'Will doubtless annoy those who believe that swashbuckling geniuses
should always triumph over hand-wringing desk jockeys' Sunday Telegraph
'A superb contribution, and one that badly needed to be done'
Richard P. Hallion, leading American aero historian
Newly expanded for the paperback edition, this account tells the real
story of the jet one about the fight for wartime survival, discord,
heroism and a complexity hitherto airbrushed from legend.
The legend of Sir Frank Whittle, 'father of the jet age', is that of a
brilliant lone inventor succeeding in the face of government
bureaucracy. But how much of this is really true?
Was Whittle, rather, 'his own worst enemy' who inexorably ground down
the considerable stock of goodwill towards him in the wartime
government and the air ministries? Or did Whittle's innovative
brilliance and charisma help him recruit major support for his jet at a
time when to do so made little sense, given the simultaneous
development of the jet in America?
Andrew Nahum, Curator of Aeronautics at the Science Museum, is a noted
expert on the history of the jet. He has taken the familiar story and,
by painstaking research and interview, has dug down to uncover the
extraordinary dynamics, and the mistakes, of the British jet programme.
In this expanded edition he also investigates for the first time the
race with America to produce the jet.
'All students of the jet story should have this important book.'
Navigator
'Provides a different, and refreshingly balanced historical perspective
... Fascinating.' Flight International
'A painful dissection of the UK's inability to match imperial ambitions
with world-beating technology' Focus
'Read it to learn what really happened' Guardian
Andrew Nahum
is Senior Curator of Aeronautics at the Science Museum in London and a Visiting Research Tutor in Vehicle Design at the Royal College of Art. Previous books include a biography of Alec Issigonis, designer of the Mini.
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