Williams International is an American manufacturer of small

gas turbine A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directio ...

engines based in Pontiac, Michigan,

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It produces

jet engines A jet engine is a type of reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition can include rocket, water jet, and hybrid propulsion, the term typicall ...

for cruise missiles and small jet aircraft.

History

Dr.

Sam B. Williams Sam Barlow Williams (7 May 1921 in Seattle, Washington – 22 June 2009 in Indian Wells, California) was an American inventor and founder of Williams International. He was best known for his development of the small fan-jet engine, and received s ...

worked at Chrysler on their automotive turbine systems, but always imagined a wider set of applications for the small gas turbine engine. He left Chrysler to form Williams Research Corporation in

Birmingham, Michigan Birmingham is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a northern suburb of Detroit located along the Woodward Corridor ( M-1). As of the 2010 census, the population was 20,103. History The area comprising what is now the ...

in 1954. In 1981, the company became Williams International. It has been building small

turbofan The turbofan or fanjet is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used in aircraft propulsion. The word "turbofan" is a portmanteau of "turbine" and "fan": the ''turbo'' portion refers to a gas turbine engine which achieves mechanic ...

engines since the 1950s for use in cruise missiles as well as target and reconnaissance drones. Using the missile engines, Williams developed a series of personal

VTOL A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-wi ...

flying craft, including a jet-powered belt in 1969, the Williams Aerial Systems Platform (WASP), also known as the "flying pulpit" in the 1970s, and the X-Jet, which was evaluated by the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

in the 1980s.Kocivar, Ben.
Turbofan-powered flying carpet
'' Popular Science'', September 1982. Accessed: September 2014. The WASP platform was the only competitor to the Garrett STAMP in the United States Marine Corps STAMP (Small Tactical Aerial Mobility Platform) program of the early 1970s. Also in the 1980s, Williams identified a need in the

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

market for a small, light jet engine to power cost-effective personal and corporate jet aircraft. The company introduced the FJ44 engine, which in turn made possible the introduction of a number of small jet aircraft. In 1992,

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

initiated its

Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments The Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments (AGATE) project was a consortium of NASA, the FAA, the general aviation industry and a number of universities. Its goal was to create a Small Aviation Transportation System (SATS) as an alternativ ...

(AGATE) program to partner with manufacturers and help develop technologies that would revitalize the sagging general aviation industry. In 1996, Williams joined AGATE's General Aviation Propulsion program to develop a fuel-efficient turbofan engine that would be even smaller than the FJ44. The result was the FJX-2 engine. Williams then contracted with

Burt Rutan Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (; born June 17, 1943) is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the recor ...

Scaled Composites Scaled Composites (often called simply Scaled) is an American aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman. It is located at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, United States. Founded to deve ...

to design and build the

Williams V-Jet II The Williams V-Jet II was designed and built by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites for Williams International as a test bed and demonstrator aircraft for Williams' new FJX-1 turbofan engine. Development Williams International had been building sma ...

, a

Very Light Jet A very light jet (VLJ), entry-level jet or personal jet, previously known as a microjet, is a category of small business jets seating four to eight people. VLJs are considered the lightest business jets and are approved for single-pilot operati ...

to use as a testbed and technology demonstrator to showcase the new engine. The aircraft and engine were debuted at the 1997

Oshkosh Airshow EAA AirVenture Oshkosh (formerly the EAA Annual Convention and Fly-In), or just Oshkosh, is an annual air show and gathering of aviation enthusiasts held each summer at Wittman Regional Airport and adjacent Pioneer Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsi ...

. The production version of the engine, the EJ22 flew on the prototype

Eclipse 500 The Eclipse 500 (model EA500) is a very light jet (VLJ) originally produced by Eclipse Aviation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. The company was founded in 1998 to develop the 1997 Williams V-Jet II demonstrator. The prototype firs ...

VLJ (which had evolved from the V-Jet II), but was subsequently replaced by a Pratt & Whitney engine.

Products

Aircraft

Engines

References

Notes

Bibliography

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External links

* {{Williams aeroengines Aircraft engine manufacturers of the United States Companies based in Oakland County, Michigan Privately held companies of the United States