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World War II was the first war in which jet aircraft participated in combat with examples being used on both sides of the conflict during the latter stages of the war. The first successful jet aircraft, the Heinkel He 178, flew only five days before the war started on 1 September 1939. [1]
At the time, the only jet-powered aircraft in production were military types, most of which were fighters. The expression reflects the recognition that the jet engine had effected, or would soon, a profound change in aeronautics and aviation. One view is that the jet age began with the invention of the jet engine in the 1930s and 1940s. [2]
The early marks of Spitfire and Hurricane had machine guns that were, however, of the .30 calibre (7.62mm) class, with less hitting power than heavier calibre weapons firing non-explosive bullets - the Germans' MG 131 machine gun, the Japanese Ho-103 machine gun, the Soviets' Berezin UB and particularly the "light-barrel" AN/M2 version of the ...
The Meteor was the first production jet, with the first orders for production examples being made on 8 August 1941, [11] the prototype first flying on 5 March 1943 and the first production aircraft flying on 12 January 1944, [12] while the first orders for production Me 262 aircraft were not issued until 25 May 1943, [13] and the first ...
The list of aircraft of World War II includes all of the aircraft used by countries which were at war during World War II from the period between when the country joined the war and the time the country withdrew from it, or when the war ended.
Almost as soon as they were invented, aeroplanes were used for military purposes. The first country to use them for military purposes was Italy, whose aircraft made reconnaissance, bombing and artillery correction flights in Libya during the Italian-Turkish war (September 1911 – October 1912). This war also saw Ottoman soldiers shoot down a ...
27 January: The first World War II US mission flown against the German homeland bombs Kriegsmarine submarine pens in Wilhelmshaven. [27]: 107 5/6 March: The first raid of the Battle of the Ruhr [2] flew RAF Bomber Command's 100,000th sortie of World War II, with 160 acres destroyed and 53 Krupps buildings bombed at Essen.
Although the most common type, the gas turbine powered jet engine, was certainly a 20th-century invention, many of the needed advances in theory and technology leading to this invention were made well before this time. The jet engine was clearly an idea whose time had come. Frank Whittle submitted his first patent in 1930. By the late 1930s ...