Stanley Hooker "Not Much of an Engineer"
Designer of the two speed supercharger on the Spitfire IX, intercoolers and assitant to Whittle on the early jet engines. designer of the Orpheus Jet Engine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Hooker the thread title is his autobiography title...interesting read on wiki... "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." |
IMHO an excellent 'read'. :ok:
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Originally Posted by gileraguy
(Post 10290691)
"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." Two things stick in my mind from Hooker's autobiography, perhaps summing up the good and the bad of the UK aircraft industry. He examined Whittle's impeller design, and concluded that he couldn't improve it. As Hooker made his reputation on the design of the supercharger impeller for the Merlin (and evidently had a proper pride in that), it suggests that Whittle was seriously good. On the other hand, he spent some time at Bristol, and developed a very poor opinion of the management. It seems that lunch was good, so good that very little got done afterwards. It's not especially well-put together as a book, but a very interesting read. |
Originally Posted by FlightlessParrot
(Post 10290958)
As Brunel wasn't all that highly thought of by his contemporaries (grandiose, I believe they thought him, and not as good as the Stephensons), looking good for Hooker.
Two things stick in my mind from Hooker's autobiography, perhaps summing up the good and the bad of the UK aircraft industry. He examined Whittle's impeller design, and concluded that he couldn't improve it. As Hooker made his reputation on the design of the supercharger impeller for the Merlin (and evidently had a proper pride in that), it suggests that Whittle was seriously good. On the other hand, he spent some time at Bristol, and developed a very poor opinion of the management. It seems that lunch was good, so good that very little got done afterwards. It's not especially well-put together as a book, but a very interesting read. |
Agreed the book is not a 'smooth' read but it is REAL. Fascinating all through.
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A really good book, which I have read twice. I didn't notice any technical issues with it but a lot of great anecdotes in it,
He describes the shocked reaction of the RR staff, when Packard engineers tell them that the Merlin drawings will have to be redone, because they are not accurate enough! He also complimented his Chinese hosts, in the 1970s, on their copy of the Russian copy of the Nene and pointed out they had faithfully copied RR's mistakes. |
FZ - I agree, great book IMHO, and I am not an engineer
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Originally Posted by India Four Two
(Post 10291167)
A really good book, which I have read twice. I didn't notice any technical issues with it but a lot of great anecdotes in it,
He describes the shocked reaction of the RR staff, when Packard engineers tell them that the Merlin drawings will have to be redone, because they are not accurate enough! He also complimented his Chinese hosts, in the 1970s, on their copy of the Russian copy of the Nene and pointed out they had faithfully copied RR's mistakes. I've always suspected that Packard used Ford's revised drawings rather than RR's although I've no grounds for it, it just seems logical. Although I'm a huge fan of Brunel, I could probably be persuaded to give Sir Stanley the accolade and I think it's a shame that most people have never heard of him, even amongst aircraft enthusiasts. |
Was it not Hooker, in a criticism of the ‘City’, said that there are only 4 ways to make money?
1. Mine it. 2. Grow it. 3. Manufacture a raw material into a product. 4. Develop an intellectual idea into one of the above. Anything else was just moving around someone else’s cash whilst creaming some of it off. |
With due respect to Mr Hooker, Brunel built bridges, tunnels, railways, docks and ships, which apart from the ships are still around and in daily use today nearly 200-years since they were built - so in my estimation Brunel's activities trump those of Mr Hooker!
FWIW BBC have a downloadable Podcast about Brunel's life here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b04nvbp1 Where Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Victorian engineer responsible for bridges, tunnels and railways still in use today more than 150 years after they were built. Brunel represented the cutting edge of technological innovation in Victorian Britain, and his life gives us a window onto the social changes that accompanied the Industrial Revolution. Yet his work was not always successful, and his innovative approach to engineering projects was often greeted with suspicion from investors. |
Agreed this is a very interesting read, saw a copy in the window if my local oxfam and dived in to make the purchase. I thought the comment from his boss at RR “you can’t even manage your personal life, how can you manage RR”” ( I am paraphrasing here) rang very true. |
After posting, I thought again about the breadth of Brunel's achievements and I agree, he would get my vote as the greatest.
That's not to take anything away from Sir Stanley. As well as the Orpheus and other turbojets, there's his work on the Merlin and Griffon superchargers. For those that either don't know or haven't read the book, he was a theoretical scientist and one of the leading experts in fluid dynamics, with no practical experience at all. What nobody knew, including Lord Hives who employed him at Rolls-Royce, was that this also made him an expert on supercharger design, and later, on gas turbines. As well as the Orpheus, there's the Olympus, the Pegasus using the Orpheus core, and he led the team that redesigned the RB211 to become an extremely successful engine. I understand the huge 100,000lb range engines that RR are building now can still be traced back to the revised RB211 he and his team designed in the early 70's. |
Originally Posted by Warmtoast
(Post 10292087)
FWIW BBC have a downloadable Podcast about Brunel's life here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b04nvbp1
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Originally Posted by FlightlessParrot
(Post 10290958)
He examined Whittle's impeller design, and concluded that he couldn't improve it. As Hooker made his reputation on the design of the supercharger impeller for the Merlin (and evidently had a proper pride in that), it suggests that Whittle was seriously good.
