Five marvels of the jet age from The Engineer's archive

The Engineer has covered the entire history of powered flight, from the Wright brothers to the latest plans for exploration of other planets. It took a particular interest in one of the most momentous shifts in aerospace: the invention and development of the jet engine, and its impact on aircraft from the end of the Second World War onwards. Here, we pick out some of our key articles on the rise of the jet.

The inventor of the turbojet, Sir Frank Whittle, was only 21 when he conceived the technology that would shrink the world and shape the way that war is fought in the air until the present day.

Rejected twice by the RAF, a few months after the end of the war, the now Air Commodore Whittle contributed a series of articles to The Engineer explaining how he had come up with the idea of using a gas turbine to generate thrust and the long process of realising his idea and developing it into a working prototype.