On August 27, 1939, four days before the outbreak of World War II, a slender, unconventional research airplane too off from Marienhe Airfiel in Germany to make the first successful flight of a turbojet aircraft. The event marked the dawn of a new age in aerial warfare. It was a revolution created basically by two men - Frank Whittle of Great Britain
and Hans von Ohain of Germany. Their radical theories regarding aircraft propulsion stirred little interest at first, but war inevitably prompted a reassessment.
Although the first fighting jets had little effect on the outcome of that conflict, their appearance set the stage for future generations of jet warplanes - aircraft that would play a vital role in determining the fate of contending nations.
