Barnes Neville Wallis

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Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (born September 26, 1887 in Ripley (Derbyshire) , † October 30, 1979 in Leatherhead , Surrey ) was an English engineer .

Life

Wallis attended school until he was 17 and then began his career with J. Samuel White , a shipbuilding company in Cowes on the Isle of Wight . He was already active in aircraft construction from 1913. He became a draftsman for the British armaments company Vickers ; he worked for this company and its legal successors until 1971. In 1922, Wallis completed an external engineering degree at the University of London . His first area of ​​responsibility at Vickers was airship construction , including the R100 and R101 airships . After the disaster of the R101 and the German airship Hindenburg , the era of airships ended worldwide and Valais concentrated on aircraft and bomb developments. As chief designer at Vickers, he introduced the geodetic construction method at Vickers Wellesley , which was also used at Vickers Wellington . He played a key role in the development of almost all Vickers aircraft, including the Vickers Windsor .

Wallis became famous because, among many others, he developed the so-called roll bombs that destroyed the dams of the Möhne and Edertalsperre during Operation Chastise in May 1943 . William Glanville was also involved in the development . The high losses of test pilots and machines in combat prompted him to later call for even more thorough development phases and to enforce more safety for the aircraft crews. He also developed the Tallboy bombs with which, among other things, the German battleship Tirpitz was destroyed from the air in Norway in 1944. The Grand Slam bomb was also developed by him. Both bombs were mainly intended to shut down large bunkers.

After the war he was the pioneer of swivel wing technology for supersonic aircraft and played a key role in the development of the BAC TSR-2 . After the first successful test flights, the project was discontinued for cost reasons in favor of the idea of ​​an English version of the General Dynamics F-111 . Since the F-111K type neither achieved the initially expected performance nor the cost reduction, this project was also ended and the tasks of the Blackburn Buccaneer , F-4 Phantom II and Panavia Tornado were taken over. Until his retirement, he worked with aircraft that could fly in the supersonic and hypersonic range. He also drew up plans for underwater tankers and special torpedoes with increased propulsion. Even in old age he conducted studies on the possibility of flying at hypersonic speed .

Wallis' grave in Effingham

He was accepted as a member (" Fellow ") in the Royal Society , which also awarded him the Royal Medal in 1975 . In 1968 he was ennobled by the Queen as a Knight Bachelor . The universities of Manchester and Nottingham have buildings on their premises named after him in his honor. In the British feature film in May 1943 - The destruction of the dams ( The Dam Busters , 1954) by Sir Michael Redgrave embodies.

Private

He met his future wife Molly Bloxam, his cousin, at a birthday party in 1922. She was just 17 years old and he was 35. Her father forbade contact, but was allowed to tutor her in mathematics . By 1925 the two had written over 250 letters to each other; then he married Molly on her 20th birthday and stayed with her for 54 years until his death. He lived with her in Herne Bay in the County of Kent .

literature

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Wallis, Barnes Neville
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English scientist
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Ripley (Derbyshire)
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 1979
Place of death Leatherhead , Surrey