The birth of the Jet

On 8th April 1941 a top-secret event which was to revolutionise world aviation took place at Brockworth in the County of Gloucestershire.

After initial taxi trials the pilot PEG Sayer pushed the throttle lever forward until the engine indicator read 16,000 rpm and the Gloster E28/39, Britain's first jet aircraft, became airborne.

To avoid the possibility of bomb damage at Brockworth, a likely Luftwaffe target, this diminutive aircraft had been fitted with Sir Frank Whittle's revolutionary gas turbine engine at Regent Motors in Cheltenham, where the Regent Arcade now stands. During these initial trials the E28/39 or Gloster Whittle made three hops reaching a height of only 1.8m. This was sufficient to distinguish the Brockworth airfield as the site of the first allied jet flight and therefore an international aviation heritage site.

According to Sir Ralph Robins, the Chairman of Rolls-Royce, "Frank Whittle's pioneering work on the turbojet engine is probably the most important mechanical invention this century. Certainly there can be few, if any in the world, whose lives have not been affected by it". It is this event which forms the fulcrum of Gloucestershire Aviation Collection's JET AGE Museum.

How was it that Britain's first jet aircraft came to be designed, built and flown for the first time in the rural tranquillity of Gloucestershire?

The surprising fact is that Gloucestershire can boast a greater association with aviation and aerospace than any other county in Britain.

This long tradition, which saw many famous aircraft types that were built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company and Parnall in the south of the county to the Gloster Aircraft Company in the north, continues today in Rolls-Royce engines at Filton to Messier-Dowty and Smiths Industries Aerospace near Cheltenham.

Extract from Gloucestershire's Aviation Heritage and JET AGE Museum Publication

© Martin R Bartram 1998.

Available from the Museum for £3.50+P&P

E-Mail Noel Griffiths at: noel.griffiths@virgin.net quoting the above Publication and this Web Site for exact price to yourself.