page_title: Aircraft engine
section_title: Development history
hierarchical_section_title: Aircraft engine / Development history
caption_attribution_description: English: The standard equipment on Wright Company Aircraft from 1910 to 1912 was the 35 HP Wright vertical four-cylinder engine and the so-called "bent-end" propeller. Picture taken at the "Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum", Washington, DC USA.
context_page_description: An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although in recent years many small UAVs have used electric motors.
context_section_description: 1848: John Stringfellow made a steam engine for a 10-foot wingspan model aircraft which achieved the first powered flight, albeit with negligible payload.
  1903: Charlie Taylor built an inline engine, mostly of aluminum, for the Wright Flyer (12 horsepower).
  1903: Manly-Balzer engine sets standards for later radial engines.
  1906: Léon Levavasseur produces a successful water-cooled V8 engine for aircraft use.
  1908: René Lorin patents a design for the ramjet engine.
  1908: Louis Seguin designed the Gnome Omega, the world's first rotary engine to be produced in quantity. In 1909 a Gnome powered Farman III aircraft won the prize for the greatest non-stop distance flown at the Reims Grande Semaine d'Aviation setting a world record for endurance of 180 kilometres (110 mi).
  1910: Coandă-1910, an unsuccessful ducted fan aircraft exhibited at Paris Aero Salon, powered by a piston engine. The aircraft never flew, but a patent was filed for routing exhaust gases into the duct to augment thrust.
  1914: Auguste Rateau suggests using exhaust-powered compressor – a turbocharger – to improve high-altitude performance; not accepted after the tests
  1917-18 - The Idflieg-numbered R.30/16 example of the Imperial German Luftstreitkräfte's Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI heavy bomber becomes the earliest known supercharger-equipped aircraft to fly, with a Mercedes D.II straight-six engine in the central fuselage driving a Brown-Boveri mechanical supercharger for the R.30/16's four Mercedes D.IVa engines.
  1918: Sanford Alexander Moss picks up Rateau's idea and creates the first successful turbocharger
  1926: Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar IV (S), the first series-produced supercharged engine for aircraft use; two-row radial with a gear-driven centrifugal supercharger.
  1930: Frank Whittle submitted his first patent for a turbojet engine.
  June 1939: Heinkel He 176 is the first successful aircraft to fly powered solely by a liquid-fueled rocket engine.
  August 1939: Heinkel HeS 3 turbojet propels the pioneering German Heinkel He 178 aircraft.
  1940: Jendrassik Cs-1, the world's first run of a turboprop engine. It is not put into service.
  1943 Daimler-Benz DB 670, first turbofan runs
  1944: Messerschmitt Me 163B Komet, the world's first rocket-propelled combat aircraft deployed.
  1945: First turboprop-powered aircraft flies, a modified Gloster Meteor with two Rolls-Royce Trent engines.
  1947: Bell X-1 rocket-propelled aircraft exceeds the speed of sound.
  1948: 100 shp 782, the first turboshaft engine to be applied to aircraft use; in 1950 used to develop the larger 280 shp (210 kW) Turbomeca Artouste.
  1949: Leduc 010, the world's first ramjet-powered aircraft flight.
  1950: Rolls-Royce Conway, the world's first production turbofan, enters service.
  1968: General Electric TF39 high bypass turbofan enters service delivering greater thrust and much better efficiency.
  2002: HyShot scramjet flew in dive.
  2004: NASA X-43, the first scramjet to maintain altitude.
  2020: Pipistrel E-811 is the first electric aircraft engine to be awarded a type certificate by EASA. It powers the Pipistrel Velis Electro, the first fully electric EASA type-certified aeroplane.
caption: Wright vertical 4-cylinder engine
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