Sir Barnes Wallis
Born	Barnes Neville Wallis 26 September 1887(1887-09-26) Ripley, Derbyshire, England
Died	30 October 1979 (aged 92) Effingham, Surrey, England
Burial place	St Lawrence's Church, Effingham, Surrey
Residence	Effingham, Surrey
Nationality	British
Occupation	scientist, engineer and inventor
Known for	inventing the bouncing bomb

Sir Barnes Neville Wallis, Kt, CBE, FRS, RDI, FRAeS (September 26, 1887 – October 30, 1979), commonly known as Barnes Wallis, was an English scientist, engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the RAF in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attack the Möhne, Sorpe, and Eder dams in the Ruhr area in May 1943, during World War II. This was famously portrayed in the 1954 film The Dam Busters, in which Wallis was played by Michael Redgrave. Image File history File linksMetadata Barnes_Wallis. ... is the 269th day of the year (270th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1887 (MDCCCLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Map sources for Ripley, Derbyshire at grid reference SK398505 Ripley is a small town in the Amber Valley area of Derbyshire in England. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... is the 303rd day of the year (304th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also: 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins. ... , Effingham is an English village in the Borough of Guildford in Surrey, bordering Mole Valley. ... This article is about the English county. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... A scientist, in the broadest sense, refers to any person that engages in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy. ... Look up engineer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Inventor (disambiguation). ... The bouncing bomb was a kind of bomb designed by Barnes Wallis of Vickers-Armstrong at Brooklands, Surrey. ... The dignity of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. ... The dignity of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. ... The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these are Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross (GBE) Knight Commander... The Fellowship of the Royal Society was founded in 1660. ... Royal Designer for Industry is a distinction established by the Royal Society of Arts (or RSA) in 1936, to encourage a high standard of industrial design and enhance the status of designers. ... The Royal Aeronautical Society Founded in 1866 The Royal Aeronautical Society, aka. ... is the 269th day of the year (270th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1887 (MDCCCLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 303rd day of the year (304th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also: 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... A scientist, in the broadest sense, refers to any person that engages in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy. ... Look up engineer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Inventor (disambiguation). ... The bouncing bomb was a kind of bomb designed by Barnes Wallis of Vickers-Armstrong at Brooklands, Surrey. ... RAF redirects here. ... Combatants No. ... The Möhne Reservoir is an artificial lake in North Rhine-Westphalia, some 45 km east of Dortmund. ... The Eder barrier, which creates the Edersee. ... Ruhr Area within Germany Map of the Ruhr Area The Ruhr Area, also called simply Ruhr, (German Ruhrgebiet, colloquial Ruhrpott or Kohlenpott) is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, consisting of a number of large formerly industrial cities bordered by the rivers Ruhr to the south, Rhine to... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The term The Dam Busters, when used by itself, can refer to: Operation Chastise, 617 Squadrons attack on German dams in World War II The 1951 book, The Dam Busters (book) by Paul Brickhill. ... Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE (March 20, 1908—March 21, 1985) was an English actor of great renown. ...

Career

Barnes Wallis was born in Ripley, Derbyshire, and educated at Christ's Hospital in Horsham, leaving school at seventeen to start work in January 1905 at Thames Engineering Works at Blackheath, East London. He subsequently changed his apprenticeship to J Samuel White's the shipbuilders based at Cowes in the Isle of Wight. He originally trained as a marine engineer and only much later in 1922 did he take an external degree in engineering.University of London External Programme,^[1] He left J Samuel White's in 1913 when an opportunity arose enabling him to work on airship design and then aircraft design. He worked for Vickers and its successor companies including British Aircraft Corporation from 1913 until his retirement in 1971. Map sources for Ripley, Derbyshire at grid reference SK398505 Ripley is a small town in the Amber Valley area of Derbyshire in England. ... Bluecoat redirects here. ... Website http://www. ... Six F-16 Fighting Falcons with the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team fly in delta formation in front of the Empire State Building. ... Vickers was a famous name in British engineering that existed through many companies from 1828 until 2004. ... The British Aircraft Corporation, or BAC, was a British aircraft manufacturer, formed from the merger (under government pressure) of English Electric Aviation Ltd. ...

