Document Type: Textbook (Technical).

Purpose: Training & Education.

Authority: Author Expertise.

Scope:

From dust-jacket blurb: "JET AIRCRAFT SIMPLIFIED explains in a fascinating, step-by-step manner the basic principles and practical applications of the jet propulsion of aircraft. Among the many subjects discussed and illustrated with both line drawings and photographs are the discovery of jet propulsion, simple examples of jet propulsion, the athodyd [NB: later called a ramjet], the pulsejet, the turbojet, the turboprop, typical turbojets in production, airplanes powered by turbojet engines, guided missiles, pilotless aircraft and rocket-powered aircraft.

The book is so organized that it can be used for a one-semester course in a high school or a junior college, as well as for home study. More than one hundred jet powerplants and jet-propelled aircraft are illustrated and there is a voluminous index.

The entire book has been approved by the U.S. manufacturers of jet engines and jet aircraft in addition to the Armed Forces."

From Chapter 1, The Discovery of Jet Propulsion:

"HERO AND HIS AEOLIPILE

About the year 120 B.C., there lived in Alexandria, Egypt, a man named Hero, who was highly skilled in mathematics and physics. He invented many things, including a water clock, a hydraulic organ, a compressed-air catapult, and a peculiar device which he called an aeolipile.

We do not know exactly how it was built, but it probably resembled the apparatus shown in Fig. 1. Water was boiled in a closed kettle over a fire. Two metal tubes supported a hollow metal ball which rotated about the ends of these tubes. Leading out from the ball were shorter tubes, bent at right angles and open to the air at one end. When the water in the kettle boiled, the steam came up the tubes on both sides of the ball, entered the ball, and escaped through the short, bent tubes, thus causing the ball to rotate rapidly about its horizontal axis.

Assuming that this was the construction of the aeolipile, Hero invented the first known jet engine. However, there is another story which says that his ball rotated about its vertical axis and was operated by hot air. If this is true, Hero invented a primitive form of the gas turbine."

Contents (from the table of contents):

"Chapter I - THE DISCOVERY OF JET PROPULSION

Chapter II - SIMPLE EXAMPLES OF JET PROPULSION

Chapter III - THE ATHODYD

Chapter IV - THE PULSEJET

Chapter V - THE TURBOPROP

Chapter VI - THE TURBOJET

Chapter VII - TYPICAL TURBOJETS IN PRODUCTION

Chapter VIII - AIRPLANES POWERED BY TURBOJET ENGINES

Chapter IX - GUIDED MISSILES AND PILOTLESS AIRCRAFT

Chapter X - ROCKET-POWERED AIRCRAFT

INDEX"