Wallis, Barnes Neville 1887-1979, Knight Aeronautical Designer and Engineer
Wallis is best known to the general public for his development of the bouncing bomb during World War II, made famous in the Dambusters film. He was born on 26 September 1887 at Ripley in Derbyshire. He was a pupil at Christ's Hospital School and then served as an apprentice, first at the Thames Ironworks, Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Limited, from 1905-1907, then as an apprentice fitter (later draughtsman in the Marine Engine Department) at John Samuel White and Company, Limited, at Cowes on the Isle of Wight from 1907-1913.
Wallis' lifelong involvement with aeronautics and association with Vickers began when he was invited to join the Chief Draughtsman - Airships at Vickers as Chief Assistant in the designing of the R9 airship from 1913-1915. Wallis was intermittently engaged on war service and airship design. Towards the end of the First World War, Wallis became engrossed in the design of the R80 airship, but the Royal Air Force discontinued the project in 1921. In 1922 Barnes Wallis took a degree by correspondence in engineering from London University. He served as Chief Engineer, for the Airship Guarantee Company, Vickers Limited, London and Howden, Yorkshire, from 1922-1929. In 1924 the British Government initiated a programme for the construction of two experimental airships, one of which, the R100, was designed and constructed by the Airship Guarantee Company, as subsidiary of Vickers. Barnes Wallis designed this airship individually. The loss of the R101 in 1930 brought an abrupt end to all airship development in Great Britain. Wallis' attention was diverted to aircraft.
Wallis was invited to join the Aviation Department of Vickers as Chief Designer (Structures) and was almost entirely associated with the Weybridge Design Office, which post he filled from 1930-1937. He was appointed Special Director in 1936, where he worked on the use of geodetic design and construction for Wellesley and Wellington aircraft. In aircraft design, Wallis is best known for his use of geodetic construction. He had the opportunity of applying this method when Vickers constructed a single engine low wing monoplane that came to be known as the Wellesley. The next aircraft with which Wallis was associated was the Wellington twin-engined bomber, which first flew in 1936. For much of the time during the Second World War, Wallis was heavily engaged in supervising improvements to the Wellingtons and adaptations for special purposes. At the same time, he developed his ideas on strategic bombing of German industrial targets, including the dams in the Ruhr district. For this purpose Wallis devised the bouncing bombs. The authorities gave Wallis permission to put into practice his long held idea of a ten-ton bomb, nicknamed Tallboy to destroy targets conventional bombs would hardly dent. Towards the end of the Second World War, Wallis' ten ton bomb, Grand Slam was first dropped in March 1945. Wallis served as Assistant Chief Designer (Aviation Section) for Vickers-Armstrong at Weybridge from 1938-1944. He was awarded the CBE in 1943.
After the Second World War, Wallis served as Chief of Aeronautical Research and Development at Vickers-Armstrong from 1945-1971 and was appointed Special Director and Head of Independent Research in 1946, with freedom to develop at will. Wallis turned his attention to variable geometry or swing-wing aircraft. Over the next thirteen years, with first the Wild Goose, then Swallow models, Wallis developed this revolutionary concept, overcoming technical problems as he worked towards the prototype stage. Various potential applications of the principle were cancelled in the light of changing operational requirements and increasing costs. Wallis continued to work on designs for high speed aeroplanes, eventually proposing the adoption of a rectangular fuselage as the most efficient form for hypersonic aircraft, as well as on a new form of submarine.
He was knighted in 1968 and retired from Vickers in May 1971, by now the British Aircraft Corporation. He died on 30 October 1979 in Leatherhead Hospital.
National Physical Laboratory National Physical Laboratory (NPL) was founded in 1900 at Bushy House, Teddington, London "for standardising and verifying instruments, for testing materials, and for the determination of physical constants." It is one of the oldest standardising laboratories in the world.
It was originally conceived as an extension of Kew Observatory, which was situated round the corner in Old Deer Park at Richmond, and for the first 18 years of its existence, NPL was under the control of the Royal Society.
Since its establishment, the research work at NPL has included all branches of physics, light, electricity and magnetism, radio communication, engineering, metallurgy, aeronautics and ship design. Many of Britain's most renowned scientists have been involved in work at NPL, including Alan Turing, Louis Essen and Donald Davies.
Some of the most notable achievements carried out at NPL include the invention of the Automatic Computer Engine (ACE), packet switching, radar and the atomic clock.
Their current address is National Physical Laboratory, Hampton Road, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 0LW.
Aeronautical Research Council In May 1909 the government appointed an Advisory Committee for Aeronautics to advise it on aeronautical policy and to supervise research then being undertaken into the problems of flight. The committee's role was purely advisory and it could only study problems which were referred to it. A department was set up at the National Physical Laboratory, under the laboratory's administration, to assist the committee in dealing with such problems.
During its early years the committee was responsible to the Prime Minister as Chairman of the Committee of Imperial Defence, but from 1918, although it remained independent of departmental control, it reported to and advised whichever minister was currently responsible for governmental research into aeronautics. From 1918 until 1940 the committee reported to the Secretary of State for Air, and subsequently to the ministers of Aircraft Production (1940 to 1945), Supply (1945 to 1959), Aviation (1959 to 1966) and Technology (1966 to 1970). Later it advised the Minister for Defence Procurement, Ministry of Defence, and Minister for Aerospace, Department of Industry.
The committee was reconstituted three times: in 1920, 1925 and 1945. On the first occasion, following the redistribution of responsibility for government research between the Air Ministry and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, it was renamed the Aeronautical Research Committee, and given wider terms of reference. In addition, its composition was altered to include representatives of the aircraft industry and of other outside interests. Sub-committees and panels formed the basis of the committee's internal organisation and by 1925 there were 13 sub-committees ranging in size from 3 to 12 or more members. Each sub-committee was presided over by a member of the main committee and included, as appropriate, representatives of the governmental bodies interested in aeronautical research. The principal sub-committees each developed a number of panels.
In 1945, when the committee was renamed the Aeronautical Research Council, sub-committees became known as committees and the panels became known as sub-committees. At the same time the Minister of Aircraft Production announced that the council would consist of 14 members of whom 8, including the chairman, would be non-official members.
The Aeronautical Research Council was eventually disbanded in 1979.
