The 'Pocket F-111' That Outlived Them All—Why Germany Can't Retire It скачать в хорошем качестве

The 'Pocket F-111' That Outlived Them All—Why Germany Can't Retire It

Britain and Germany invented jet propulsion. So why do videos keep framing European aircraft like they're some kind of miracle?The historical record is unambiguous. On August 27, 1939—four days before Hitler's Wehrmacht crossed into Poland—a small experimental aircraft lifted off from the Heinkel factory airfield at Rostock-Marienehe on Germany's Baltic coast. The Heinkel He 178 looked ungainly. Its fuselage resembled a sports car body bolted to undersized wings. But what happened that morning fundamentally altered aviation history. Test pilot Erich Warsitz opened the throttle on Hans von Ohain's centrifugal-flow turbojet engine, and for the first time in human history, a purpose-built jet aircraft flew under its own power.The Americans? Still years away from their first jet flight.The Bell P-59 Airacomet, America's pioneering jet aircraft, wouldn't leave the ground until October 1, 1942. More than three years after von Ohain's engine screamed across the German sky. Britain ran a parallel track. Frank Whittle, a Royal Air Force officer whose persistence bordered on obsession, had been developing his own jet engine designs since the early 1930s. The Gloster E.28/39, powered by Whittle's W.1 turbojet, achieved first flight on May 15, 1941. That made Britain the second nation to fly a jet aircraft—still seventeen months before the Americans managed it. The Gloster Meteor entered operational service with the RAF in July 1944, becoming the Allies' only operational jet fighter during the Second World War. While the Me 262 terrorized American bomber formations in the war's final months, Meteors were shooting down V-1 flying bombs over the English countryside.Europe was building jets before America built their first.