History of Aircraft

The first turbine-equipped jetplane was designed on paper in late 1929 when Frank Whittle of the British Royal Air Force sent his concept to the Air Ministry to see if it would be of any interest to them. The first manufactured turbine jetplane was the Heinkel He 178 turbojet prototype of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe), piloted by Erich Warsitz on August 27, 1939.
The first flight of the Italian Caproni Campini N.1 motorjet prototype was on August 27, 1940. Test pilot Major Mario De Bernardi of the Regia Aeronautica was at the controls.

The British flew their Gloster E.28/39 prototype on May 15, 1941, powered by Sir Frank Whittle's turbojet, and piloted by Flt Lt PG Sayer. When the United States learned of the British work, it produced the Bell XP-59 with a version of the Whittle engine built by General Electric, which flew on September 12, 1942, piloted by Col L. Craigie.

The first operational jet fighter was the Messerschmitt Me 262, made by Germany during late World War II. It was the fastest conventional aircraft of World War II — although the rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet was faster. Mass production started in 1944, too late for a decisive effect on the outcome of the war. About the same time, the United Kingdom's Gloster Meteor was limited to defense of the UK against the V1 flying bomb and ground-attack operations over Europe in the last months of the war. The Imperial Japanese Navy also developed jet aircraft in 1945, including the Nakajima J9Y Kikka, a crude copy of the Me-262.

On November 8, 1950, during the Korean War, United States Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown, flying in an F-80, intercepted two North Korean MiG-15s near the Yalu River and shot them down in the first jet-to-jet dogfight in history.

BOAC operated the first commercial jet service, from London to Johannesburg, in 1952 with the de Havilland Comet jetliner.

The fastest military jet plane was the SR-71 Blackbird at Mach 3.2. The fastest commercial jet plane was the Tupolev Tu-144 at Mach 2.35. A jet is also the fastest of the plane family.

Source: Wikipedia