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, Hillingdon, Hayes in Middlesex and Heaton Chapel and RAF Ringway in Cheshire that designed important military aircraft ...

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 aircr ...

became the first aircraft to exceed 1,000 mph.

Early life

Lickley was born in

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

in Scotland and was educated at the

High School of Dundee The High School of Dundee is a private, 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 private sc ...

. He studied

Civil Engineering Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

where he graduated BSc, and then went on to

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

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, colloquially known as Kingston, is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, south-west London, England. It is situated on the River Thames, south-west of Charing Cross. It is an ancient market town, notable as ...

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 by ...

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

Typhoon A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere and which produces sustained hurricane-force winds of at least . This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, accounting for a ...

, Tempest, 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 uni ...

, which became

Cranfield University Cranfield University is a postgraduate-only public research university in the United Kingdom that specialises in science, engineering, design, technology and management. Cranfield was founded as the College of Aeronautics (CoA) in 1946. Throug ...

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 an ...

, including the

AEW All Elite Wrestling (AEW) is an American professional wrestling promotion headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. It is owned and operated by Shahid and Tony Khan, with the latter serving as president and chief executive officer. AEW was foun ...

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

Hayes Hayes may refer to: * Hayes (surname), including a list of people with the name ** Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th president of the United States * Hayes (given name) Businesses * Hayes Brake, an American designer and manufacturer of disc brakes * Hay ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

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

Fairey Rotodyne The Fairey Rotodyne was a 1950s British Gyrodyne, compound gyroplane designed and built by Fairey Aviation and intended for commercial and military uses. A development of the earlier Fairey Jet Gyrodyne, which had established a world helicopter s ...

compound gyroplane A gyrodyne is a type of VTOL aircraft with a helicopter rotor-like system that needs to be driven by its engine only for takeoff and landing, and includes one or more conventional propeller or jet engines to provide thrust during cruising fligh ...

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 The Fairey Ultra-light Helicopter was a small British military helicopter intended to be used for reconnaissance and casualty evacuation, designed by the Fairey Aviation Company. The Ultra-light had been conceived of as a straightforward, low ...

for the Royal Navy, but it was not adopted. The company developed the Fireflash, the UK's first

air-to-air missile An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying another aircraft (including unmanned aircraft such as cruise missiles). AAMs are typically powered by one or more rocket motors, usually solid-fuel roc ...

, 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 () is a former 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 UK to be built inland, wi ...

. The British Conservative government cancelled Fairey's new fighter, based on the FD2. A Fairey Delta 3 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 Concorde () is a retired Anglo-French supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France and the United Kingdom signed a treaty establishin ...

Institutions

In the 1950s Lickley was a member of the Aeronautical Research Council and

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

. 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 (RSE) 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 establis ...

. His proposers were Donald McCallum, Sir John Atwell,

Francis Penny Francis may refer to: People and characters *Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church (2013–2025) *Francis (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters *Francis (surname) * Francis, a character played by YouTuber Boogie29 ...

and Thomas Diery Patten. 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, known locally as Walton, is a market town on the bank (geography), south bank of the River Thames, Thames in northwest Surrey, England. It is in the Borough of Elmbridge, about southwest of central London. Walton forms part ...

. 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 20th-century Scottish engineers