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Aviation History
1966
1966 - 0693.PDF
•410 FLIGHT International, (7 Morch Hit WO R L D E W 8 With tragic suddenness last Saturday, March 12, the British aircraft industry lost its most famous aircraft designer when Sir Sydney Camm, CBE, FRAes, col- lapsed and died while playing golf at Richmond, Surrey. He was 72. For over 40 years he had designed aircraft, mainly military, with an in- spired artistry and competence which produced a steady succession of types that were immediately successful. A skilful builder of model aeroplanes as a schoolboy, he joined the Martinsyde company as a young woodworker in 1914, and there he was fortunate to come under the influence of G. H. Han- dasyde, one of the leading designers of the period. Progressing to the drawing office, he assisted Handasyde in design work until, in 1923, he decided to go to the Hawker Engineering Co. Though he joined that company as a senior draughtsman, he was its chief designer within two years. It was then, starting with the Cygnet ultra-light biplane, that Camm's long series of successful designs began. Much of his work was directed at the evolution of metal structures, and in the late 1920s and early 1930s there appeared the graceful and efficient series of fabric-and-metal biplanes of which the Hart and Fury, in particular, will be long remembered. Hawker Aircraft pro- duced over 2,000 examples of the Hart and its variants. In the early 1930s, foreseeing the pos- sibilities of reviving the monoplane fighter in modern form, Camm designed his eight-gun fighter, which in 1937 appeared as the Hurricane, one of the two outstandingly famous Rolls-Royce- powered fighters of World War Two. Almost as celebrated towards the end of the war were the Typhoon and the Tempest, and then the Sea Fury. The turbojet began to replace the piston BOAC's CANCELLED VCIOs Air Transport, page 413 RN CARRIER AIDS OIL EMBARGO Defence, page 455 ELDO MEETING POSTPONED Spaceflight, page 428 SYDNEY CAMM engine, but the succession of brilliant Camm designs continued, with the Sea Hawk and Hunter outstanding. Eight years ago this remarkable man turned his attention to VTOL, and the revolu- tionary P. 1127—the Kestrel—was the re- sult. During his career Sir Sydney Camm— he was knighted in 1953 — received honours that included the British Gold Medal for Aeronautics (1949) and the RAeS Gold Medal (1958). He was chair- man of the SBAC's technical board from 1951 to 1953, RAeS vice-president in 1950-51 and 1953-54, and president in 1954-55. He was appointed to the Haw- ker board in 1935 and at the time of his death was Hawker Siddeley Avia- tion's director of design and a director of Hawker Siddeley Group. Sir Sydney leaves a widow and daughter. One who knew him writes:— There cannot be a single leading figure in Britain's aerospace industry who does not treasure a store of reminiscences and anecdotes concerning Sir Sydney. It has been said that he was a genius, a claim which many who knew him would rebut; but he was indisputably a great leader and he was as proud of the people he had helped to make their way as of any of the prolific line of aeroplanes which he evolved. And evolved is the word. For he was cautiously progressive in his thinking and only the Kestrel could truly be des- cribed as revolutionary. The Hurricane, splendid though it was, could not be so described in respect of design. I first met him in the early 1930s, when the Hart and Fury derivatives were not only sweeping the board in the RAF and Fleet Air Arm, but were winning export orders and prestige in many nations Bril liantly engineered, this family of aircraft seemed infinitely adaptable. Foreign engines were installed to order, and I recall conducted tour of the Kingston factory when work was in progress on a batch of these machines with some exotic power plant. On asking Sydney Camm whether these engines were any good I was quickly advised that "no aero engine is any good " I Letters from him lie at hand, and one in particular is historic, for in it Sydney Camm appraises the Hurricane's great ad- versary, the MelO9. "No one would call the Messerschmitt a clean aircraft," he writes. "Take, for instance, this list of excrescences which are not to be found on either the Hurricane or Spitfire." He 1 then proceeds to enumerate with evident professional relish the various protuberances on the German fighter. After the war he gave me the confident assurance that he had an aeroplane that would break the world's speed record — adding with a twinkle, "what is the world's % speed record?" How many such recollections must have sent a pang—and yet a smile—through the country at the news of his death? He was, one supposes, happier at his drawing board than at the board-room table, though he took the liveliest interest in the affairs of the industry and frequently and fervently expressed himself concerning its future, always looking forward From that same industrial structure, shaken by events and by policies and prac- tices which Sydney Camm abhorred, the | staunchest of members has now been re- moved. Eurospace Urges Firm Programme Main conclusions from a forthcoming report on present and future European space activity were quoted in a memoran- dum issued by the industrial association Eurospace on March 14. Titled The Urgent Measures Required for the Im- plementation of a European Space Programme, the memorandum proposes the development of television distribution satellites, technological test satellites and | associated launch vehicles and the for- mulation of a co-ordinated European space programme. ELDO's task would be to develop appropriate launchers to imPlem<?* £ ticular programmes. The ELDU Designed by Sir Sydney Camm, whose death is recorded above: The Hind (one of the several famous Hart derivatives). Hurricane and •mm-
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