Weight grew, dimensions changed and components got moved about. WAGT encountered trouble from the start with the intake, compressor, combustor, turbine, afterburner and engine control system. Having successfully doubled the thrust once, WAGT reasoned it would be easy to do it again with the J40. WAGT then scaled up the J30, resulting in the ~3,000 lbT-class J34. WAGT had designed and built the ~1,500 lbT-class J30, which was first U.S. The Navy awarded WAGT a contract on 30 June 1947. The Westinghouse Advanced Gas Turbine Division (WAGT) proposed an engine whose performance appeared to better the engines proposed by Allison, Pratt & Whitney and Wright Aero it also was to have the shortest development schedule and lowest program cost. Navy identified a requirement for a 7,500 lbT-class turbojet, and requested proposals based on that requirement in 1947. The book is also available from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
Christiansen is hinting that a book on the early Westinghouse engines (19A, 19B, 9.5A, 9.5B, and 19XB2A, which became the J30) is in the works this I shall anxiously await.ĪEHS Members can get Westinghouse J46 Axial Turbojet Family at a 20% discount by using the discount code from the Members’ Bulletin Board. With 925 citations from 204 sources (nearly all primary), this book, like its predecessor, provides valuable insight into early U.S. Appendices provide engine ratings and specifications, operating limits, a (long) list of YJ46-WE-8A field service problems, and a list of surviving J46 examples. Christiansen’s Analysis and Conclusions chapter reiterates how the Navy’s indecision and focus on superfluous details added to the technical problems both the J46 and F7U-3 programs faced. Other chapters chronicle J46-WE-18 and XJ46-WE-1, -3, -5 and -7 development, J46 flight testing, and J46 improvement/growth programs. Three chapters cover XJ46 and J46-WE-8/A/B and -12/A/B development, production and service. He then describes elements of the J34-WE-22 and -38 that were to have been shared with the XJ46-WE-2 and ultimately covers procurement and development of the XJ46-WE-2 and -4. Several aircraft projects that were to have used the J46 were cancelled and the Vought F7U-3, the only J46-powered aircraft to enter production, had a short service life, partially due to engine issues.Ĭhristiansen begins with a review of the J34 program, which produced many developments and improvements that were central to the J46 program. However, the integration of an afterburner and all-new electronic control system, coupled with the Navy’s predilection for changing requirements and plans to use the J46 in a number of very different airframes, proved to be more than Westinghouse could accomplish within the aggressive schedule. The J46 was expected to have been a relatively straightforward development of the Westinghouse J34. Navy’s ever-changing requirements and the emerging technologies that might have met them. This is an in-depth account of how the Westinghouse Aviation Gas Turbine division attempted to bridge the gap between the U.S.
Paul Christiansen continues his excellent series on Westinghouse gas turbines in his latest book, which covers the J46 family. Development History and Technical Profiles