Anne Burns
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Anne Burns (23 November 1915 â€“ 22 January 2001) was a British aeronautical engineer and
glider pilot Glider or Gliders may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport ...
. She had a career of nearly 40 years in the
Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...
as an engineer and an expert in
wind shear Wind shear (; also written windshear), sometimes referred to as wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and/or direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. Atmospheric wind shear is normally described as either vertical ...
. As a glider pilot, she obtained the British woman's record for highest altitude, and was the first woman to cross the English Channel in a glider.


Early life

Anne Pellew was born in
Haworth Haworth ( , , ) is a village in West Yorkshire, England, in the Pennines south-west of Keighley, 8 miles (13 km) north of Halifax, west of Bradford and east of Colne in Lancashire. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhop ...
, Yorkshire. She attended The Abbey School, Reading, and then went to
St Hugh's College, Oxford St Hugh's College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It is located on a site on St Margaret's Road, to the north of the city centre. It was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth as a ...
, where, only the second woman to read Engineering Sciences at
Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
, she was awarded the Edgell Shepee Scholarship (the first woman to receive it) and graduated with a
First First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...
in 1936. She also won a hockey
Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...
and squash 'Half Blue'.


RAE Farnborough

She did research work under Professor Richard Southwell at the university's engineering laboratory. Together they wrote one of the early theoretical papers on Rayleigh-Benard convection. At the outbreak of the Second World War she applied to join the
Air Transport Auxiliary The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a British civilian organisation set up at the start of the Second World War with headquarters at White Waltham Airfield in Berkshire. The ATA ferried new, repaired and damaged military aircraft between fac ...
as a ferry pilot, but her engineering expertise precluded this and in 1940 she was employed by the
Ministry of Supply The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed on 1 August 1939 by the Ministry of Supply Act 1939 ( 2 & 3 Geo. 6. c. 38) to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Ministe ...
, joining what became the Structures and Mechanical Department at the
Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...
(RAE) at
Farnborough, Hampshire Farnborough is a town located in the Rushmoor district of Hampshire, England. It has a population of around 57,486 as of the 2011 census and is an important centre of aviation, engineering and technology. The town is probably best known for it ...
, as a scientific assistant. Her early work concentrated on flutter problems and on the measurement of the loads imposed on aircraft structures during flight. Other wartime tasks included the development of windscreen wipers for bombers and the double windscreen enclosing a supply of warm air to improve visibility. During this time she made test flights in many types of military aircraft from Tiger Moths to
Hawker Typhoon The Hawker Typhoon was a British single-seat fighter-bomber, produced by Hawker Aircraft. It was intended to be a medium-high altitude interceptor aircraft, interceptor, as a replacement for the Hawker Hurricane, but several design problems we ...
s and
Gloster Meteor The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies' only jet aircraft to engage in combat operations during the Second World War. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turbojet engines, pioneere ...
s. In the late 1940s she was the first flight-test observer (FTO) in the UK to use strain gauges in an aircraft in flight. In 1953 she became a Principal Scientific Officer. During the investigation in 1954 into the crashes of the early
de Havilland Comet The de Havilland DH.106 Comet is the world's first commercial jet airliner. Developed and manufactured by de Havilland in the United Kingdom, the Comet 1 prototype first flew in 1949. It features an aerodynamically clean design with four ...
jet airliners, she made many flights as an FTO in unpressurised Comets, sometimes up to 40,000 feet. It was known that the aircraft had broken up in flight while flying above 25,000 ft. In her own words "We flew about waiting for the windows to blow out." The following year Burns was awarded the
Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air The Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air, formerly the King's Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air, was a merit award for flying service awarded by the United Kingdom between 1942 and 1994. It was replaced by the Queen†...
in recognition of her bravery and contribution to the investigation. In 1958 she was also awarded the R. P. Alston Medal by the
Royal Aeronautical Society The Royal Aeronautical Society, also known as the RAeS, is a British multi-disciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community. Founded in 1866, it is the oldest Aeronautics, aeronautical society in the world. Memb ...
for this work. She became an expert on
clear-air turbulence In meteorology, clear-air turbulence (CAT) is the turbulence, turbulent movement of air masses in the absence of any visual clues such as clouds, and is caused when bodies of air moving at widely different speeds meet. The atmospheric region mos ...
due to "wind-shear", caused by different air movement (wind) at altitudes close to each other, such as at the edge of a high-level "jet stream". Some of her research into turbulent air was conducted in a
Fournier RF 4 The Fournier RF 4 is a single-seater motor glider designed by René Fournier in 1966. It is an aerobatic version of the Fournier RF 3.English Electric Canberra The English Electric Canberra is a British first-generation, jet-powered medium bomber. It was developed by English Electric during the mid- to late 1940s in response to a 1944 Air Ministry requirement for a successor to the wartime de Havilla ...
carrying out low- and high-level-gust research. Some of the low level flights were carried out in high temperatures in Libya from the RAF Stations at El Adem near Tobruk and RAF Idris near Tripoli. The Royal Aeronautical Society awarded her the Silver Medal for Aeronautics in 1966, and in 1968, when she was working on clear-air turbulence, flying as an observer in several countries, she was presented with the
Whitney Straight Air Commodore Whitney Willard Straight, (6 November 1912 – 5 April 1979) was a British racing driver, aviator, businessman, and a member of the prominent Whitney family. Early life Born in New York City, Whitney Straight was the son of Maj ...
Award for her services to aeronautical research and flying. She retired from the RAE in 1976 after accumulating 1,500 hours of flight time as an observer. She met her husband Denis Burns at the RAE and they married in 1947.