Brunel designed the propeller for the SS Great Britain and although it wasn't the first screw fitted to a ship, it was the first on anything like that scale. According to the organisation that looks after the ship, using modern computer aided design, the efficiency could only be improved by about 5%. |
If I recall correctly, Bristol's gear expert implored Hooker to use helical gears in the Proteus gearbox, but Hooker refused in favour of cheaper straight gears, leading to Bill Pegg's forced landing of a Britannia in the Severn Estuary?
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Whittle, IMHO, the prime example of a product of Trenchard's "3 pillars" of the RAF, well 2 at least, Halton and Cranwell
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Originally Posted by ZeBedie
(Post 10294803)
If I recall correctly, Bristol's gear expert implored Hooker to use helical gears in the Proteus gearbox, but Hooker refused in favour of cheaper straight gears, leading to Bill Pegg's forced landing of a Britannia in the Severn Estuary?
Unusually, I've got my copy of "Not Much of an Engineer" at the moment, it's often out on loan. I'll see if I can find the relevant part. |
I'll see if I can find the relevant part. |
Well, not really. It was the only part of the original engine that hadn't been redesigned, so nothing to do with Hooker to start with, and had never given a moments trouble.
How does that turn into "Hooker refused in favour of cheaper straight gears". With hindsight, obviously it should have been redesigned, but as the engine had been such a disaster and with so many other components to design or modify, why would you change the one section that appeared to work with no problems. He had authorised the manufacture of a few sets of helical gears just in case, which as it turned out meant they could get revised engines running very quickly, but as he wasn't expecting to use them it's hardly a sign of penny-pinching. |
Originally Posted by DHfan
(Post 10295099)
Well, not really. It was the only part of the original engine that hadn't been redesigned, so nothing to do with Hooker to start with, and had never given a moments trouble.
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I've always suspected that Packard used Ford's revised drawings rather than RR's although I've no grounds for it, it just seems logical. |
From an engineering point of view, straight cut gears are a better engineering solution to any gearing situation because they do not impose any side loads as do helical gears. One of the costs is noise, lots of it. Take a look at racing cars.
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I'm a big fan of IKB, but I think he was a good engineer, but a superlative project manager. The latter was his real skill.
For a superlative technical engineer, I think my money would be on Barnes Wallis - who also was a brilliant manager and networker, the latter being at the root of so many of his successes. When he designed R100, he managed 11 discrete parts in the entire 72ft/33ft framework (50 if you separate by material gauge). You'd struggle nowadays to find many aeroplanes with that few discrete parts in a door! Which is not to denegrate Hooker. We were privileged in Britain to have a group of incredible engineering geniuses at that time: Mitchell, Hooker, Camm, Wallis, Shilling.... Comparing them is an interesting intellectual exercise, but the reality is that in their own sub-fields, each was unsurpassed. G |
Originally Posted by Genghis the Engineer
(Post 10295521)
, but the reality is that in their own sub-fields, each was unsurpassed.
G |
Originally Posted by megan
(Post 10295412)
I'm on the road at the moment so unable to give the exact difference between UK and US drawing standards, but the change was to bring the drawings into line with US engineering practice. Of course Packard also introduced their own mods, supercharger drive, mags and pressure carb that didn't cut out with -ve "g". One major issue facing Packard was having to manufacture dies, taps etc in order to keep the British threads on screws, nuts etc, which led to some delay in the program.
As I said, I've no idea if Packard based their drawings on Ford's or RR's but since there was already a set in existence with mass production tolerances it would seem a bit daft to start again. Time was short and according to Hooker it took Ford a year. IIRC, Packard didn't want to make their own taps and dies but nobody else had the capacity so they were left with little choice. |
Originally Posted by DHfan
(Post 10295856)
The main difference is the UK, and most of the rest of the world, uses first angle projection and the US uses third angle projection.
Originally Posted by DHfan
(Post 10295856)
I had to look that up - it's nearly 45 years since I had to make something from an engineering drawing so don't ask me to explain the difference now! I did know...
If you like Not much of an engineer can I suggest It Was Fun: My Fifty Years of High Performance by Tony Rudd.Designer at the BRM and Lotus F1 teams. 'a |
Having spent my formative years in the drawing office at Farnborough using first angle drawings, we all knew about third angle, and so long as we knew that was what it was, had absolutely no trouble using them.
G |
G,
Thanks. You've answered a question I was going to post. I had never heard of first and third angle, but after reading about them, I thought "Why waste a year? Why not just teach the craftsmen how to use first-angle?" My recollection from Hooker's book was that Packard needed more precise drawings in order to produce interchangeable parts. |
A site that provides a good oversight of the Merlin production and issues.
https://aviationshoppe.com/rolls-roy...ies-p-254.html |
megan,
Thanks for that excellent link. I was a bit confused at first when I saw an ad for a blueprint, but then I realized that I had to scroll down to see the text. |
What I don't see mentioned in literature on the Merlin is the Australian project for manufacture. What little I can glean is the Merlin 102 was produced for installation in Australian built Lincolns. Be interested if anyone has gen, particularly numbers built.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ff6cb6d512.jpg https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7aac0a3a34.jpg |
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