Popular Science Review - Frank Whittle: Invention of the Jet

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Review - Frank Whittle: Invention of the Jet - Andrew Nahum

Real disappointment is the only effective reaction to this book.

Let's start by saying what it does do reasonably well. Nahum sets right a number of misapprehensions about what happened in the development of the jet engine, a lot of these coming from rather one sided source's like Frank Whittle's own version, Jet. It would seem that the nasty old bureaucrats weren't anywhere near as nasty and obstructive as the eccentric and opinionated team behind the jet engine thought.

So far so good - but the book falls down on pretty well every other measure. The style is pedestrian and dull. The introduction reads like a book proposal, and the rest of it like a long school essay cribbed from uninspiring textbooks.

If you don't know how a jet engine works, the book doesn't go out of its way to explain, just throwing in a couple of not particularly helpful diagrams to show the difference between the designs of some early models.

Similarly there is very little opened up about the people involved as individuals. We find out that some of the key characters were certainly opinionated and difficult, but we never really get to know them.

All the human drama is reduced to dullness. Admittedly this in part flows from the intention to show that things weren't as bad between Whittle and the ministry - but it didn't have to be like this. Perhaps the best advice that any writer can have is "show me, don't tell me" - this is all telling.

A typical example - Nahum comments "However, after some frightening incidents during test runs, Power Jets were moved to a former BTH foundry nearby at Lutterworth in Leicestershire." That's it. A nice opportunity for a bit of intriguing story reduced to a bald statement with about as much excitement as a European Union directive. I have to confess I was convinced that Nahum must be a civil servant from the blandness of the text, but it turns out he is senior curator of aeronautics at the science museum.

Because it sets some facts straight, this is a useful book to read alongside one of the other books on the development of the jet engine, but has little value on its own.

Only in hardback.

Reviewed by Jo Reed

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