His many achievements include the first use of geodetic design in engineering, in the gasbag wiring of the R100, in 1930; which, at the time, was the largest airship ever designed. He also pioneered the use of light alloy and production engineering in the structure design of R100. Despite a better-than-expected performance and a successful return flight to Canada in 1930, the R100 was broken up following the tragedy that befell its "sister" ship, the R101 (which was designed and built by a separate Government-led team); the later crash of the Hindenburg would lead to the abandonment of airships as a mode of mass transport. R100 moored in Saint-Hubert The HM Airship R100 was a rigid airship, the successful private counterpart to the British government R101 project, in a competition intended to maximize innovation. ... USS Akron (ZRS-4) in flight, November 2, 1931 An airship or dirigible is a buoyant lighter-than-air aircraft that can be steered and propelled through the air. ... The R101 Airship was a British airship that crashed on October 5, 1930, in France, during its maiden voyage, killing 48 people. ... Hindenburg may refer to: Persons: Paul von Hindenburg (1847 – 1934), German general in World War I and president of Germany (1925 – 1934) Oskar von Hindenburg (1883 – 1960), son of the former Carl Hindenburg (1741–1808), mathematician Hindenburg, Japanese comic writer Places (all named after Paul von Hindenburg): Hindenburg (Altmark) in...

With the ending of Vickers' interest in airships, Wallis moved to their aircraft division. There his pre-war aircraft designs included the Vickers Wellesley and the Vickers Wellington, both also employing a geodesic design in the fuselage and wing structure. The latter was one of the most robust airframes ever developed, and pictures of its skeleton largely shot away, but still sound enough to bring its crew home safely, still astonish today.[2] The geodesic construction offered a light and strong airframe (compared to conventional designs) with clearly defined space within for fuel tanks, payload etc. However the technique was not easily transferred to other aircraft manufacturers nor was Vickers able to build other designs in factories tooled for geodesic work. The Vickers Wellesley was a 1930s light bomber built by Vickers-Armstrong Ltd for the Royal Air Force. ... The Vickers Wellington was a twin-engine, medium bomber designed in the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey, by Vickers-Armstrongs Chief Designer, R.K. Pierson. ... In mathematics, a geodesic is a generalization of the notion of a straight line to curved spaces. In presence of a metric, geodesics are defined to be (locally) the shortest path between points on the space. ...

On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War in Europe began. Wallis saw a need for strategic bombing to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war, writing a paper titled A Note on a Method of Attacking the Axis Powers. Referring in it to the enemy's power supplies he wrote (as Axiom 3): "If their destruction or paralysis can be accomplished THEY OFFER A MEANS OF RENDERING THE ENEMY UTTERLY INCAPABLE OF CONTINUING TO PROSECUTE THE WAR". He put forward the means to do this: huge bombs that could concentrate their force and destroy targets which were otherwise unlikely to be affected. Wallis's first super-large bomb design came out at some ten tonnes, far larger than any current plane could carry. This led him to suggest a plane that could carry it, the "Victory bomber", rather than drop the idea. His second paper, in 1942, was Spherical Bomb — Surface Torpedo, which heralded the development of the bouncing bomb, immortalised in Paul Brickhill's 1951 book The Dam Busters and the 1954 film of the same name. After the success of the bouncing bomb, Wallis was able to return to his huge bombs, producing first the Tallboy (6 tonnes) and then Grand Slam (10 tonnes) deep-penetration earth quake bombs. These were used on strategic German targets such as V1 rocket launch sites, submarine pens, and other reinforced structures, large civil constructions such as viaducts and bridges, as well as the German battleship Tirpitz. These two bombs were the fore-runners of modern bunker-busting bomb, and could enter the earth at supersonic velocity. The Tallboy should not be confused with the 5-tonne "blockbuster" bomb, which was a conventional blast bomb. is the 244th day of the year (245th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The city heart of Rotterdam after being terror bombed by Germany in 1940, the ruin of the (now restored) Laurens Kerk is the only building that reminds people of Rotterdams medieval architecture. ... This article is about a logical statement. ... The bouncing bomb was a kind of bomb designed by Barnes Wallis of Vickers-Armstrong at Brooklands, Surrey. ... Paul Chester Jerome Brickhill (December 20, 1916 – April 23, 1991) was an Australian writer, whose World War II books were turned into popular movies. ... The Dam Buster is a 1951 book by Paul Brickhill about Operation Chastise a mission by the British Royal Air Force to destroy German dams during World War II. ... The Dam Busters is a 1954 British war film, set during World War II, and documenting the true story of the RAFs 617 Squadron, the development of the bouncing bomb, and Operation Chastise - the attack on the Ruhr dams in Germany. ... The Tallboy was an Earth quake bomb developed by Barnes Wallis and brought into operation by the British in 1944. ... A British 22,000 lb (10,000 kg) Grand Slam bomb The Grand Slam (Earth Quake bomb), was a very large freefall bomb developed by the British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis (who also made the bouncing bomb) in late 1944. ... The earth quake bomb concept was invented by Barnes Wallis before the Second World War. ... The Vergeltungswaffe 1 Fi 103 / FZG-76 (V-1), known as the Flying bomb, Buzz bomb or Doodlebug, was the first modern guided missile used in wartime and the first cruise missile. ... The submarine (former U-boat) pen Keroman in Lorient, France. ... Tirpitz was the second Bismarck class battleship of the German Kriegsmarine, sistership of Bismarck. ... A bunker buster is a bomb designed to penetrate hardened targets or targets buried deep underground. ... A Lancaster drops bundles of incendiary bombs (left), incendiary bombs and a “cookie” (right) on Duisburg on 15 October 1944 Blockbuster or Cookie was the name given to several of the largest conventional bombs used in World War II by the Royal Air Force (RAF). ...

