Heinkel HeS 3

The Heinkel HeS 3 was a centrifugal-flow turbojet engine designed by Hans von Ohain while he worked at Heinkel in Germany, and it was the world's first operational jet engine to power an aircraft. The name stands for Heinkel Strahltriebwerke, meaning Heinkel jet engines. It grew out of the hydrogen-burning HeS 1 but was converted to burn liquid fuel, using an axial inducer and a centrifugal compressor that fed an annular combustion chamber placed between the compressor and the turbine. The improved HeS 3b was flown as the sole power of the Heinkel He 178, piloted by Erich Warsitz on 27 August 1939, making it the first aircraft to fly solely under jet power. At about 4.9 kilonewtons of thrust the engine was too weak to be really useful, so Heinkel moved on to the HeS 6 and then to the more compact HeS 8, which became its first production design.