Gliding

Although she had flown military assault gliders during the war, Anne Burns took up
gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sports, air sport in which pilots fly glider aircraft, unpowered aircraft known as Glider (sailplane), gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmospher ...
as a sport in 1954 winning awards and establishing both national and international records for women. On her first cross-country flight, from
Lasham Lasham is a village and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is northwest of Alton, Hampshire, Alton and north of Bentworth, just off the A339 road. The parish covers an area of and has an average elevation o ...
, Hampshire in an
Eon Olympia The Eon Olympia was a glider produced from 1947 by Elliotts of Newbury. Design and development Elliotts had been asked in 1945 by Chilton Aircraft Ltd to make one set of wings for the Chilton Olympia, a glider that had been developed in pre- ...
she reached
RAF Ternhill Royal Air Force Tern Hill, or more simply RAF Tern Hill, was a Royal Air Force station at Ternhill in Shropshire, England, near the towns of Newport, Shropshire, Newport and Market Drayton. The station closed in 1976, with the technical and a ...
, Shropshire in 4hr 55min breaking the British women's distance record. In December 1956, she flew a Slingsby Skylark 3b following a
bungee launch Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to remain airborne. The word ''soaring'' is a ...
to setting new women's British national and UK absolute altitude and gain-of-height records. Again flying a Skylark 3, she became the first woman to cross the
English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...
in a glider in 1957. She was presented with the
British Women Pilots' Association British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and cultur ...
's Jean Lennox Bird Trophy on 28 April 1960 by Lord Brabazon of Tara for her record flight on 10 May 1959, breaking all then existing British women's glider records. By 1961 she held 10 of the 11 UK women's records including the current altitude record of . In breaking the altitude record in South Africa she had entered the base of a
cumulonimbus Cumulonimbus () is a dense, towering, vertical cloud, typically forming from water vapor condensing in the lower troposphere that builds upward carried by powerful buoyant air currents. Above the lower portions of the cumulonimbus the water va ...
cloud at about 6,000 ft above ground. On the way up, there were electrical discharges to the pilot's knees from various metal parts of the aircraft. At about 34,000 ft there was a nearby major strike which discharged itself violently through the left wing. A small panel from the wing was blown away. Anne was temporarily confused by this shock but, coming-to more or less instantaneously, she decided it was time to get out of the cloud and descend. In 1962, Anne and Denis Burns were jointly awarded the Royal Aero Club's Britannia Trophy for their gliding achievements. In 1963 she claimed the women's world record for speed over a 500 km triangular course of 103.33 km/h. In 1966 she became British Gliding Champion, the first woman to hold the title. She received many other awards for gliding achievements including the
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale The World Air Sports Federation (; FAI) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintains worl ...
Lilienthal Gliding Medal Lilienthal Gliding Medal – the highest soaring award in the world, established by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) in 1938, and is given at the annual Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) General Conference. It was cr ...
in 1966. In 1977 her glider tail parachute deployed unexpectedly at high altitude. She decided to bail out but became tangled in the parachute's shroud lines, nevertheless escaping with only an injured ankle by landing in a sycamore tree. She thus became the first woman since the 1930s to become a member of Irvin's
Caterpillar Club The Caterpillar Club is an informal association of people who have successfully used a parachute to bail out of a disabled aircraft. After authentication by the parachute maker, applicants receive a membership certificate and a distinctive lapel ...
and aged 62, she was also the oldest person ever to join this club. She then gave up gliding and took up fly fishing and snooker, again winning awards in both sports. Anne Burns died on 22 January 2001.


References

* *''Sailplane & Gliding'', vol. 60, no. 5, October/November 2009. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Burns, Anne 1915 births 2001 deaths 20th-century British engineers 20th-century British women engineers British aviation record holders British women aviation record holders British women engineers English aerospace engineers English glider pilots Britannia Trophy winners Lilienthal Gliding Medal recipients Glider flight record holders Recipients of the Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air Alumni of St Hugh's College, Oxford People from Haworth People educated at The Abbey School