4.6 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barnes Wallis | 2/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_Wallis | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T17:40:17.031766+00:00 | kb-cron |
After the success of the bouncing bomb, Wallis was able to return to his huge bombs, producing first the Tallboy [6 t (5.9 long tons; 6.6 short tons)] and then the Grand Slam [10 t (9.8 long tons; 11 short tons)] deep-penetration earthquake bombs. These were not the same as the 5 t (4.9 long tons; 5.5 short tons) "blockbuster" bomb, which was a conventional blast bomb. Although there was still no aircraft capable of lifting these two bombs to their optimal release altitude, they could be dropped from a lower height, entering the earth at supersonic speed and penetrating to a depth of 20 m (66 ft) before exploding. They were used on strategic German targets such as V-2 rocket launch sites, the V-3 supergun bunker, submarine pens and other reinforced structures, large civil constructions such as viaducts and bridges, as well as the battleship Tirpitz. They were forerunners of bunker-busting bombs.
== Post-war research ==
=== Aircraft design === Having been dispersed with the Design Office from Brooklands to the nearby Burhill Golf Club in Hersham, after the Vickers factory was badly bombed in September 1940, Wallis returned to Brooklands in November 1945 as head of the Vickers-Armstrongs Research & Development Department which was based in the former motor circuit's 1907 clubhouse. Here he and his staff worked on many futuristic aerospace projects including supersonic flight and "swing-wing" technology (later used in the Panavia Tornado and other aircraft types). Following the high death toll of the aircrews involved in the Dambusters raid, he made a conscious effort never again to endanger the lives of his test pilots. His designs were extensively tested in model form, and consequently he became a pioneer in the remote control of aircraft. A massive 19,533 square feet (1,814.7 m2) Stratosphere Chamber (which was the world's largest facility of its type) was designed and built beside the clubhouse by 1948. It became the focus for much R&D work under Wallis's direction in the 1950s and 1960s, including research into supersonic aerodynamics that contributed to the design of Concorde, before finally closing by 1980. This unique structure was restored at Brooklands Museum thanks to a grant from the AIM-Biffa fund in 2013 and was officially reopened by Mary Stopes-Roe, Barnes Wallis's daughter, on 13 March 2014.
Although he did not invent the concept, Wallis did much pioneering engineering work to make the swing-wing functional. He developed the wing-controlled aerodyne, a concept for a tailless aeroplane controlled entirely by wing movement with no separate control surfaces. His Wild Goose, designed in the late 1940s, was intended to use laminar flow, and alongside it he also worked on the Green Lizard cruise missile and the Heston JC.9 manned experimental aeroplane. The Swallow was a supersonic development of Wild Goose, designed in the mid-1950s, which could have been developed for either military or civil applications. Both Wild Goose and Swallow were flight tested as large (30 ft span) flying scale models, based at Predannack in Cornwall. Despite promising wind tunnel and model work, his designs were not adopted. Government funding for Swallow was cancelled in the round of cuts following the Sandys Defence White Paper in 1957 (the Sandystorm), although Vickers continued model trials with some support from the RAE. An attempt to gain American funding led Wallis to initiate a joint NASA-Vickers study. NASA found aerodynamic problems with the Swallow and, informed also by their work on the Bell X-5, settled for a conventional tail which would eventually lead in turn to the TFX programme and the General Dynamics F-111. In the UK, Vickers submitted a wing-controlled aerodyne for specification OR.346 for a reconnaissance/strike-fighter-bomber, the TSR-2 specification with added fighter capability. When Maurice Brennan left Vickers for Folland he worked on the FO.147, a variable-sweep development of the Gnat lightweight fighter-trainer, offering both tailed and tailless options. Wallis's ideas were ultimately passed over in the UK in favour of the fixed-wing BAC TSR-2 and Concorde. He was critical of both, believing that swing-wing designs would have been more appropriate. In the mid-1960s, TSR-2 was ignominiously scrapped in favour of the American F-111, which had swing-wings influenced by Wallis's work at NASA, although this order was also subsequently cancelled.
=== Other work ===