Frank Whittle

Whittle showed a knack for engineering and flying early, but the RAF turned him down on physicals. He forced his way past the limitations, got in, and excelled - first as an aircraft apprentice, then as a Cranwell officer cadet and pilot. Writing his thesis, he sketched the ideas that became the turbojet and filed a patent in 1930. With no official backing, he and two ex-RAF men started Power Jets Ltd and scraped together a prototype that ran in 1937. Contracts followed, but the funding stayed thin and the pressure mounted until Whittle had a nervous breakdown in 1940. Power Jets was nationalised in 1944; he broke down again and left the board in 1946. He retired from the RAF in 1948 with a knighthood, worked for BOAC, Shell, and Bristol Aero Engines, then moved to the U.S. in 1976 and taught at the Naval Academy. He died of lung cancer in Maryland in August 1996.