BMW 003
Production version 1944.
The first german test for jet engines were already carried out in 1937. But this first operational engine was developed by a BMW team in Brandenburg under the direction of Hermann Östrich operating for the first time in 1940 and fliying in 1941. As a revolutionary technological leap for the time, the team had to study with tests and errors the first bases of the jet aviation without knowing what were the extremes that were worth reaching. Even developing and later discarding a compressor composed of rotating and reverse rotating blades to increase compression.
All the delays in the experimental versions of Me-262 cause the use in production of the engine Jumo 004’s, other later model of Heinkel heavier but more practical in the main versions of the plane.
However the BMW 003 was finally installed in 1944 in different versions of Me-262, Heinkel He-162 and Arado AR 234C.