The Journal of Josef Hartmann

Journey of the Jets:

The Journal of Josef Hartmann

By: Olivia Jonas

To my dearest grandson Augustus,

If you are reading this now, it means that I have passed away, and the journal that I wrote in faithfully for many years has made it into your hands.
I recorded my thoughts in this journal so that I could leave behind for you the story of the birth of the Jet Age. I wanted you to have a first-hand look at how aviation was growing and changing during my life. I hope that in reading these entries, you can better understand some of the most important innovations in aviation.
I hope, my favorite grandson that you will continue the story that I began here. I really do feel in my heart that the flight of the Heinkel He 178, although it was brief, was a turning point in humankind’s quest for flight. Dear Augustus, please document the ongoing story of the Jet Age so that perhaps one day you can pass it on to your grandchild.
Your Grandfather,

Josef Hartmann

September 15th, 1926

Dear Journal,

It has come to my recognition that the piston engines of today’s time have been pushed to go at undreamed of speeds, yet it seems to me that they still have some limits to what they can achieve (Hallion 67). I have a strong premonition that the future of aviation rests with planes that can achieve speeds unknown to mankind. Seeing as the Great War is over, I feel the rotary engines and the water-cooled engines will become obsolete and outdated sooner or later. Rotary engines worked fine for the war, but they ran into problems when asked to run over 150hp. Rotary engines also make planes more difficult to fly and require skilled pilots. A revolution of a new kind of machinery is bound to happen (Grant 74). In fact, rotary engines have been almost completely gone after 1918 (Gunston 7).

I heard from someone that Sir Frank Whittle, a British Junior RAF (Royal Air Force) pilot and engineer, is going about making one of these revolutionary machines. He is making a gas turbine reaction engine, otherwise known as a turbojet or a jet engine. I believe he is the first person to investigate this matter (Sweetman67).

I very well understand that military aviation has been restricted by the Treaty of Versailles, and now that the air force is outlawed, here in good ole Germany, we cannot do much to proceed with the investigation of this newfound phenomenon(Hallion 67). I believe that Germany should start the process of exploring the possibilities of the jet engine, even if it is necessary to work in secret because of the Treaty. I have a friend named Ernst Heinkel, a flight engineer who owns the company Heinkel Flugzeugwerke. I feel that his company has the potential to take this idea to new places, but only time will tell, I suppose.

I have also heard that other countries have started to look at their defenses, due to France and Germany taking “belligerent stances”.I assume that with this new jet engine becoming more and more popular, there will soon be a “scramble for speed” and if Germany aspires to get to the finish line first, we must get started. We must focus on achieving fighter airplanes that are able to climb quickly, be maneuverable, and have superior speed in the air (Hallion 67).

Perhaps I will send Heinkel a letter this week…

Josef Hartmann

February 20th, 1937

Dear Journal,

A couple of years ago, in 1934, Heinkel Flugzeugwerke, Messerschmitt AG, and other aircraft manufacturing companies, participated in a competition to design a new fighter. During the final round of elimination by the competition judges, it came down to Heinkel’s airplane, the He 112, and Messerschmitt’s airplane, the Me 109. Each was very similar in the performance and the competition ended in a tie. Last year though, the judges finally picked a winner, not because it could fly faster, turn sharper, or climb higher. They chose the Me 109 as the winner only because it was much easier to mass produce than the He 112. The angular lines of the Me 109 were easier to fabricate than the curves of the He 112 (Hallion 69).

This does not make sense to me, seeing as Heinkel had the better model, which I knew that he would; yet Messerschmitt won the competition. There is little I can do on this subject though, as it is long over. I have a feeling that this isn’t the last the world will see of Mr. Ernst Heinkel though.

I heard that last year Doctor Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain, another German flight engineer, has joined the Heinkel Company to help them advance their jet propulsion study and to help direct the entire matter. The Heinkel Company had a secret department made especially for the development of the engine. This was done without the knowledge of the German Air Ministry, otherwise known as the RLM, the Reich Air Ministry (King 96).

I hope everything turns out alright. If they make this advancement in aviation technology, I do believe that they will truly change the world.

Josef Hartmann

January 8th, 1940

Dear Journal,

“It was enough to open a new era in aviation,” is what people are saying after August 27th, 1939 when the first flight of a jet engine airplane in the history of the world took place (Grant 185). The plane, the Heinkel He 178, actually flew a very short flight on August 24th, 1939 but the longer flight was three days later at Marienehe Airfield. The second flight was for 6 minutes (King 96). The engine of this great acclaimed aircraft was mounted in the fuselage, or the body of the airplane, with a nose air intake duct passing beneath the pilot’s seat. There was a long tailpipe discharging from the fuselage tail cone (Taylor 65).

The pilot who completed this monumental accomplishment was Captain Erich Warsitz.

