Trophy for Thrust

Since 1911, the Collier Trophy has been given yearly, by a committee of U.S. aviation experts, to the man responsible for "the greatest achievement in aviation in America." Past committees have honored such sky milestones as the practical parachute, the blind-landing system, the twin-engine commercial transport, the air offensive against Germany, the first supersonic flight.* Last week the trophy went to Leonard Sinclair Hobbs, United Aircraft Corp.'s vice president for engineering. His achievement: development and production of the J-57, the world's most powerful production jet engine.

Wyoming-born "Luke" Hobbs, 57, an engineering graduate of Texas A & M who first made his mark as a specialist in aircraft carburetors, is conceded to be one of the world's top aviation engineers. He started late in jets, because Pratt & Whitney, United's engine-manufacturing division, had to concentrate exclusively on the production of conventional piston engines during World War II. When United finally got going in 1946, Hobbs decided to leapfrog the competition by mapping out an engine far more powerful than anything on any other firm's drawing boards.

After six painstaking years, Hobbs and his 1500 engineers had an engine combining a low rate of fuel consumption with a thrust of 10,000 Ibs., powerful enough to permit supersonic speeds in level flight. Last October a YF-100 Super Sabre, powered by a J-57, set an official world's speed record of 754.98 m.p.h.

The J-57, now well above 10,000 Ibs. thrust, has been in mass production since February, while the British Bristol Olympus, its closest competitor (with a 9,750-Ib. thrust), is still a collector's item. Thanks to Hobbs and his men, the U.S. can claim that the postwar supremacy of British jet-engine designers is over.

* Credited, respectively, to Lieut. Colonel E. L. Hoffman (1926); Major General Albert Hegen-berger (1934); Aircraft Maker Donald W. Douglas (1935); General Carl Spaatz (1944); Pilot "Chuck" Yeager, Designer John Stack and Manufacturer Lawrence D. Bell, jointly (1947).

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