A Century in Review - The 1940s: First jets, big war
The year 1939 saw not only the outbreak of World War II but also the first flight of a jet airplane –both events that were rapidly to change aviation beyon

The year 1939 saw not only the outbreak of World War II but also the first flight of a jet airplane –both events that were rapidly to change aviation beyond recognition. Just eight years later, man would fly faster than the speed of sound for the first time.

As noted in last month’s column, Germany and Italy had been making preparations for war, cloaked in nationalism, through most of the 1930s. Despite the World War I Versailles Treaty, which forbade Germany from building military airplanes, air superiority was a central Nazi strategy.