Though he did not invent the concept, Wallis did much pioneering engineering work to make the swing-wing concept functional. However, despite very promising wind tunnel and model work, his designs were not taken up. His early "Wild Goose", designed in the late 1940s, hoped to use laminar flow, but when this was shown to be unworkable, he developed the swing-wing further for the "Swallow", designed in the mid-1950s, which could have been developed for either military or civil applications. On UK government instructions, however, Vickers passed the swing-wing designs to the US Government and instead adopted the BAC TSR-2 (on which one of Wallis' sons worked) and Concorde. Wallis was quite critical of the BAC TSR-2, stating that a swing-wing design would be more appropriate and demonstrating the concept by flying scale models without tailplanes. In the mid-1960s, The BAC TSR-2 project was ignominiously scrapped in favour of the American F-111 – which had swing wings based on Wallis's work – though this order was also subsequently cancelled. A swing-wing is a wing configuration that allows it to alter its planform for various flight conditions. ... NASA wind tunnel with the model of a plane A wind tunnel is a research tool developed to assist with studying the effects of air moving over or around solid objects. ... Laminar flow (bottom) and turbulent flow (top) over a submarine hull. ... The BAC TSR-2 was an ill-fated cold war project developed by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) in the early 1960s. ... For other uses, see Concorde (disambiguation). ... A U.S. Air Force F-111 The General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark (the nickname was unofficial for most of its lifespan, but it was officially named Aardvark at its retirement ceremony for the United States Air Force) is a long-range strategic bomber, reconnaissance, and tactical strike aircraft. ...

Wallis also proposed using large cargo submarines to transport oil undersea, hence avoiding surface weather conditions. This idea was put into practice on a tactical level by the Germans, with their milch cows. For other uses, see Submarine (disambiguation). ... The Type XIV U-boat was a modification of the Type IXD, designed to resupply other U-boats. ...

In the 1950s, Wallis developed an experimental rocket-propelled torpedo codename HEYDAY. It was powered by compressed air and hydrogen peroxide. Tests were conducted from Portland Breakwater in Dorset. The unusual shape was designed to maintain laminar flow over much of its length. The only surviving example is on display in Explosion! Museum of Naval Firepower at Gosport. The torpedo, historically called a locomotive torpedo, is a self-propelled explosive projectile weapon, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater toward a target, and designed to detonate on contact or in proximity to a target. ... Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a very pale blue liquid which appears colorless in a dilute solution, slightly more viscous than water. ... The Isle of Portland is a long by wide limestone island in the English Channel. ... Dorset (pronounced DOR-sit or [dɔ.sət], and sometimes in the past called Dorsetshire) is a county in the south-west of England, on the English Channel coast. ... Laminar flow (bottom) and turbulent flow (top) over a submarine hull. ... Gosport is a town and district in Hampshire with around 77,000 inhabitants (including Lee-on-the-Solent), situated on the south coast of England. ...

During the 1960s and into his retirement, he developed ideas for an "all-speed" aircraft, capable of efficient flight at all speed ranges from subsonic to hypersonic.

The story described in The Dam Busters reflected the difficulties Wallis often faced in persuading those in authority or who controlled funding sources to support his ideas.

Following the terrible 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. For other uses, see Remote control (disambiguation). ...

Wallis became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1945 and was knighted in 1968. The Fellowship of the Royal Society was founded in 1660. ...

