Who really won the WW2 jet race? It's complicated...

The Gloster Meteor was the first British Jet aircraft to enter squadron service. It was the culmination of Allied efforts to win a top-secret race that lasted the entire Second World War - the race for speed. As soldiers fought on battlefields across the world, British and German engineers went head-to-head in battle to build an engine that would change aerial warfare forever.

In this episode of Duxford in Depth, IWM Project curator Robert Rumble dives into the history of the jet engine. Who led the British and German effort? What challenges did they overcome? And who really won the jet race?

*Note* - The engine diagram shown at 4:33 is an axial flow turboshaft engine, not a turbojet engine.

Explore and licence the film clips used in this video from IWM Film:
https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/collections/4578

How has conflict has driven innovation in science and technology?: https://www.iwm.org.uk/research/research-projects/lloyds-register-foundation

Find out more about the Gloster Meteor: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/gloster-meteor-the-only-allied-jet-fighter-of-the-second-world-war

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Thumbnail image credits:
Gloster Meteor T7 by Ronnie Macdonald / CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Me 262 replica at Airpower11 MatthiasKabel / CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

Creative Commons attributions:
Strahlflugzeug Heinkel He 178 by Bundesarchiv, Bild 141-2505 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Centrifugal Turbojet diagram original design by Emoscopes, Vectorization by Tachymètre / CC-BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Axial Turbojet diagram original design by Emoscopes, Vectorization byMilu92 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
He 162 underground production by Bundesarchiv, Bild 141-2737 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

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