Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain

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Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain

Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain (born December 14, 1911 in Dessau , † March 13, 1998 in Melbourne , Florida ) was a German physicist and inventor. It is used in the world's first jet-propelled aircraft, the inventor jet engine .

Life

parents

Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain was born as the eldest son of Wolf Pabst von Ohain and his wife Katharina-Loise in Dessau. He had a brother, Wolf Junior, who was 10 years his junior. The family moved to Berlin-Dahlem. A close relative was Lieutenant Colonel Walter Pabst von Ohain (1877–1938), who was married to a daughter of Richard Pintsch and was a board member of Julius Pintsch AG in Berlin and Fürstenwalde .

education

After graduating from Arndt-Gymnasium Dahlem in 1930, von Ohain studied physics in Göttingen, Rostock and Berlin. In 1935 he received his doctorate in physics from the University of Göttingen under Robert Wichard Pohl with a thesis on the wave theory of light and sound. This also resulted in the patent process and device for converting vibrations into light fluctuations .

Jet engine development

Cutaway model developed by Ohain Heinkel HeS 3b -Triebwerks
The He 178 , the world's first jet aircraft

As early as 1934, he began to be theoretically interested in a new propellerless type of propulsion for aircraft and to experiment at his own expense. Ohain received technical technical support from the auto mechanic Max Hahn in the workshop where he had his private car serviced and repaired. To get a light and compact engine, he chose a centrifugal compressor and a radial turbine. In 1936, based on his basic engine ideas of compressor , combustion chamber , turbine and thrust nozzle, he applied for the patent process and apparatus for producing air currents for propelling aircraft , which he also received in 1937 because of important differences to the patent from Frank Whittle , which was filed in 1930 .

Although the demonstration model he built in Göttingen had proven useless, his doctoral supervisor Robert Wichard Pohl recognized the potential of the idea and established contact between von Ohain and the aircraft designer and entrepreneur Ernst Heinkel . Von Ohain succeeded in convincing him of his idea and in finding him a supporter of the project, because Heinkel was an enthusiastic friend of innovations in aircraft construction. In addition to the financial resources, Heinkel provided von Ohain and Max Hahn with a work area that was strictly shielded from the rest of the Heinkel plant, and provided the designer Wilhelm Gundermann and other technical staff.

From 1936 onwards, Hans Pabst von Ohain and this team at Ernst Heinkel Flugzeugwerke developed a liquid fuel jet engine, the Heinkel HeS 3b , while at the same time a precisely tailored aircraft was designed and built - the Heinkel He 178 . In addition to the radial compressor, which the British inventor Frank Whittle also uses, von Ohain's design also has a small upstream axial stage. The combustion chamber is also designed as a single annular combustion chamber, while the British and American turbines were equipped with several cylindrical individual combustion chambers until the 1950s.

The first flight attempts with the engine took place with an existing type machine He 118 , to which the engine was attached. After several delays, the first flight of the He 178 in Rostock - Marienehe took place on August 27, 1939, with pilot pilot Erich Warsitz at the control stick. It was the world's first flight by a jet or jet-powered aircraft . Before that, Warsitz had also tested the first rocket plane , also tested by Heinkel via Rostock.

The Junkers and BMW companies have been developing their own concepts since 1936, which led to the Jumo 004 and BMW 003 engines . These were used in the standard military jet aircraft, Messerschmitt Me 262 and Arado Ar 234 . Von Ohain and Heinkel developed the HeS 011, which got by with fewer compressor stages than the competition and was nevertheless supposed to be more powerful, but it did not reach series production.

post war period

In 1947, Hans Pabst von Ohain - as part of Operation Overcast - was brought to the USA by the Americans, like many other German engineers with inventions relevant to military technology . First he worked for the US Air Force and supported them in the development of their own jet aircraft. In 1956 Pabst von Ohain became director of the Air Force Aeronautical Research Laboratory; In 1975 he was promoted to chief developer of the Aero Propulsion Laboratory.

After his retirement, Hans von Ohain taught at the Research Institute of the University of Dayton from 1982 . From the 1960s he had a deep friendship with Frank Whittle until his death.

Awards

literature

  • Lutz Budraß : Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain. New insights into its role in the National Socialist armaments . In: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung , Landesbüro Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Hrsg.): Technology history controversial. On the history of aviation and aircraft construction in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania (= contributions to the history of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Volume 13), Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania State Office, Schwerin 2007, ISBN 978-3-89892-619-5 , p 52-69.
  • Margaret Conner: Hans von Ohain - elegance in flight. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Reston 2001, ISBN 1-56347-520-0 .
  • Hans Joachim Ebert:  Pabst, Hans Joachim. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , pp. 742 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Parents of Hans-Joachim Pabst von Ohain
  2. ↑ Special: Diff / 167445526/167936252
  3. ↑ Entry in the Rostock matriculation portal , SS 1932, No. 1131
  4. ↑ a b Hans-Joachim Pabst von Ohain . German Patent and Trademark Office. Retrieved May 28, 2012.
  5. ↑ Process and device for converting vibrations into light fluctuations (PDF; 267 kB) German Patent and Trademark Office. Retrieved May 28, 2012.
  6. ^ First Patent for a Turbo-jet Filed by Frank Whittle, March 16, 30 ( Memento of February 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ^ Hans Joachim Ebert:  Pabst, Hans Joachim. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , pp. 742 f. ( Digitized version ).
  8. ↑ Note in: Heinkel, Ernst: Stürmisches Leben, Stuttgart 1953, p. 414 f.
  9. ↑ The jet age began in Göttingen: 100th birthday of Hans von Ohain . German Aerospace Center (DLR). Retrieved May 28, 2012.
  10. ↑ Pioneers: The inventors of jet planes ( Memento from April 18, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
personal data
SURNAME Pope von Ohain, Hans Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American physicist, engineer and one of the fathers of the jet engine
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Dessau
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1998
Place of death Melbourne , Florida