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Ray Creasey
Raymond Frederick ''Ray'' Creasey OBE (18 December 1921 – 16 July 1976) was a British aerodynamicist with British Aircraft Corporation (previously English Electric) from 1948 until his death in 1976. He was responsible for the aerodynamics of the Lightning interceptor aircraft.
Ray Creasey was born in Barnes, London on 18 December 1921. He won a scholarship to Hampton Grammar School. He had contracted polio as a child and this resulted in his rejection for military service at the outbreak of war. Wanting to contribute to the war effort, he joined a special projects team at Vickers-Armstrongs, rather than accepting a university place. While working full time at Vickers he studied for the Royal Aeronautical Society's Associate Fellowship Examinations, taking first place in all three subjects of Aerodynamics, Applied Mathematics, and Design (Aircraft) in 1942 at age 20. He was also awarded the Baden Powell Memorial Prize. He then took his degree at night school, graduating from the University of London with a first class honours degree in Science (Engineering) in 1944.
The early years of his working life were with Vickers-Armstrongs, where he joined Barnes Wallis's special projects team, working on projects which included the Dam Busters' bouncing bomb, also known as Operation Chastise.
In 1946 he moved to Preston to join the aeronautical design department at English Electric, which had been set up in 1944-1945 in an expansion from aircraft manufacturing to include design. In 1960 English Electric merged with Vickers-Armstrongs and Bristol Aeroplane Company to become BAC (British Aerospace Company). Further expansion and mergers created the formation, in turn, of British Aerospace and the current BAE Systems.
Ray Creasey joined English Electric as an aerodynamicist, becoming Chief Aerodynamicist for the P1 project in 1950, when Teddy Petter left the company. He provided "a major input to the aerodynamic design of the A1 bomber (Canberra) and particularly the P1 (Lightning)". In 1959 he became Director of Engineering.
In an account of Ray Creasey's contributions to the company written by Ron Dickson and Frank Roe, who are themselves also described as "founding fathers of BAE" in the BAE publication of that name, they describe the importance of his ideas for wing design and his contribution to supersonic fighter planes:
Even before Canberra first flew, Ray was seeking to design a supersonic aircraft. His knowledge of compressibility effects, due to shock waves appearing in the flow, showed that there were no insuperable obstacles, so long as great care was taken at just below the speed of sound. Slim profiles would generate only weak shock waves, and the boundary layers would not be slowed down too rapidly, to produce the dreaded "shock stall".
These ideas led to the concept of the Lightning as a supersonic fighter plane:
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Ray Creasey
Raymond Frederick ''Ray'' Creasey OBE (18 December 1921 – 16 July 1976) was a British aerodynamicist with British Aircraft Corporation (previously English Electric) from 1948 until his death in 1976. He was responsible for the aerodynamics of the Lightning interceptor aircraft.
Ray Creasey was born in Barnes, London on 18 December 1921. He won a scholarship to Hampton Grammar School. He had contracted polio as a child and this resulted in his rejection for military service at the outbreak of war. Wanting to contribute to the war effort, he joined a special projects team at Vickers-Armstrongs, rather than accepting a university place. While working full time at Vickers he studied for the Royal Aeronautical Society's Associate Fellowship Examinations, taking first place in all three subjects of Aerodynamics, Applied Mathematics, and Design (Aircraft) in 1942 at age 20. He was also awarded the Baden Powell Memorial Prize. He then took his degree at night school, graduating from the University of London with a first class honours degree in Science (Engineering) in 1944.
The early years of his working life were with Vickers-Armstrongs, where he joined Barnes Wallis's special projects team, working on projects which included the Dam Busters' bouncing bomb, also known as Operation Chastise.
In 1946 he moved to Preston to join the aeronautical design department at English Electric, which had been set up in 1944-1945 in an expansion from aircraft manufacturing to include design. In 1960 English Electric merged with Vickers-Armstrongs and Bristol Aeroplane Company to become BAC (British Aerospace Company). Further expansion and mergers created the formation, in turn, of British Aerospace and the current BAE Systems.
Ray Creasey joined English Electric as an aerodynamicist, becoming Chief Aerodynamicist for the P1 project in 1950, when Teddy Petter left the company. He provided "a major input to the aerodynamic design of the A1 bomber (Canberra) and particularly the P1 (Lightning)". In 1959 he became Director of Engineering.
In an account of Ray Creasey's contributions to the company written by Ron Dickson and Frank Roe, who are themselves also described as "founding fathers of BAE" in the BAE publication of that name, they describe the importance of his ideas for wing design and his contribution to supersonic fighter planes:
Even before Canberra first flew, Ray was seeking to design a supersonic aircraft. His knowledge of compressibility effects, due to shock waves appearing in the flow, showed that there were no insuperable obstacles, so long as great care was taken at just below the speed of sound. Slim profiles would generate only weak shock waves, and the boundary layers would not be slowed down too rapidly, to produce the dreaded "shock stall".
These ideas led to the concept of the Lightning as a supersonic fighter plane: