My mate disliked the program so much he sent this out
'I don't know if any of you have been watching the "Genius of Britain" series. I've caught the odd bit of it, and yesterday I switched over when they were talking about Frank Whittle, he of the jet engine. So I kept watching because I've long been a great fan.
But then the [bad word deleted] who was presenting completely misrepresented how the jet engine works and in essence told blatant lies. Now if this was some populist show like Top Gear I wouldn't mind, but the whole point of this show is to reinvigorate the nation's waning interest in science (and presumably engineering, seeing as they had Mr Whittle's contraption). It's hardly surprising few people give a shit when [bad word deleted] like that tell blatant lies on TV.
To add insult to injury, not only did the [bad word deleted] tell a blatant and completely unnecessary lie, but, by misrepresenting how a jet engine works, also belittled Whittle's astounding success in actually making one that was effective. What a [bad word deleted] (the presenter, not Whittle).'
'The turbine at the back of a jet does not 'speed up' the air. It does precisely the opposite. The speeding air from the combustion chamber drives the turbine at the back round, which drives the compressor fan at the front to force air in. The trick with a jet engine is to make the turbine sufficiently efficient that it can drive the compressor and still leave sufficient surplus energy for other purposes - e.g. making an aeroplane move or powering a generator.
In the early experiments with turbine engines, they couldn't achieve an energy surplus. In fact, they generally had a deficit, which meant that the engine consumed more power than it produced and needed supplementary motors to keep it going.
If, as Dyson suggested, the turbine 'speeds up' the air, what the hell would be driving the turbine? He, of all people, should understand these things.'
It's funny when engineers get wound up....