“On August 27, 1939 we were ready. The machine was towed to the apron. Ernst Heinkel and his colleagues started at the circuit I was to fly. By now it was recognized that by virtue of its longer flight endurance and greater operational reliability, it was the jet, and not the rocket aircraft, which belonged to the future,” states Erich Warsitz, talking about the flight (Warsitz, Flight Captain Erich Warsitz).

Mr. Heinkel, commenting on the flight, said, “The hideous wail of the engine was music to our ears,” (Heinkel 224). The aircraft uses a gas turbojet engine to generate thrust in accordance to Newton’s third law of motion. The airplane can reach a top speed of over 400mph, which is 640 kph (Grant 185).

Another witness of this flight also said, “The Heinkel He has no propeller; instead it has a turbojet. This is a revolutionary type of engine…this flight led to Heinkel working on a fighter with two of the revolutionary new engines,” (Armitage 1939). This new plane Heinkel started to work on was called the Heinkel He 280.

At first, when the RLM heard of this flight, they just brushed the knowledge off and “no great interest was displayed.” But in October of 1939, high ranking German officers inspected the aircraft, which also lead to the start of Heinkel working on the development of the He 280 which is a twin jet single seat fighter (King 96). Heinkel said that when the German officers saw the second flight of the He 178, they were “not unimpressed by the overthrow of all earlier aviation technology,” (Heinkel 227). Indeed the He 178 project “served to demonstrate the feasibility of gas turbine powered flight. The He 178 only achieved a speed of about 600 km/h (373 mph), but it’s reactive success not only encouraged Ohain to extend his work further but also prompted Heinkel to extend his control over turbine and component manufacturers”(Robinson 1280).

Heinkel’s company has made history as the manufacturers of the first jet engine airplane and von Ohain will now have his name in history books for directing and creating this great engine. Another witness of the flight said, “This aircraft is assured a distinguished place in aviation history,” (Taylor 659).

What a great accomplishment! I’m going to write Heinkel and von Ohain this afternoon to congratulate them.

Josef Hartmann

November 16th, 1945

Dear Journal,

I was talking with some engineers this week and we were discussing the differences between jet engine aircrafts and piston engine aircrafts. I heard from them that jet engines can achieve much higher speeds than piston engine aircrafts. They also said that jet engine airplanes are lighter than piston engines andthey cause less vibration than piston engines (Lopez 143). Jet engine aircrafts are more efficient at high speed and high altitudes where as you are more limited with piston engines (Stacey 69). Although the jet engines are simpler that piston engines, they do require costly metal alloy components and have high running temperatures (Bilstein 227), but jet engines consume more fuel than piston engines which is expensive (Lopez 143). Jets also have greater climbing rates than the regular piston engines (Bilstein179). It was a great chat that I had with theengineers; they were able to give me a better insight on how astonishing jet engine aircrafts are.

Now, after the war is over, jet propulsion and jet engines have become more and more popular. Over the course of the war, engineers began to evolve the jet airplanes even more. This started when they realized that the jet engines could fly at even faster speeds when their wings were swept back at 35˚ angles rather than the standard 90˚ angles. These wings were more aerodynamic and allowed the plane to take better advantage of the increased power offered by the jet engine (Stacey). The airflow around the wing then caused the aircraft to fly faster. The wings were angled back so that the flying would be graceful and nimble (Hallion 135).

The Heinkel He 178 flight led to Willy Messerschmitt, chief designer of the airplane manufacturing company Messerschmitt AG, proceed to build the Me 262. Some allied pilots of Germany told me that they thought the Me 262 is an amazing new German fighter plane that doesn’t have a propeller and that it “flies faster that anything anyone has ever seen.” This plane convinced the British RAF that Whittle’s design was “worth investigating.” (Stacey 67-68). I also heard another person say that this plane was “little short of outstanding “ (Sweetman 74). Prototypes of this plane were being tested as early as 1941 and it was unquestionably a record beater. Hitler ordered the Me 262 to be reworked as a bomber plane which I do believe cost us the war. I even read in a newspaper,

“The Me 262’s real failure stemmed from Hitler’s misguided earlier decision in 1943, to uss it as an attack bomber instead of the interceptor role for which it had been designed,” (Bilstein 145).

The Me 262 could climb faster and could outrun even the best allied fighters. I completely agree with this quote from a book I found, “Jets remained essentially experimental aircrafts, difficult to fly, and unreliable, but were not without impact late in the war,” (Grant 254). Although the Me 262 was turned into a bomber near the end of World War Two, the Me 262 still emerged the most prominent aircraft of the war. About one month after the invasion of Northern France during the war, the Me 262 reached the highest speed of its career.

