Antony L. Kay

While the bulk of this amazing piece of work is devoted to the aviation applications of jet propulsion, Kay considers the whole range of German developments in the wider field; including gas turbines in armored vehicles, warships, and industrial applications. This is not to mention that pulse-jet and ram-jet propulsion is also examined.

As for the two biggest revelations for me, one would be an examination of why the Junkers Jumo 004 had so many problematic characteristics. This mostly boiled down to being a war-emergency product built at a time when there was a lack of access to heat-resistant materials. Two, in what really should not be a shock, it turns out that the cream of the engineers working at Junkers and BMW on jet engines wound up being recruited to work in American aviation industry post-World War II.

About the only problem with this book is that it's out of print and an expensive collectible, but if you're living in the United States it's readily available via inter-library loan.… (altro)