Stanley Hooker
Stanley Hooker | |
---|---|
Brasenose College | |
Occupation | Engineer |
Spouses | Margaret Bradbury
(m. 1937; div. 1950)Kate Maria Pope (m. 1950) |
Parent(s) | William Henry Hooker Ellen Mary Russell |
Engineering career | |
Institutions | Bristol Siddeley Pegasus |
Significant advance | Aircraft engines[1] |
Awards | Wilhelm Exner Medal (1982).[2] |
Sir Stanley George Hooker,
Early life
Stanley George Hooker was born at
Rolls-Royce
This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2023) |
In late 1937, while working at the
The Merlin 45 was fitted into the Spitfire Mk V in October 1940, which was produced in the greatest number of any Spitfire variant. The same year the Air Ministry made a request for a turbocharged Merlin for use in the planned high altitude Wellington VI bomber. Declining the suggestion to use turbocharging,[7] Hooker instead designed a two-stage supercharger for the engine, with the resulting two-stage-supercharged Merlin 61 being fitted into the Spitfire Mk IX, the second most-produced Spitfire variant, which entered service in July 1942. The Merlin 61 arrived in time to give the Spitfire a desperately needed advantage in rate of climb and service ceiling over the Focke-Wulf Fw 190.
One major outcome of his work introduced a generalised method of predicting and comparing aircraft engine performance under flight conditions. The status of this work was summarised in an internal Rolls-Royce Report in March 1941 and made public by the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust in 1997.[8]
In 1940, Hooker was introduced to
Rover was no happier with the state of affairs than Whittle. In 1942,
Whittle had moved to the US in 1942 to help
Meanwhile, Hooker's team had moved onto their first axial-flow engine, which had been designed by A. A. Griffith at Derby and which was then known as the AJ.65 but which was soon to be renamed the Avon. This did not turn out well at first, and Hooker felt he was being blamed for its problems. At the same time Rolls decided that their existing piston engines were a dead end, and moved all future jet work from Barnoldswick to Derby, their main engine site. This reduced Hooker's role in the company, and after an emotional falling-out with Hives, he left.
Bristol
In January 1949, Hooker went to work at the Bristol Aero Engine company. 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. The task of rectifying the many faults of the Proteus was immense, but most were solved. However, a near-fatal accident with Britannia G-ALRX in February 1954, due to a spur gear failure, prompted a telephone call from his old boss Hives, who subsequently sent his top team of Rolls-Royce jet engineers, among them Elliott, Rubbra, Lovesey, Lombard, Haworth and Davies, to give Hooker some desperately needed help. Sadly, this was the last communication between the two great men.
The Proteus was soon in production, but did not see widespread use, as only a small number of Britannias were built. Hooker also worked on finishing the
In 1952, Hooker was asked by the
Hooker then used the Orpheus as the basis of an experimental vectored-thrust engine for STOVL aircraft, at that time considered by most to be the next big thing in aircraft design. In conjunction with Gordon Lewis (engineer), extensive studies showed that a suitable engine could be produced by using the Orpheus as the core of an unmixed turbofan, where the fan discharged compressed air through a pair of thrust vectoring nozzles near the front of the engine, whilst the exhaust gases discharged through a pair of thrust vectoring nozzles at the rear. The resulting engine was called the Pegasus, which led ultimately to the Hawker Siddeley Harrier attack aircraft.[9]
In 1962, Hooker was made a Fellow of the Royal Society.[10]
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. Bristol was merged with Armstrong Siddeley to become Bristol Siddeley in 1958, while most other remaining engine companies merged with Rolls.
In 1966, Bristol Siddeley was itself bought by the now cash-flush Rolls, with the result that there was only one engine company in England.
After a brief period, Hooker retired in 1967, staying on as a consultant only. Hooker's eminence in the field was widely recognised and he was made an Honorary Fellow of the AIAA.[11]
In 1970, he retired fully, and was upset that after almost 30 years in the industry, he had never become director of engine development.
Return to Rolls-Royce
In February 1971, Rolls-Royce was driven into
Hooker was immediately appointed to the board of the new
Hooker was knighted for his role in 1974.[16] After another four years, he retired once again in 1978.
In 1975, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath.[17]
During his return to Rolls-Royce, Sir Stanley was part of several high-level trade missions to China. These led to his becoming Honorary Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at
The last year of Sir Stanley Hooker's life was a brave struggle against disease. He was determined to complete his autobiography, and in this, as in most of his enterprises, he was successful. With uncanny precision he managed to put off death until the day before the actual publication of the work. In 1984, therefore, his autobiography was published, entitled, Not Much of an Engineer, referring to a quip that Hives had made upon seeing his qualifications (Hooker was a mathematician by training) during Hooker's job interview.
In the late 1980s, test pilot Bill Bedford gave a talk in Christie's auction room in South Kensington in London. He had been the original test pilot for the Harrier at Dunsfold. Bedford talked about the various fighters he had flown, many of which had been powered by Hooker's engines. On the screen behind him, towards the end of his talk, he showed a picture of Hooker, and said, "I'll have to think about this a bit, but if I was asked who was Britain's greatest ever engineer, I'd have to decide between Brunel and Sir Stanley Hooker, but I'd probably go for Sir Stanley."
In a television series produced by Johnathan Lewis, Sir Kenneth Keith stated: 'I always thought that Stanley was a near-genius. He was very, very clever and a very good engineer. Very good engineers are very difficult to find. You don't get too many in a generation or in a country.'
Personal life
He lived at 'Orchard Hill' in Milbury Heath (off the A38).[18]
References
- ISBN 1-85310-285-7.
- ^ editor, ÖGV. (2015). Wilhelm Exner Medal. Austrian Trade Association. ÖGV. Austria.
- JSTOR 770114.
- .
- ^ 1962 | 0421 | Flight Archive. Flightglobal.com. Retrieved on 2017-09-24.
- ^ "How Rolls-Royce improved the Merlin's power output". www.key.aero. 8 June 2017.
- ^ Hooker didn't want to sacrifice the additional thrust from the engine created by the ejector exhausts, patented by Rolls-Royce in 1938.[citation needed]
- ISBN 1872922112.
- ^ ISBN 978-1848840423.
- ^ "| Royal Society" (PDF).
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 May 2015. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ OCLC 11437258.
- ^ rolls-royce | 1971 | 0237 | Flight Archive. Flightglobal.com. Retrieved on 2017-09-24.
- ^ 1971 | 0321 | Flight Archive. Flightglobal.com (1971-03-04). Retrieved on 2017-09-24.
- ^ 1972 | 2753 | Flight Archive. Flightglobal.com (1972-10-19). Retrieved on 2017-09-24.
- ^ "Page 2223 | Issue 46213, 19 February 1974 | London Gazette | The Gazette". www.thegazette.co.uk.
- ^ Corporate Information Archived 25 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Bath.ac.uk. Retrieved on 2017-09-24.
- ^ Western Daily Press 3 March 1969, page 27