Personal

In April 1922, Wallis met his cousin-in-law, Molly Bloxam, at a family tea party. She was only 17 and he was 35, and her father forbade them from courting. However, he allowed Wallis to assist Molly with her mathematics courses by correspondence, and they wrote some 250 letters, enlivening them with fictional characters such as "Duke Delta X". The letters gradually became personal, and Wallis proposed marriage on her 20th birthday. They married on 23 April 1925, and had 54 years together before his death.^[2] is the 113th day of the year (114th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

He lived with his family in Effingham, Surrey where he was the first Chairman of a local playing field charity, negotiating with Surrey CC to move the main road and landscape a superb flat cricket pitch and sports field for the benefit of the community.^[3] , Effingham is an English village in the Borough of Guildford in Surrey, bordering Mole Valley. ...

His daughter Mary Eyre Wallis later married Harry Stopes-Roe a son of Marie Stopes, who cut Harry out of her will as Marie advocated eugenics, and Mary was myopic and wore glasses from an inherited eye defect ^[4]. Marie Stopes (October 15, 1880 - October 2, 1958) was a Scottish author, campaigner for womens rights and pioneer in the field of family planning. ... Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution: Logo from the Second International Eugenics Conference [10], 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields. ...

His great-grandson, Benjamin Wallis, is currently a sergeant with the Air Training Corps, serving with 59 (Huddersfield) Squadron and as such carrying on the family affiliation with the Air Force.^[5] Another connection with the Air Training Corps is the fact that 1401 (Alfreton and Ripley) Squadron ATC features both a Lancaster bomber and a dam on their squadron crest as a tribute to Wallis. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Books

• Barnes Wallis by Prof. J.E. Morpurgo. Longman Group Ltd 1972 ISBN 0-582-10360-6
• Mathematics with Love by Dr. Mary Stopes-Roe Macmillan 2005 ISBN 1403944989
• Barnes Wallis Dambuster by Peter Pugh Icon Books 2005 ISBN 1-84046-685-5

Fiction

Wallis appears as a fictionalized character in Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships, the authorised sequel to The Time Machine. He is portrayed as a British engineer in an alternate history, where the First World War does not end in 1918, and Wallis concentrates his energies on developing a machine for time travel. As a consequence, it is the Germans who develop the bouncing bomb. Stephen Baxter (born in Liverpool, 13 November 1957) is a British hard science fiction author. ... The Time Ships is a 1995 science fiction novel by Stephen Baxter. ... The Time Machine is a novel by H. G. Wells, first published in 1895, later made into two films of the same title. ... Alternate history (fiction) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... “The Great War ” redirects here. ... Time travel is a concept that has long fascinated humanity—whether it is Merlin experiencing time backwards, or religious traditions like Mohammeds trip to Jerusalem and ascent to heaven, returning before a glass knocked over had spilt its contents. ... The bouncing bomb was a kind of bomb designed by Barnes Wallis of Vickers-Armstrong at Brooklands, Surrey. ...

In Scarlet Traces: The Great Game, he is said to have developed the Cavorite weapon used to win the war on Mars after the suicide of Cavor. Fictional chemical substances are compounds or minerals that exist only in works of fiction (usually fantasy or science fiction). ... Adjectives: Martian Atmosphere Surface pressure: 0. ... The First Men in the Moon is a 1901 science fiction novel by the British author H. G. Wells. ...

Trivia

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• The Student Union Building on the University of Manchester North Campus is named in Barnes Wallis's honour; Wallis was awarded lifetime membership of the Students' Union in 1967.

• A "Barnes Wallis" in golf is a shot that bounces over a water hazard.

• QinetiQ's site in Farnborough, Hampshire includes a building named in Barnes Wallis's honour, being the former site of the Royal Aircraft Establishment.

• There is a Barnes Wallis public house by the side of Howden railway station on the hull to Selby line. It is in view of the airship hangars.

Image File history File links Question_book-3. ... Affiliations: Russell Group, EUA, N8 Group, NWUA, Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), Association of Commonwealth Universities Website: http://www. ... , QinetiQ (LSE: QQ.) (pronounced [], as in kinetic energy) is a British defence technology company, formed from the greater part of the former government agency DERA when it was split up in June 2001 (with the smaller part becoming Dstl). ... This article needs cleanup. ...

See also

• Victory Bomber

The Victory Bomber was a design by Barnes Wallis for a bomber that could carry a single large earthquake bomb. ...

Notes

is the 136th day of the year (137th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ...

External links

• Examples of papers from RAF museum
• The Papers of Sir Barnes Neville Wallis, Janus Archive, Cambridge
• A short biography of Wallis
• The Barnes Wallis Memorial Trust
• All about the bouncing bomb and other inventions
• BBC history page on Barnes Wallis
• The Dambusters (617 Squadron) and Barnes Wallis
• Photograph of HEYDAY torpedo
• Wallis's impact on Effingham where he lived and the story of the swing-wing aircraft that flew without a tail