Timeline of Jet Power - 1940

1940

• The Campini Caproni CC.2 flies for first time. The flights were highly publicized, and for many years the Italians were credited with having the first jet-powered aircraft.
• NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) starts work on a CC.2 like motorjet for assisted takeoffs, and they later design an aircraft based on it. This work ends in 1943 when turbojets start to mature, and rockets take over the role of JATO, or jet assisted takeoff.
• von Ohain's larger Heinkel HeS 8 (-001) engine is tested.
• BMW's P.3302 (-003) axial-flow engine is tested
• September: Glider testing of the Heinkel He 280 twin-jet fighter begins, while it waits for the HeS 8 to mature.
• September: Henry Tizard visits the United States to show them many of the advanced technologies the British are working on and looking for US production (the Tizard Mission). Among many other details, Tizard first mentions their work on jet engines.
• October: Rover is selected to build the flight-quality Power Jets W.1. They set up shop at a disused mill in Barnoldswick, but also set up a parallel effort at another factory in Clitheroe staffed entirely by their own engineers. Frank Whittle is incensed.
• November: The Junkers Jumo 004 axial-flow engine is tested.
• November: Gloster Aircraft Company's proposal for a twin-engine jet fighter is accepted, becoming the Gloster Meteor.
• December: Whittle's flight-quality W.1X runs for the first time.
• The Lockheed Corporation starts work on the L-1000 axial-flow engine, the United States's first jet design.
• The Northrop Corporation starts work on the T-37 Turbodyne, the United States's first turboprop design.
• After only two years of development, the Jendrassik Cs-1 turboprop engine is tested. Designed to produce 1,000 horsepower (750 kW), combustion problems limit it to only 400 horsepower (300 kW) when it first runs. Similar problems plagued early Whittle designs, but help was immediately available from the rest of the industry. It appears György Jendrassik had no similar talent pool to draw on.