John Gilbert Ackroyd (31 January 1937 – 25 January 2021) was a British engineer.
Early and personal life
Ackroyd born in Muttra, India, on 31 January 1937, and grew up in England from the age of seven.
He was educated in Ryde, Folkestone and
Ardingly College
Ardingly College () is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, fee-charging Boarding school, boarding and Day school, day school in the English Public school (UK), public school tradition located near Ardingly, West Sussex, England. The school ...
.
Ackroyd married Birgit Häggman in 1963. The couple divorced in the early 1980s. They had two daughters Anna and Lisa.
Career
Ackroyd started his engineering career with an apprenticeship at
Saunders-Roe
Saunders-Roe Limited, also known as Saro, was a British aerospace and marine-engineering company based at Columbine Works, East Cowes, Isle of Wight.
History
The name was adopted in 1929 after Alliott Verdon Roe (see Avro) and John Lord took ...
in East Cowes on the
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...
. His final job as an apprentice was in the design department working on the
SR53 prototype fighter aircraft with a mixed jet and rocket propulsion system.
Ackroyd then took a lead role in designing and engineering at
Cushioncraft for
Britten-Norman
Britten-Norman (BN) is a privately owned British aircraft manufacturer and aviation services provider. The company is the sole independent commercial aircraft producer in the United Kingdom.
Britten-Norman has so far manufactured and sold its ai ...
. The CC7 launched in 1969 but when the company was sold Ackroyd was again out of a job.
After two years in Germany with the aircraft manufacturer
Dornier Dornier may refer to:
* Claudius Dornier (1884–1969), German aircraft designer and builder
** Dornier Flugzeugwerke, German aircraft manufacturer founded in 1914 by Claudius Dornier
* Dornier Consulting, international consulting and project manag ...
, he became the project designer of the world's first production electric car for the Isle of Wight-based
Enfield Automotive
Enfield Automotive was an electric car manufacturer founded in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. Under the ownership of Greek millionaire Giannis Goulandris, production was moved to the Greece, Greek isle of Syros during the 1973 oil crisis, oil ...
, which commenced sales in 1973 as the
Enfield 8000
The Enfield 8000 is a two-seater battery-electric city car, introduced in 1973 and developed in the United Kingdom by Isle of Wight company Enfield Automotive, owned by Greek millionaire Giannis Goulandris. The car was designed by a group of Gr ...
.
In 1978 he joined the
Thrust 2 land speed record project, which went on the achieve the record in 1983.
In 1981 he was involved with the Vanishing Point rocket sled which achieved the World Ice Speed Record at in 1981, and in 1999, the Gillette Mach 3 Challenger which set the motorcycle speed record of .
In 1987 he teamed up with the Swedish aeronautical engineer
Per Lindstrand
Per Lindstrand (born 8 September 1948) is a Swedish aeronautical engineer, pilot, adventurer and entrepreneur. He is particularly known for his series of record-breaking trans-oceanic hot air balloon flights and, later, attempts to be the first ...
and
Richard Branson
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400.
Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...
for a project to cross the Atlantic in a balloon. Ackroyd designed the pressurised capsule for the Virgin Atlantic Flyer, and the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 1987.
Death
Ackroyd died of complications from Alzheimer's disease on 25 January 2021, aged 83.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ackroyd, John
1937 births
2021 deaths
British engineers
People educated at Ardingly College