Not Much Of An Engineer:- An Autobiography

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By a series of supposed coincidences, no doubt part of Hives’ and his associates’ plan, he fell in with colleagues who were peripherally involved with his particular genius, and his career went from there. Its a fascinating story of a different time - a young man studying mathematics in the 1930's and of the second World War. He became more interested in aerodynamics, won the Busk studentship in aeronautics in 1928 and moved to Brasenose College, Oxford where he received his DPhil in this area in 1935. After the operation, I could hear him coming to from the anaesthetic, muttering and moaning in the usual way. The Merlin 45 was fitted into the Spitfire Mk V in October 1940, which was produced in the greatest number of any Spitfire variant.

In August 1940, with the Battle of Britain being fought with the motive power of Rolls-Royce Merlin engines in both Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfires, the first jet engines of Frank Whittle (1907–96) were beginning to demonstrate their potential. In the late 1950s, the Air Ministry forced through a series of mergers in the aerospace field that left only two airframe companies and two engine companies. Years earlier Lord Rayleigh, Rankine and Stokes — all British — had shown how significant this property of the c.The UK in the early 70's was trying to sell both the technology and the engineering of turbines to China and Hooker bought into the entire façade put out by the Chinese of a nation of happy people all working in harmony under a benign dictatorship. Just prior to the bankruptcy, at the end of 1970, Hugh Conway (group managing director, gas turbines) agreed that Hooker should come out of retirement to go to Derby to survey the situation, insisting Hooker be accorded the status of technical director at Derby. Sir Stanley Hooker has written a book that helps one understand turbine engineering and more interestingly the history and really quite tortuous politics behind them. Things being thus, I had plenty of time to cogitate on the curious chain of events which had led me, at the age of 31 years, to be seated in an office in the Engineering Department of the great Rolls-Royce company doing nothing — especially as I had had no previous aspirations to be an engineer.

Hooker was excited, and in turn brought Rolls-Royce chairman Ernest Hives to visit Rover's factory in Barnoldswick. Wellands went on to power the earliest models of the Gloster Meteor, and a development of the Welland known as the Derwent powered the vast majority of the later models.

All fluids have the property of viscosity, though in the case of air it is less obvious than with oil or treacle. However, after my evening meal, I cheered up a bit when it occurred to me that the only possible explanation must be that the powers that be were still debating my ultimate fate, and had not yet reached any conclusion about the job I was to do. I’ll admit the final pages were a bit too much for me, but for more technical readers with a better understanding of the maths/physics/engineering involved I’m sure they would have been useful/interesting.

Wilks and Hives eventually agreed that Rover would take over production of the Rolls-Royce Meteor tank engine factory in Nottingham and Rolls-Royce would take over the jet engine factory in Barnoldswick. He was soon producing academic papers, earning more prizes and scholarships, and, since the Great Depression had closed down any likely career paths, he remained a student in very comfortable circumstances. Hooker also worked on finishing the Olympus, developing later versions that would be used on the Avro Vulcan and Concorde and a further development for the stillborn TSR2. Frameworks allow a Frameworker to build software products in a way similar to how IKEA allows me to build shelving units. He immediately started work on sorting out the various problems of Bristol's turboprop design, the Proteus, which was intended to power a number of Bristol aircraft designs, including the Britannia.Spannend und dabei noch detailliert in die Entwicklung von Düsentriebwerken führt der Autor ein, eine oft amüsante Darstellung erwartet kaum jemand von einem Mathematiker.

It was about eight feet square and contained a desk, a chair, an empty bookcase and a telephone, and nothing more.Mostly the offices were much larger open spaces with similar dividing walls, but housing groups of men working with intense concentration. Less comfortable must have been his injuries from accidents on the sporting field and motorcycle, which kept him immobile for almost a year. While this proved to be a successful design, it was not used widely on British aircraft, and Rolls eventually sold a licence to the United States, and later, several engines to the Soviet Union, which then went on to copy it unlicensed.