Which WWIIcountry is in the frontier of the aerospace?

[Chiron]

Germany or Britain?

[FLYBOYJ]

Over all I would say Britian, but you would have to define technologies and specific aerospace sectors. Aircraft - I give to Britian, Helicopters, Germany. Space sciences - Germany, Eletronics - Britian. I could add others like composites, airframe construction, computer sciences related to aviation. Others?

[DAVIDICUS]

I would vote for Germany. I would point to their advanced use of operational jet and rocket powered aircraft, guided rockets and understanding of aerodynamics as it applied to airfoils.

[Jank]

Looks like youre asking which wWII country is curently in the frontier. I think that both England and Germany work together and share a lot on a lot of projects today. Hard to say.

[plan_D]

Britain has the jet engine to their credit more than anything. It had the most powerful jet engine in World War 2 and was the forefront of many jet engine designs for decades after the war. And still is...

[Glider]

As well as the engines where we are ahead in Europe, we should be adding the wings. I think I am right in saying that most of the international joint projects the UK have the design lead in wing design.

For military applications we should also add Ejector seats. Even the US Navy use our seats.

[plan_D]

There are many things in the aeronautical world in which the British lead. The high-speed rotor blades on helicopters that allowed the Lynx to acquire the World Record for speed in a helicopter was British.

[Chiron]

Actually I am focusing on WWII, because it seems German army came up with lots of INNOVATION in weapon design.

Of course, if you are talking about modern period, we live in a globalized world, its hard to separate each's contribution..

[plan_D]

The Jet engine was British plus Britain developed the most powerful engine of World War 2; the Rolls Royce Nene benchmarked at 5000 lbs thrust in October 1944.

[Chiron]

Did British ever develop rocket in WWII?? something like V-1?

[Sal Monella]

Someone already mentioned the German's superior understanding of the fluid dymanics of swept wings and rocketry. Captured V-2's, guided by an advanced gyroscopic system that sent radio signals to aerodynamic steering tabs on the fins and vanes in the exhaust, literally paved the way for the American space program.

Aerospace? While the Brits were having tea time and perfecting the crumpet, The Krauts invented aerospace!

[delcyros]

I disagree in the british superiority in the jet engine aspect.
The version of the Rolls Royce Nene, which was tested in november 1944 did not made full 5.000 lbs thrust. After all I read, it made some 4200 lbs thrust under overrew conditions. The 5000 lbs thrust have been achieved during benchmark tests in jule 1945 with an specificly upgraded engine. By the way, the Nene was not fitted into ANY ww2 operational aircraft and the Nene was a centrifugal flow engine, not an axial flow design like all but a very few (He-S -03, -08 and -011) german jet engines. Just look what have been fitted into the airframe and take the numbers into account and you will have a quite different view. The german jet engine development had a significant time advantage. They made during ww2:
the first axial flow engine (BMW-P3302)
the first jet engine with diagonal compressor (HeS- 011)
the first jet engine with dual flow and fan (DB-007)
the first jet engine with afterburner (Jumo-004 E)
the highest numbers of jet engines (~6000)
So they have been quite competitive to the british, or not? It must be denied, also, that the Nene ( or anything centrifugal else..) has anything to do with recent engines. In terms of construction and layout the Jumo-004 and DB-007 are the closest of ww2 to modern designs, not the british designs. (even if you take the axial designs, like ASX or F-2/1 into account) Also, the Nene was not ( in terms of power output) the most powerful jet engine of ww2 to work under prototype conditions. This goes to the BMW-018, an 11 stage axial compressor, three stage turbine (big) jet engine, from which two prototypes have been produced in mid 1944 for benchmark tests. While there are no sources left to record the output, there is strong evidence that the engines have been working quite good, since both should be build into a Hs-130 E testbed for flighttests. Unfortunately both prototypes have been destroyed by an air attack in late 1944. Poweroutput of the BMW-018 is rated in most sources with 7.700 lbs static thrust. I agree that the Rolls Royce Nene is on of the best engines in 1945 technically, since it weights not very much (742 kg, comparable to a Jumo-004 but it made twice that much power output), has a lower specific fuel consumption (1,08 lbs/thrust-lbs(hr))and was highly reliable. On the other hand, the Nene has a huge diameter, requiring a lot of space in the airframe (excluding the Meteor for it), that forced the british to develope a smaller version, Dervent V (in my view the best jet engineof 1945). I also agree that the concentration on centrifugal flow engines in the timeframe of 1942-1946 is the best solution, but the development of such engines is limited and the succesful post war axial flow jet engines (F-2/4 for example) benefitted much from the german axial flow designs. And without US producing methods (tooling devices and techniques) there would bee no hope for the british to build their engines in adequaete numbers.

[Smokey]

http://tanks45.tripod.com/Jets45/His...-L133/L133.htm
http://prototypes.free.fr/xf90/xf90-1.htm
http://jpcolliat.free.fr/moteurUS/moteurUS-1.htm


The Lockheed Model L-133, developed in 1940, is really impressive. The best features are reaction thrusters for roll control and Nathan Price's axial flow turbojet engine, dating from 1937.
I think I read somewhere that the XJ37 jet engine had an afterburner. Not good news if the war had gone on for a couple more months and the germans had perfected their heat seeking missile :P

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/prototypes.com/<----This site seems interesting

[delcyros]

Quite a very interesting paper project. However, your sources also underline that the L-100 axial flow engine never worked. They tried hard and the project was carried over from one manufacturer to the next until they found out that the engine will never work. They abandoned the project in the early 50´s without a single benchtest of a working L-100 axial flow jet engine.
Westinghouse made some contributions toward axial flow jet engine design, but even their engines didn´t got into operational conditions during ww2.
The best US efforts in jet engines are the Westinghouse J-34 axial flow jet engine of 1945 (XF-85) which has a comparable power output as the HeS-011, but weights more and the General electrics J- 35 axial flow jet engine (XP-84, XP-86), which has a comparable performance to the late Jumo-004 E, but both are only partly developments of ww2. They belong moreso to the postwar era (1945-1950). The best US powerplant was in my mind the (british design based) Allison-General Electrics J-33 centrifugal flow jet engine. It was powerful, not that heavy, had an excellent reliability and an average fuel consumption. And it was choosen for mass production for the P-80A program.
The biggest mistake of the germans was the favouring of the complicated HeS-011 dual compressor engine, which lead to difficulties in breaking 3000 lbs. of thrust. The DB-007 of 1943 was capable to do that but was found to be very complicated for serial production (and to heavy). Plans of a second stage turbine (1944 but without interest of RLM) would turn this powerplant into the best of ww2, no doubt.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

ho so this is during WWII?? well we had the edge in electronic warfare............