Duncan Campbell-Smith > Quotes

“Courtesy of the German Trade Commission in London, the series included copies of drawings that had been filed with Whittle’s patent submissions, much to his dismay.”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“The man had come straight from working in the German aircraft industry, and had told his new Scottish colleagues that he had personal knowledge of several aeronautical engineers in Germany ‘working on jet propulsion’.”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“The W.1A did prove itself an exceptional design in the end: it was actually the first jet engine ever to pass the ‘100-hour test’, which it did late in 1942 with more than half the continuous running time achieved at almost full speed.”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“Some of his most important and fruitful decisions such as… the Mosquito… and Whittle’s jet were taken against formidable technical advice…’.”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“In short, all development contracts for the jet would henceforth be awarded not to Power Jets but to Rover.”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“Whittle had warned many times of the mechanical flaws in Rover’s work. As so often in the past, events had borne out his comments.”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“the awful fear that Germany, with its widely admired industrial prowess and rapidly expanding factory capacity, might secretly have forged ahead in the aeronautical arms race by developing a jet engine of its own.”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“The axial-compressor engine always favoured at Farnborough would not be abandoned.”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“They were looking at the trails left by aircraft with a jet engine on each wing, but without the tricycle undercarriage that he and Carter had incorporated into the Gloster designs for the E.28/39, lifting its tail plane into the air.”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“The plane sat on a novel ‘tricycle’ arrangement of three wheels as proposed by Whittle in October 1938,”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“Whittle discovered from a supplier on one occasion that drawings of a compressor casing provided by Rover had actually been ‘photostat copies of Power Jets’ drawings with all reference to Power Jets removed and no acknowledgement of the origin of the drawing[”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“The Air Ministry gave any notion of a partnership short shrift. Far from encouraging the two parties to work together, the Ministry made clear its disapproval of too close a liaison.”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“anxious to see for themselves this new technology that had been miraculously produced on a shoestring budget by a tiny company outside the established aircraft industry.”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“The barnstorming Canadian had tried hard to cancel the Mosquito aircraft and Airborne Interception radar,”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

“The best engineers in the aeronautical establishment, unquestionably fascinated by his jet project and ready to assist it, were discouraged from doing so.”
― Duncan Campbell-Smith, Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution