Beatrice (Tilly) Shilling OBE PhD MSc CEng (8 March 1909 – 1990) was an aeronautical engineer who was responsible for correcting a serious defect in the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine during the Second World War. She also was a well-known racing motorcyclist.

Early life[link]

Shilling was born at Waterlooville, Hampshire, the daughter of a butcher. After leaving school, she worked for an electrical engineering company for three years, installed wiring and generators.^[1] Her employer, Margaret Partridge, encouraged her to take a degree in Electrical Engineering at Manchester University; she completed this in 1932 and stayed on for a year to do a MSc in Mechanical Engineering.^[1] She worked as a research assistant for Professor GF Mucklow at the University of Birmingham^[1] before being recruited as a scientific officer by the Royal Aircraft Establishment.

In the 1930s, Shilling raced motorcycles. She beat professional riders, such as Noel Pope, and was awarded the Gold Star for lapping the Brooklands circuit at 106 miles per hour (171 km/h) on her Norton M30.^[2]

World War 2[link]

During the Battle of France and Battle of Britain in 1940, it became apparent that the Rolls-Royce Merlin powered Royal Air Force fighters had a serious problem with their carburettors while manoeuvring in combat. The negative g created by suddenly lowering the nose of the aircraft resulted in the engine being flooded with excess fuel, causing it to lose power or shut down completely. German fighters used Fuel injection engines and did not have this problem so, during combat, they could evade RAF fighters by flying negative g manoeuvres that could not be easily followed.

Shilling devised a simple, yet ingenious, solution that was officially called the R.A.E. restrictor. This was a small metal disc with a hole in the middle, fitted into the engine's carburettor. Although not a complete solution, it allowed RAF pilots to perform quick negative g manoeuvres without loss of engine power. By March 1941, she had led a small team on a tour of RAF fighter bases, installing the devices in their Merlin engines. The restrictor was immensely popular with pilots, who affectionately named it 'Miss Shilling's orifice' or simply the 'Tilly orifice.' It continued in use as a stop-gap until the introduction of the pressure carburettor in 1943.^[3]

Later Life[link]

After the war, Shilling worked on a variety of projects including the Blue Streak missile.^[1] Shilling was once described by a fellow scientist as "a flaming pathfinder of women's lib"; she always rejected any suggestion that as a woman she might be inferior to a man in technical and scientific fields. However, a brusque manner and a contempt for bureaucracy led to an uneasy relationship with management. Shilling worked for the RAE until the late-1960s, but never achieved high rank within the organization.^[1]

She held a doctorate from the University of Surrey, a CEng and was a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Women's Engineering Society.

Post-war, she raced cars. In the 1960s, she and her husband owned and raced an Elva Courier and an Elva, Formula Junior, single-seat racing car.^[4]

Personal Life[link]

Shilling married George Naylor, whom she met in 1938 when he was also working at the RAE. According to anecdote, she refused to marry him until he also had been awarded the Brooklands Gold Star for lapping the circuit at over 100 mph.^[1] During World War 2 he was a bomber pilot with No. 625 Squadron RAF and reached the rank of Wing Commander.

Memorials[link]

The J D Wetherspoon pub chain has opened a pub, named the Tilly Shilling in her honour in Farnborough, Hampshire.^[5][6]

References[link]

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

External links[link]

• Review of Freudenberg's biography of Shilling

Sir Stanley George Hooker FRS^[2][3](30 September 1907 – 24 May 1984) was a jet engine engineer, first at Rolls-Royce where he worked on the earliest designs such as the Welland and Derwent, and later at Bristol Aero Engines where he helped bring the troubled Proteus and Olympus to market, and then designed the famous Pegasus.

Stanley George Hooker was born at Sheerness and educated at Borden Grammar School. He won a scholarship for Imperial College London to study mathematics, and in particular, hydrodynamics. He became more interested in aerodynamics, and moved to Brasenose College, Oxford where he received his DPhil in this area in 1935.

Rolls-Royce[link]

In late 1937 he applied for a job at Rolls-Royce, and started there in January 1938. He was permitted to study anything that caught his fancy, and soon moved into the supercharger design department. He started researching the superchargers used on the Merlin engine, and calculated that big improvements could be made to their efficiency. His recommendations were put into the production line for newer versions, notably the Merlin 45, improving its power by approximately 30%, and then the Merlin 61.

The Merlin 45 went into the Spitfire Mk V in October 1940, which was produced in the greatest number of any Spitfire variant. The two-stage supercharged Merlin 61 went into the Spitfire Mk IX, the second most-produced variant, which went into service in July 1942. The Merlin 61 arrived in time to give the Spitfire a desperately needed advantage in rate of climb and service ceiling over the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. This variant of the Merlin was also to become the powerplant of the North American P-51 Mustang, and its efficiency enabled the Mustang to fly all the way to Berlin, attack the defending German fighters, and return home; this engine and the laminar flow Mustang wing was the secret of its success. Lee Atwood of North American Aviation made it clear that the Meredith Effect had more influence on the performance of the Mustang than its laminar flow wing. The Meredith Effect used the heat of the engine to produce thrust through its sophisticated radiator system.

