Robert Edward Grigg (23 June 1924 – February 2002) was a British aerospace engineer, and was the chief designer of the highly-successful

British Aerospace 146 The British Aerospace 146 (also BAe 146) is a short-haul and regional airliner that was manufactured in the United Kingdom by British Aerospace, later part of BAE Systems. Production ran from 1983 until 2001. Manufacture by Avro Internati ...

(Hawker Siddeley).Flight International May 1981
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Early life

He was born in Great Yarmouth on the

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

coast. He was the son of Robert Grigg and Emily Rudderham.

Career

British Aerospace 146

394 of the BAe 146 were produced, making it the most successful British airliner. Production started in 1983 and ended in 2002. It began as the DH123, then the DH126 which was a scaled-up version of the DH125 which had been built at Hatfield. As Hawker Siddeley it became the HS131.

Woodford Woodford may refer to: Places Australia *Woodford, New South Wales *Woodford, Queensland, a town in the Moreton Bay Region *Woodford, Victoria Canada * Woodford, Ontario England *Woodford, Cornwall * Woodford, Gloucestershire *Woodford, Greate ...

(former Avro) was designing the HS860 and it was proposed to merge this design team with that of the HS136 in Hertfordshire. A similar concurrent design was the proposed four-engined Armstrong Whitworth AW.681. By 1969 the design had rear engines. On 29 August 1973 the HS146 project at Hatfield (former de Havilland) was approved by Hawker Siddeley, with plans for a first flight by December 1975. On 21 October 1974 the project was deferred. As

British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marcon ...

, the project was restarted on 10 July 1978, with the first flight of ''G-SSSH'' taking place on 3 September 1981 piloted by

Mike Goodfellow Michael J. Goodfellow (October 3, 1866 – February 12, 1920) was a Major League Baseball outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders ...

with Peter Sedgwick, another British Aerospace test pilot. The aircraft type is now supplied by BAE Systems Regional Aircraft. The aircraft is known by airlines for its excellent STOL characteristics. On 27 November 2001, BAE closed its Regional Jets programme. The last delivered was from Woodford on 25 November 2003 when ''OH-SAP'', a BAe RJ-85, was delivered for

Blue1 Blue1 Oy was a Finnish airline owned by CityJet. It was a subsidiary of the SAS Group and flew to around 28 destinations in Europe, mainly from its base at Helsinki Airport. It carried over 1.7 million passengers in 2011.

; this was also shortly before the last commercial flight of

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 an ...

. The BAC One-Eleven, a slightly earlier small airliner, sold 244. Other projects He also worked on the Comet, the Trident and the Airbus wing.

Personal life

He married Patricia Williams in 1947. They had two sons in 1950 and 1957. He died in Luton in 2002, having lived previously in Harpenden in Hertfordshire. BAe 146 and BAe 125 aircraft Middlesex 29-05-2002 MOD 45140428

BAe 146 and BAe 125 aircraft Middlesex 29-05-2002 MOD 45140428

References

* ''Hawker Siddeley Aviation and Dynamics: 1960-77''

External links