Sidney Camm
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Sir Sydney Camm, FRAeS (1893–March 12, 1966) was an English aeronautical engineer who contributed to many aircraft designs, from the biplanes of the 1920s to jet fighters. One particularly notable aircraft he designed is the Hawker Hurricane fighter.
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[edit] History
Camm was a towering giant as an aeronautical engineer, but his beginnings were humble. He developed an interest in aircraft at an early age and his first interest in aeronautics was spurred on by his membership in the Windsor Model Aeroplane Club. His accomplishments as a model aeroplane builder culminated in a man-carrying glider which he and others at the club built in 1912.[citation needed]
Camm joined the Hawker Aircraft Company (later Hawker Siddeley) as a draughtsman in 1925. He took part in the design of many Hawker aircraft, including the Hawker Tomtit, Cygnet, Hornbill, Nimrod, Hart and Fury.
He then moved to designing planes that would become kingpins of the RAF in the Second World War including the Hawker Hurricane, Hawker Typhoon, and Hawker Tempest. With the Hawker Hurricane, Sydney Camm moved from the world biplane to monoplane fighter aircraft. The result was that fighters flew faster, and with the improved engine technology of the time, higher, and could be made more deadly than ever.
- "Camm had a one-tracked mind – his aircraft were right, and everybody had to work on them to get them right. If they did not, then there was hell. He was a very difficult man to work for, but you could not have a better aeronautical engineer to work under. [...] With regard to his own staff, he did not suffer fools gladly, and at times many of us appeared to be fools. One rarely got into trouble for doing something either in the ideas line, or in the manufacturing line, but woe betide those who did nothing, or who put forward an indeterminate solution."[1]
When the Typhoon's design first emerged and was put to use, it was noticed that there was elevator flutter and buffetting at high speeds, because of the positioning of the heavy Napier Sabre engine very close to the root of the wing. Also, engineering an aircraft to travel at higher speeds and handle compressibility effects was one of the challenges of the day, but with his small design team of 100 members at Hawker, Camm managed to solve these problems and make the Typhoon a marvellous machine at even these speeds. The low level performance of the Typhoon was indeed legendary.
The lessons learned on the Hawker Typhoon were incorporated in the follow up to this design, in the Hawker Tempest. The design which came to be called the Tempest came to be considered by Hawker and the Air Ministry as soon as the Typhoon was in service. Camm recommended that they keep the existing design of the Typhoon for the large part, with modifications to the wing aerofoil. He had also considered the new and powerful Napier Sabre and Bristol Centaurus engines. When the question came as to which engine to use, Camm decided that they would use both. As it happened, the Tempest Mk.5 is known to have used the Napier Sabre, while the Tempest Mk.2 used the Bristol Centaurus. The design modifications to be made to the aircraft to switch from one engine type to another were minimal, so much so that there was little assistance needed in ferrying these aircraft all the way to India and Pakistan, in the final days of the conflict.
[edit] Camm after World War II
After World War 2, Sydney Camm engineered many jet powered designs which would became important aircraft in the Cold War era. Notable among these are his contributions to the Hawker P.1127 Kestrel, which begat the Hawker Siddeley Harrier. The Harrier is a well-known vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft designed at Hawker Siddeley, which would later merge into the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), now known as BAE Systems. The Harrier was one of the radical concept aircraft which took shape in post-war Britain, which required the coming together of many important technology, such as vectored thrust engines like the Rolls-Royce Pegasus and technologies like the Reaction Control System. Camm played a major role in determining these and other vital Harrier systems. In 1953, he was knighted for these and other achievements and his contribution to British Aviation.
Camm worked on many aircraft made by Hawker before the Harrier, including what is probably his best-loved aircraft after World War 2, the Hawker Hunter, which is popular at airshows even now.
Before he died in 1966, he is known to have been discussing the design of an aeroplane to travel at Mach 4, or four times the speed of sound. It is humbling to imagine that his spectacular career in aircraft design started at a Windsor Model Aeroplane Club in 1912, where he built a glider capable of carrying a man just 11 years after the first powered flight. He was witness to many developments in aviation and who influenced the world of aviation significantly throughout his illustrious career.
