Janet Mary Gulland

FRAeS 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 ...

MA CEng (18 July 1934–23 September 2017) was a British

aeronautical engineer Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...

and the first female graduate engineering apprentice at

Vickers-Armstrongs Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, w ...

Education

Gulland attended

Berkhamsted Berkhamsted ( ) is a historic market town in Hertfordshire, England, in the River Bulbourne, Bulbourne valley, north-west of London. The town is a Civil parishes in England, civil parish with a town council within the borough of Dacorum which ...

Girls School and then went to

Lady Margaret Hall Lady Margaret Hall (LMH) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, located on a bank of the River Cherwell at Norham Gardens in north Oxford and adjacent to the University Parks. The college is more formally known under ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, 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 List of oldest un ...

in 1953. There she intended to study mathematics but changed to engineering science, being the only woman in her year. In 1956, while at Oxford University, she won a

Fulbright Scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

as a research assistant in engineering at

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

, Rhode Island, USA. In 1958 she became the first woman to join

as a graduate engineering apprentice and completed her apprenticeship in 1960.

Career

Gulland then took up a position in Vickers-Armstrongs’

Aerodynamics Aerodynamics () is the study of the motion of atmosphere of Earth, air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dynamics and its subfield of gas dynamics, and is an ...

Department, where she was involved in

wind tunnel A wind tunnel is "an apparatus for producing a controlled stream of air for conducting aerodynamic experiments". The experiment is conducted in the test section of the wind tunnel and a complete tunnel configuration includes air ducting to and f ...

studies. During the 1960s she was also an Operational Researcher monitoring the performance of the TSR-2, a strike and

reconnaissance In military operations, military reconnaissance () or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnai ...

aircraft developed by the

British Aircraft Corporation The British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) was a British aircraft manufacturer formed from the government-pressured merger of English Electric, English Electric Aviation Ltd., Vickers-Armstrongs, Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft), the Bristol Aeroplane ...

(BAC) for the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

, and provided technical support and marketing intelligence to the sales team. In her early career she flew on several test flights including for the

Vickers VC10 The Vickers VC10 is a retired mid-sized, narrow-body long-range British jet airliner designed and built by Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd and first flown at Brooklands, Surrey, in 1962. The VC10 is often compared to the larger Soviet Ily ...

and Valiant V-bomber aircraft. By 1976 she had become a Research Engineer in the Group Research Department at the headquarters of BAC headquarters in

Weybridge Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge, Elmbridge district in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a cro ...

, Surrey. She was later involved, eventually at management level, in coordinating and monitoring research and was responsible for overall market research and forecasts. At the end of her career she was Director - Market Research for

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

Defence Marketing, where her work involved market research on military derivatives of commercial aircraft, and where she oversaw a team of analysts, intelligence officers and forecasters. She was Chairman of the Weybridge branch of 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 ...

from 1989 to 2006, and was elected a Fellow of the Society in October 1994.

Personal life and interests

Gulland had many interests outside her career, including sailing, skiing and Scottish dancing. She also enjoyed opera, concerts, theatre and exhibitions and travelled extensively with Sue, her partner for nearly 50 years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gulland, Janet 1934 births 2017 deaths Women engineers English LGBTQ scientists Alumni of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Brown University alumni British engineers People from Berkhamsted Vickers people English lesbians 20th-century English LGBTQ people 21st-century English LGBTQ people

Education

Career

Personal life and interests

Archive

References