Sir Robert Lang Lickley (19 January 1912 – 7 July 1998) was a Scottish aeronautical engineer, and Chief Engineer at

Fairey Aviation The Fairey Aviation Company Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer of the first half of the 20th century based in Hayes in Middlesex and Heaton Chapel and RAF Ringway in Cheshire. Notable for the design of a number of important military ...

during whose tenure the

Fairey Delta 2 The Fairey Delta 2 or FD2 (internal designation Type V within Fairey) is a British supersonic research aircraft that was produced by the Fairey Aviation Company in response to a specification from the Ministry of Supply for a specialised aircraf ...

became the first aircraft to exceed 1,000 mph.

Early life

Lickley was born in Dundee in Scotland and was educated at the

High School of Dundee The High School of Dundee is an independent, co-educational, day school in Dundee, Scotland, which provides nursery, primary and secondary education to just over one thousand pupils. Its foundation has been dated to 1239, and it is the only pri ...

. He studied

Civil Engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewa ...

at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

where he graduated BSc, and then went on to

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a ...

as a postgraduate, where he studied Aeronautics on a Caird Scholarship.

Career

Hawker

Lickley joined the stress office of Hawker at

Kingston upon Thames Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable a ...

in 1933. He worked on a new single-seat eight-gun monoplane for specification F5/34. This became the

Hawker Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness b ...

, which first flew in 1935. As a Chief Project Engineer he worked on the

Typhoon A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...

Tempest Tempest is a synonym for a storm. '' The Tempest'' is a play by William Shakespeare. Tempest or The Tempest may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Films * ''The Tempest'' (1908 film), a British silent film * ''The Tempest'' (1911 film), a ...

, and Sea Fury. He worked on Hawker's entry into jet flight, the P.1040, which became the Sea Hawk.

Cranfield

He became Professor of Aircraft Design in 1946 at the new College of Aeronautics at

Cranfield Cranfield is a village and civil parish in the west of Bedfordshire, England, situated between Bedford and Milton Keynes. It had a population of 4,909 in 2001. increasing to 5,369 at the 2011 Census. The parish is in Central Bedfordshire un ...

, which became

Cranfield University Cranfield University is a British postgraduate public university, public research university specialising in science, engineering, design, technology and management. Cranfield was founded as the College of Aeronautics (CoA) in 1946. Through the 19 ...

Fairey

In November 1951 Lickley became Technical Director and Chief Engineer of

, initially working on the

Fairey Gannet The Fairey Gannet is a carrier-borne aircraft that was designed and produced by the British aircraft manufacturer the Fairey Aviation Company. It was developed for the Royal Navy, being the first fixed-wing aircraft to combine both the search ...

, including the

AEW AEW or aew may refer to: * Airborne early warning Airborne or Airborn may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Airborne'' (1962 film), a 1962 American film directed by James Landis * ''Airborne'' (1993 film), a comedy–drama f ...

version. He put together a team of aerodynamicists and mathematicians at their headquarters at Hayes in

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbourin ...

. Fairey was also based in northern Cheshire. At the same time the

Fairey Rotodyne The Fairey Rotodyne was a 1950s British compound gyroplane designed and built by Fairey Aviation and intended for commercial and military uses.compound gyroplane was being developed, although ultimately cancelled in 1962. The military version would have cost too much and BEA considered the commercial prospects to be not sufficiently assured. The 48-seat aircraft had been planned for the London-Paris route. Fairey also developed the Fairey Ultra-light Helicopter for the Royal Navy, but it was not adopted. The company developed the

Fireflash Fireflash was the United Kingdom's first air-to-air guided missile to see service with the Royal Air Force. Constructed by Fairey Aviation, the missile utilised radar beam riding guidance. Fireflash had relatively limited performance and requi ...

, the UK's first

air-to-air missile The newest and the oldest member of Rafael's Python family of AAM for comparisons, Python-5 (displayed lower-front) and Shafrir-1 (upper-back) An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying ...

