British and American styles in engine development, pre-WWII

The American system of development at private risk produced a series of engines which at the outbreak of war in 1939 were roughly equal in military utility to the engines resulting from the British system of development at the government’s risk and direct expense…

Even under contracts which gave all possible incentives to the firm, development largely paid for by the government never proceeded so efficiently in the United States as in Britain. The two principal reasons for the difference were the lack of stability in American development programs, again largely due to frequent changes in government personnel, and the excessively restrictive American legal framework, which prevented informal but effective agreements from being quickly and easily reached….

To make a system like the British work in the United States would, it is true, have required both considerable revision of salary scales, particularly to provide higher salaries at the top, and a considerable relaxation of formal regulations on employment and promotion.

That was from Schlaifer and Heron’s 1951 classic, Development of Aircraft Engines and Fuels.

Of course the US now develops systems at the government’s risk and direct expense, but it hasn’t addressed the government’s terms of employment problems. Perhaps that’s the worst of both worlds.

The Whittle W.2/700 engine flew in the Gloster E.28/39, the first British aircraft to fly with a turbojet engine, and the Gloster Meteor.

They continued:

The American system of administering development did, however, have one feature greatly superior to both the British and the German systems. This was the sponsorship of development by two separate agencies, the Army and the Navy.

In contrast to the British, clear attention was given to US naval aviation. But it had another benefit:

… the existence of two independent agencies meant that the mistakes or omissions of one were corrected in a surprisingly large number of instances by the actions of the other. Whatever may be the merits of the case for unification of the military services in other respoects, there can be no doubt that the sponsorship and direction of development by two separate agencies brought results worth very much more than the cost.