Industry | Aerospace |
---|---|
Fate | Defunct |
Founded | 1945 |
Headquarters | United States |
Parent | Westinghouse Electric Corporation |
The Westinghouse Aviation Gas Turbine Division (AGT) was established by Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1945 to continue the development and production of its turbo-jet gas turbine engines for aircraft propulsion under contract to the US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics. The AGT Division was headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, where it remained in operation until 1960 when Westinghouse decided focus on industrial and electric utility gas turbines.
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” ( see references) delivered at the ASME International Gas Turbine Conference, The Hague, June, 1994. This paper was compiled by Westinghouse engineers who had direct personal experience or close personal connections with the subject. The following summary is gleaned from that paper as well as from the Tommy Thomason reference also cited.
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. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics. This first engine, with a 19 in. intake diameter, was designated the WE19A, had a thrust of 1130 lb. and weighed 827 lb.
Due 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 result was the first US jet engine design, complete with an axial compressor, an internal annular combustor, a turbine and jet exhaust nozzle.
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. (Earliest GE jet engines, based on the Whittle design and developed with Allison, featured a centrifugal compressor. 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. )
An improved version of the first engine, the WE19B, was flight tested in January 1944 as a booster unit on a Chance Vought Corsair FG-1 fighter (photo). It delivered 1365 lb. thrust and weighed 731 lb.
One year later, as the J30, it was used to power the Navy’s first jet fighter, the McDonnell Douglas FH-1 Phantom. Sixty one (61) Phantom planes were equipped with the J30 engine. (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.)