Jet Aircraft Travelling At Transonic Speed

A number of jet powerplants were suggested from the first instances of powered flight. René Lorin, Morize, Harris proposed systems for creating a jet efflux. In 1910 Henri Coandă filed a patent on a jet propulsion system which used piston-engine exhaust gases to add heat to an otherwise pure air stream compressed by rotating fan blades in a duct.
The "turbojet", was invented in the 1930s, independently by Frank Whittle and Hans von Ohain. The first turbojet aircraft to fly was the Heinkel He 178 prototype of the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, piloted by Erich Warsitz on August 27, 1939.
The first flight of a jet engined aircraft to come to popular attention was the Italian Caproni Campini N.1 motorjet prototype that flew on August 27, 1940. Test pilot Major Mario De Bernardi of the Regia Aeronautica was at the controls. It was the first jet aircraft recognised by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (at the time the German He 178 program was still kept secret). Campini had proposed the motorjet in 1932.
The British experimental Gloster E.28/39 first took to the air on May 15, 1941, powered by Sir Frank Whittle's turbojet, and piloted by Glosters test pilot Flt Lt PG Sayer. After the United States was shown the British work, it produced the Bell XP-59A with a version of the Whittle engine built by General Electric, which flew on October 1st, 1942, piloted by Robert M. Stanley .