The J40 program was plagued by delays and development problems. Late in the 1940s, to meet the growing needs of the Navy for higher thrust and longer range (a jet bomber was planned as well as new Navy fighter jets), Westinghouse began development of the J40, with a target thrust of 7500 lb. It was used extensively by the Navy in the McDonnell F2D Banshee, the Douglas F3D Skynight and Vought F7U-1 Cutlass, with the addition of an afterburner. of thrust, turned out to be the last production engine built by Westinghouse at its Aviation Gas Turbine Division facility in Kansas City, MO. (It is noteworthy that Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, then a major producer of piston aircraft engines for the military, entered the jet engine business in 1945 as a Westinghouse/US Navy licensee to build the J30 engine.) Sixty one (61) Phantom planes were equipped with the J30 engine. It was used to power the Navy’s first production jet fighter, the McDonnell Douglas FH-1 Phantom. Under the new designation system, it was now called the J30. One year later, an improved Model 19B, the 19XB-2B, changed to a 10 stage compressor.
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GE and Allison had the Army contract to develop a ‘land based’ jet while the Westinghouse Navy contract was for carrier-based Navy jet fighters. (Earliest GE jet engines, based on the Whittle design and developed with Allison, featured a centrifugal compressor.
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The basic principle of the engine was similar to the original Whittle engine developed in England, but Westinghouse’s use of an axial flow compressor, along with internal combustion chamber, were major advancements that led the way to a practical engine for aviation propulsion. Some Model 19B's were used to power the prototypes of the McDonnell XFD-1 and two powered the ill-fated Northrop XF-79B which crashed on its first flight due to no fault of the engines.ĭue to wartime secrecy, Westinghouse worked on its own, with no prior jet engine experience and without knowledge of German, British or other US jet engine developments. The engine suffered from protracted problems with combustion hot spots and acceleration flat zones. The engine was then modified into the Model 19B, which combined improved axial blade and stator design, a new annular combustion chamber and added a new accessories gearbox under the engine to drive airframe accessories such as hydraulics and a generator. The booster engine could be started with impingement air on the turbine blades or by propeller slip stream on the ground. It delivered 1,365 lb of static thrust at sea level, standard day conditions. The second engine built was flown in 1944 under a Chance Vought FG-1 fighter as a boost engine on the center-line. It was configured as a booster engine, with only the accessories needed to start and control the engine. It had a combustor section with 20 tubes (not interconnected at first), a single stage turbine and an adjustable jet exhaust nozzle. intake diameter, was designated the Model 19A, had a thrust of 1130 lb. In March, 1943, the first US designed and manufactured jet engine went on test at Westinghouse, 15 months after the signing of a contract with the U.S.
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The following summary is gleaned from that paper as well as from the Tommy Thomason reference also cited. This paper was compiled by Westinghouse engineers who had direct personal experience or close personal connections with the subject. A concise history of Westinghouse jet engine development may be found in the ASME technical paper entitled "Evolution of Heavy-Duty Power Generation and Industrial Gas Turbines in the United States" delivered at the ASME International Gas Turbine Conference, The Hague, June, 1994.