I had originally thought to post this in the Flight Test forum, as that's the domain in which I first came across his work, but his influence on the rotary wing industry is much greater than that.
I only realised today that Ray Prouty died last September, at the fair age of 88.
Many, like me, will express regrets at that news, whereas rather more of you are likely to ask "Ray who?"
Well, the best I can do to answer that question is to point you to his
American Helicopter Society obituary, but in short - to quote Shawn Coyle of hereabouts, in that obit - he was the "Grand Elder of the Helicopter Industry". He was a design engineer at Sikorsky, Lockheed, Bell and Hughes/McDonnell Douglas and was involved in many of the key US programmes that existed during his career.
As importantly, though, for the rest of us who came afterwards in the industry was his skill at explaining concepts both in writing and in person as a lecturer.
I had been reading his Rotor & Wing articles for some years and then had the privilege to meet him and experience his lecturing style in the late 1990s at a course in Williamsburg, VA. After the course I ran into him again in a second hand aviation bookshop nearby, which doubled as the bookseller's garage, and had a more personal conversation. He was a lovely, and apparently slightly shy, man.
Those articles, and his more academic text books, are an understandable, well written and well illustrated goldmine for anybody interested in why helicopters are designed as they are. The first two volumes of his collated R&W columns (Vol.3 will apparently be produced) are available amazingly cheaply for such material online - and from a mainstream supplier, too. (Which one? Well, we shouldn't advertise here, but it's the first one you probably thought of!)
RIP Ray, and thanks for all the help.