I presume that Germany gained a greater advantage from having been the first country to successfully fly a jet engine aircraft. The Americans knew nothing of Heinkel and the jet engines; so when we went to war, it was a bit of a surprise for them. In fact, it was only in 1941 when the British sent them a Whittle engine prototype that they started the exploration of jet engines (Grant 272). We went into the war with a strong foundation of knowledge about jet airplanes and our victorious results were on account of our high level of knowledge on the subject and our early start with the He 178. A lot of the war was fought in the air, and fighters were crucial to the war; to have superior speed jet fighters was even a greater advantage. Since Germany had already begun the process for making jet fighters, we were more prepared for what was to come with these new jet fighter combats. The Heinkel He 178 flight was only the start of this new Jet Era. Jet planes and fighters will continue to grow and evolve from here on out.

I am confident that airplanes will be a major factor in national defenses all over the world from now on (Stacey 69). As a matter of fact, the air war was becoming a bigger factor in the war and this great advancement in aviation helped the overall course of the war for both sides. If you had the height, you controlled everything. The air was, and will continue to be, everything.

Over the course of the war, the jet engines soon became global. The British RAF had a bit of a lead on the Americans when it came to jet engines. This was due to Whittle’s wartime work on the jet engine.

So much has happened in about 20 years. I can’t wait to see what will become of these jet planes and fighters. I really do believe that the future is the jet engine (Warsitz)

Josef Hartmann

February 13th, 2011

Dear Journal,

Wow, this is amazing! I can’t believe that Grandpa Josef left this for me. I never knew that Grandpa Josef wrote this all down. I suppose that I better continue the story, as that was the only wish my Grandpa had before he died on January 3rd, 1949.

From what I’ve learned, living with a family of aviators, is that jet engines really have made a difference in aviation history. In fact, my father is a jet pilot. Today, there are 4 main kinds of jet engines, a turboprop, a turbojet, a ramjet, and a scramjet (Lopez 143).

“Just as in the early days of flight, courageous pilots were eager to set new flight records of speed and distance. Flight testing soon became a science, as engineers worked to develop a jet plane that could withstand the pressure of flying faster that the speed of sound, “ (Stacey, 70).

The Germans got right to it and “actually succeeded in putting jet and rocket powered fighters into operational service, albeit in small numbers,” (Spick). I just read in my history textbook the other day, “The biggest change in aviation to come out of World War Two was the development of the jet engine… it would update the old gas turbine and greatly improve airplane performance,” (Stacey 66). Military planes and fighters just continued to improve and get better beyond commercial aviation throughout the 1960s (Stacey 76-77). “Jet propulsion revolutionized military aviation,” said a historian at the Air museum near my house (Gunston 7). In the Korean and Vietnam wars, high-speed fighters were deployed and jet technology has made swift changes on military aircrafts and everyday commercial planes as well (Spick).

In the five years after World War Two, jets pushed piston engine planes out of fighter squadrons and this eventually led to supersonic fighters and “research and development of jet planes became a priority,” (Lopez 149). The U.S., Soviet Union, Britain, and France worked to build a SST, a supersonic transport jet. “Such an aircraft would take advantage of the many improvements that had occurred in every area in aviation, from aerodynamic and electric innovations to more powerful engines,” (Stacey 74-75). The first person to break the sound barrier at 670 mph was Chuck Yeager in October,1947. He was able to “venture into the realm of the unknown,” (Stacey 70-73).

“In their quest for greater speed, scientists turned to rocket technology as a possible solution, “ (Stacey 70-71). It was less than 100 years ranging from the first airplane to getting a man on the moon. It really is incredible.

Jets were soon being developed for civilian travel and transportation. The Brit de Havilland Comet was the first commercial transport jet to fly in 1952 (Lopez 157). The American Boeing 707 in 1954 was introduced along with some other planes and they will “forever change the way that people travel.” The Boeing 704 was a large plane with four jet engines. This was the precursor of the modern jet airliners that many passengers travel on today (Stacey 73).

“Travelers who had flown on noisy, relatively slow, propeller-driven planes soon became accustomed to the speed and comfort of traveling on the Boeing 707. It became the preferred way to travel,” (Stacey 73).

In the 1970s, the EAA Voyager flew on a 26,000 mile, nonstop, nine-day flight without refueling using a jet engine. This was a great achievement (Stacey 78).
Humanity has just become more of a world culture than it has before (Stacey 79). Distance for traveling becomes far less important. When there were no jet engines, people didn’t dare to think about taking a trip across seas for travel, it would take two weeks on a boat and two weeks back. Now people can take a trip to Europe in hours rather than days or weeks. The world is suddenly smaller (Stacey 66). “People from different cultures have been able to learn more about each other.” We are now able to share ideas, incorporate techniques and philosophies to our own lives from other cultures around the world (Stacey 79). The world became a “more closely knit community,” (Bilstein 218).