World War II's Silent Game Changer: The First Jet Plane

Описание: August 27, 1939, at Marienehe airfield, near the city of Rostock in northern Germany, a small aircraft quietly taxied onto the runway. There was no familiar roar of a propeller tearing through the air. No violent vibration typical of a piston engine being pushed to its limits. When it left the ground, the only thing it left behind was a stream of hot exhaust blasting straight out behind the fuselage.
The aircraft flew at roughly 650 km/h—a figure not particularly shocking when compared with the fastest fighters of the time. But the difference lay elsewhere: it was not anywhere near its limits. No propeller at risk of tearing itself apart, no driveshaft straining under overload, no sluggishness during acceleration. It flew as if it belonged to another world entirely.
Hardly anyone paid much attention to that flight. Five days later, World War II broke out, and all of Europe was swept into a struggle for survival. Over the next four years, air-defense systems were built on a firm belief: bombers flew at 450–500 km/h, and fighters only needed to be faster by a few dozen to a hundred kilometers per hour to intercept them. Radar was calibrated around those figures. Anti-aircraft guns were as well. People believed they understood the rhythm of war in the skies.
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