The mathematics involved in optimising the efficiency of a supercharger, which Hooker developed, were the basis of the mathematics needed to make a gas turbine run efficiently. All jet engines, except for turbineless ones such as ram-jets, are based upon the equations used to develop the Merlin.

In 1940 Hooker was introduced to Frank Whittle, who was setting up production of his first production-quality jet engine, the W.2. In 1941 the Air Ministry had offered contracts to Rover to start production, but Whittle was growing increasingly frustrated with their inability to deliver various parts to start testing the new engine. Hooker was excited, and in turn brought Rolls-Royce chairman Ernest Hives to visit Rover's factory in Barnoldswick. Whittle mentioned his frustrations, and Hives told Whittle to send him the plans for the engine. Soon Rolls' Derby engine and supercharger factories were supplying the needed parts.

Rover was no happier with the state of affairs than Whittle. In 1942 Maurice Wilkes of Rover met Hives and Hooker in a pub. Wilkes and Hives eventually came to an agreement whereby Rover would take over production of the Rolls-Royce Meteor tank engine factory in Nottingham and Rolls would take over the jet engine factory in Barnoldswick. Hooker soon found himself as chief engineer of the new factory, delivering the W.2 as the Welland. Wellands went on to power the earliest models of the Gloster Meteor, and a development of the Welland known as the Derwent powered the vast majority of the later models.

Whittle had moved to the US in 1942 to help General Electric get the W.2 into production there, returning in early 1943. Hooker also visited in 1943, and was surprised to find they had made extensive changes and raised the thrust to 4,000 lbf (18 kN). On his return to England he decided that Rolls should recapture the power lead, and in 1944 the team started development of a larger version of the Derwent that was delivered as the 5,500 lbf (24,000 N) Nene. While this proved to be a successful design, it was not used widely on British aircraft, and Rolls eventually sold a licence to the United States, and later, several engines to the Soviet Union, which then went on to copy it unlicensed. This set off a major political row, and soon the MiG-15, powered by a copy of the Nene, was outperforming anything the British or US had to counter it.

Meanwhile Hooker's team had moved onto their first axial-flow design, then known as the AJ.65 but soon to be renamed the Avon. This did not turn out well at first, and Hooker felt he was being blamed for its problems. At the same time Rolls decided that their existing piston engines were a dead end, and moved all future jet work from Barnoldswick to Derby, their main engine site. This reduced Hooker's role in the company, and after an emotional falling-out with Hives, he left.

Bristol[link]

In January 1949 Hooker went to work at the Bristol Aero Engine company. He immediately started work on sorting out the various problems of Bristol's turboprop design, the Proteus, which was intended to power a number of Bristol aircraft designs, including the Britannia. The task of rectifying the many faults of the Proteus was immense, but most were solved. But a near-fatal accident with Britannia G-ALRX in February 1954 due to a spur gear failure prompted a telephone call from his old boss Hives, who subsequently sent his top team of Rolls-Royce jet engineers, composed of Elliott, Rubbra, Lovesey, Lombard, Howarth and Davies, to give Hooker some desperately needed help. Sadly this was the last communication between the two great men.

The Proteus was soon in production, but did not see widespread use, and only a small number of Britannias were built. Hooker also worked on finishing the Olympus, developing later versions that would be used on the Avro Vulcan and Concorde.

In 1952 Hooker was asked by the Folland company whether he could produce a 5,000 lbf (22 kN) thrust engine to power their new lightweight fighter, the Gnat. For this role he produced his first completely original design, the Orpheus, which went on to power the Fiat G91 and other light fighters. Hooker then used the Orpheus as the basis of an experimental vectored-thrust engine for VTOL aircraft, at that time considered by most to be the next big thing in aircraft design. By equipping an Orpheus to bleed off air from the compressor and turbine the thrust could be directed downwards, creating the Pegasus engine and leading to the Hawker Siddeley Harrier that used it.

In the late 1950s the Air Ministry forced through a series of mergers in the aerospace field that left only two airframe companies and two engine companies. Bristol was merged with Armstrong Siddeley to become Bristol Siddeley in 1958, while most other remaining engine companies merged with Rolls. In 1966 Bristol Siddeley was itself bought by the now cash-flush Rolls, with the result that there was only one engine company in England. After a brief period, Hooker retired in 1967, staying on as a consultant only. In 1970 he retired fully, and was upset that after almost 30 years in the industry he had never become director of engine development.

Return to Rolls-Royce[link]

In 1971 Rolls-Royce was bankrupted by its hugely expensive RB.211 project. While trying to save the company and the project, Kenneth Keith, the new chairman who had been put in to rescue the company, persuaded Hooker to return to Rolls full-time. As technical director he led a team of other retirees to rectify the problems, and soon the RB.211 was in production. Its first application was for Lockheed's L-1011 Tri-Star. Hooker was knighted for his role in 1974. After another four years he retired once again in 1978.

In 1975, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath.^[4]

During his return to Rolls-Royce, Sir Stanley was part of several high-level trade missions to China. These led to him becoming Honorary Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at Beijing University.

In 1984, Hooker published his autobiography, Not Much Of An Engineer, referring to a quip Hives had made soon after they met.

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. Bill 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."

References[link]