward – and at faster speeds.
Sir Frank’s connection with Derby would run deep after Rolls-Royce came to the rescue of the troubled Gloster Meteor project during the dark days of the Second World War. The companies building the turbojets were in trouble – and Sir Frank’s own health was suffering – and it was only saved after Rolls-Royce’s intervention in 1942. It paved the way for Derby to become a worldrenowned centre for jet engine production.
Sir Frank had always wanted Rolls-Royce to help and ideally, he would have joined the company after the war but he wanted to continue his RAF career.
In January 1940, Whittle had met Dr Stanley Hooker of Rolls-Royce, who in turn introduced Whittle to board member and manager of the Derby factory, Ernest Hives (later Lord Hives). Hooker was in charge of the supercharger division at Derby and was a specialist in fluid dynamics. He had already increased the power of the Merlin piston engine by improving its supercharger.
Hives agreed to supply key parts to help the project.
Sir Fran remained close to the company and his visits saw him become a popular figure on the factory floor – he always preferred to see what the workforce was making to grand meals laid on for him in the boardroom.
Sir Frank died in 1996 aged 89, but his legacy lives on in Derby in the Rolls-Royce set engines that criss-cross the world, and of course, the road that was named in his honour in 1985.