ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

History of the jet engine

Okay kiddo, so today we're going to learn about the history of the jet engine! A long time ago, people used things like horses or steam to make things run. But then some really smart people thought, "Hey, what if we could make something move really fast using air?"

So in the 1930s, a man named Frank Whittle in England and another man named Hans von Ohain in Germany both started working on something called a jet engine. It's kind of like a big fan, but instead of blowing air out, it sucks air in and shoots it out really fast.

It took them both a few years to figure it out, but eventually they made a prototype of a jet engine. The first one was tested in England in 1937, and the first flight using a jet engine happened in Germany in 1939.

During World War II, both sides worked even harder on making better and faster jet engines for their airplanes. After the war, jet engines got even better and more efficient. They were used in bigger and bigger planes, and eventually in passenger planes like the Boeing 707, which could fly really far and really fast.

Nowadays, jet engines are used in all kinds of things like airplanes, helicopters, and even some cars! They're still getting better all the time, so who knows what kind of cool things we'll see in the future. And that's the history of the jet engine, simplified for a five-year-old!