, at its site at

Heston Heston is a suburban area and part of the Hounslow district in the London Borough of Hounslow. The residential settlement covers a slightly smaller area than its predecessor farming village, 10.8 miles (17.4 km) west south-west of Charing C ...

. The total engineering team and staff at Hayes was around 1,000. Lickley later became Managing Director. Part of the company also helped to build the

Trawsfynydd nuclear power station Trawsfynydd nuclear power station ( cy, Atomfa Trawsfynydd) is a decommissioned Magnox nuclear power station situated in Snowdonia National Park in Gwynedd, Wales. The plant, which became operational in 1965, was the only nuclear power station in ...

. The British Conservative government cancelled Fairey's new fighter, based on the FD2. A

Fairey Delta 3 Fairey may refer to: People *Charles Richard Fairey, British aircraft manufacturer *David Fairey, English cricketer *Francis Fairey (1887 - 1971), Canadian politician *Jim Fairey, baseball player *Mike Fairey, British businessman *Shepard Fairey, A ...

had also been planned. The French, however, saw the development potential for the FD2 concept, and their

Dassault Mirage Mirage is a name given to several types of jet aircraft designed by the French company Dassault Aviation (formerly Avions Marcel Dassault), some of which were produced in different variants. Most were supersonic fighters with delta wings. The most ...

aircraft would be produced in many variants and exported to many countries. The FD2 had a drooped nose (10 degrees) which included the cockpit. A simpler droop nose, in so far as it was only the unpressurized part in front of the cockpit, was later developed for

Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France and t ...

Institutions

In the 1950s Lickley was a member of the

Aeronautical Research Council The Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (ACA) was a UK agency founded on 30 April 1909, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. In 1919 it was renamed the Aeronautical Research Committee, later becoming the Aeronautical ...

and

Society of British Aerospace Companies The Society of British Aerospace Companies, formerly Society of British Aircraft Constructors, known as SBAC, was the UK's national trade association representing companies supplying civil air transport, aerospace defence, homeland security an ...

. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Edinburgh in 1973 and from the University of Strathclyde in January 1987. He worked with the

Science and Engineering Research Council The Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) and its predecessor the Science Research Council (SRC) were the UK agencies in charge of publicly funded scientific and engineering research activities, including astronomy, biotechnology and bi ...

(SERC). In 1977 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. His proposers were Donald McCallum, Sir John Atwell,

Francis Penny Francis may refer to: People * Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State and Bishop of Rome *Francis (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Francis (surname) Places *Rural ...

and

Thomas Diery Patten Thomas Diery Patten CBE FRSE (1 January 1926–4 July 1999) was a Scottish mechanical engineer and educator. He was involved in the development of the Scottish North Sea Oil Industry in the 1960s, heading the Institute of Offshore Engineerin ...

. On 25 November 1981, speaking as President of the Institution of Production Engineers, he said ''the Government appears to have developed a smooth transfer line which moves the oil revenues to the unemployed without any intervening checks or delays. Instead the checks and delays exist, it would seem, to restrain industry from becoming more efficient and to reduce the likelihood of more young people moving into engineering''. At the time his words were echoed by Robert Inskip, 2nd Viscount Caldecote.

Personal life

Lickley married Doris May (d.1997) and they had a son and a daughter. They lived in

Walton-on-Thames Walton-on-Thames, locally known as Walton, is a market town on the south bank of the Thames in the Elmbridge borough of Surrey, England. Walton forms part of the Greater London built-up area, within the KT postcode and is served by a wide ...

. He was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1973 and knighted in the 1984 Queen's birthday honours.

References

External links

Obituary
from the

IMechE Heritage

Fairey Delta 2

Video clips

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lickley, Robert 1912 births 1998 deaths Academics of Cranfield University Alumni of Imperial College London Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fairey Aviation Company Fellows of the Institution of Engineering and Technology Fellows of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellows of the Royal Aeronautical Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Hawker Siddeley Knights Bachelor People educated at the High School of Dundee Engineers from Dundee People from Walton-on-Thames Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal winners Scottish aerospace engineers