大象传媒

My father, Wilfred Merchant, worked on the jet engine during the war. He was what was known as a "boffin". He had been excused from active service because of his two flat feet but as he was an engineer his talents were needed in the specialized engineering field.

Frank Whittle was the inventor of the jet engine but the government did not want him to have the monopoly on its design so they instigated design teams to set up in competition to him. My father headed a team at Metro Vickers in Manchester. He was 28 at the time.

Towards the end of the war a Lancaster bomber was fitted with a proto type of the engine and flown out of Ringway Airport and my father insisted on going on the test flight. One of his design innovations was a fly wheel in the engine that as I understand is still in use today. He wrote a "blue paper" about this design which is entitled "A Flow of Air through a Cascade of Blades".

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