Sir George’s career as an engineer and industrialist spans over half a century of tumultuous aeronautical history. Worcestershire-born, draftsman Sir George launched his business in 1930 with £50 to his name. He had started his aero connection as an undercarriage designer for A V Roe and then the Gloster Company. While at Gloster, he was already innovating with patents to his name. This provided the intellectual foundations for a specialist firm focusing on landing gear. The early 1930s were not an easy time for a start-up company but Dowty’s venture was one of several aircraft equipment companies that began to appear, as aircraft design and construction became more complicated, requiring specialists from outside the ‘prime’ company.

Sir George Herbert Dowty, FAIAA, FRAeS, 1901-1975, Royal Aeronautical Society President 1952-1953. All RAeS (NAL).Hard going initially but, by the mid-1930s, Dowty undercarriages had a European reputation. Buoyed by British rearmament programmes and, despite some difficult financial issues, by 1939 Sir George’s company was a key Air Ministry contractor. Lancasters, Typhoons and Halifaxes were just three of the aircraft depending on Dowty ‘legs and wheels’. During the war, he was a frequent visitor to the US, sometimes accompanying Sir Roy Fedden on his investigatory missions, on occasion at variance with Fedden’s advocacy of ‘all things American’. He was right about the superiority of hydraulics over electrics for undercarriage operation.

The post war years brought diversification into other areas, such as mining equipment, as well as other aircraft equipment interests, including Rotol and British Messier, which consolidated much of the UK undercarriage industry. Like many of his counterparts, Sir George was not a fan of Duncan Sandys and his 1957 axe but, unlike many of the ‘hero-owners’ of the leading aircraft companies, he had fewer direct dealings with politicians. Indeed, the Dowty Group needed no urging to acquire and rationalise other equipment companies. Nor was his company much affected by the trials and tribulations of European collaboration. The transfer of Dowty into French hands was long after his death.

The aviation historian has to dig a bit to extract the aerospace nuggets but, as an insider’s view of a successful British manufacturing enterprise, a fine way to have spent a lockdown afternoon.

Professor Keith Hayward
FRAeS

Dunsfold, home of the Hunter & Harrier

By Christopher Budgen

Air World, 2020, 303pp, £25.

The first Hawker P1127, XP831, during tethered hovering tests at Dunsfold. RAeS (NAL).

Dunsfold undoubtedly occupies a very important place in the development of military aviation in the UK. This book surveys the development of Dunsfold as Hawker Siddeley’s main test and development site from the early 1950s until its closure in 2000.

The early use of the airfield, firstly by the units of the Royal Canadian Air Force and then the RAF, are not dealt with in any detail. The story begins with Hawker’s need to move from its unsuitable site at Langley, near Slough, to a rural location preferably within easy travelling distance from the main factory and design office at Kingston. The somewhat difficult relationship with the Air Ministry is described in some detail but eventually a lease was secured which enabled Hawker to construct assembly buildings and flight sheds.

The book is as much a history of Hawker Siddeley’s long and successful military development programmes, which led to the Hunter, Hawk and Harrier, as it is of the airfield itself. The foundation of that success, in the post war era, was the development of a number of early jet fighters which eventually led to the hugely important Hunter. The evolution of the Hunter is described in some detail and it is interesting to note that Hawker’s business plan included not only the production of nearly 2,000 Hunters but also the refurbishment of large numbers of aircraft which re-purchased from their original operators and recycled for sale to a number of overseas air forces. This work enabled Dunsfold to survive during some difficult times when shockwaves caused by the cancellation of the P1154 (the supersonic Harrier) and the AW681 led to a significant contraction in the size of the aircraft industry.

Dunsfold will always be known as the home of the Harrier and many of the milestones achieved in the development of that revolutionary aircraft occurred at Dunsfold. These included the early work on the P1127 and the Kestrel which led to several successful versions including the GR5, Sea Harrier and the AV-8A/B produced in quantity for the US Marine Corps. Development flying of the Hawk also took place at Dunsfold. Exports of the Hawk, including contracts for the licence build of the US Navy version kept Dunsfold busy almost to the end. Christopher Budgen worked at Dunsfold and he came into contact, and knew as friends, the test pilots who flew the prototype and development aircraft. These included such famous names as Neville Duke (who secured the absolute world air speed record in a Hunter in 1953), Bill Bedford, Duncan Simpson and John Farley.

Although the book is almost entirely confined to the Hawker era, Chapter 6 suddenly, and somewhat illogically, dives back into history and describes the use of the airfield by Skyways for its air charter business. The association with Folland Aircraft, then a member of the Hawker Siddeley Group, is also covered; some of the Gnat production was transferred from Hamble to Dunsfold and included the aircraft supplied to the Red Arrows team. The quality of some of the photographs is poor and the diagrams are hardly legible. I would have also appreciated a map of the airfield in its final form. I found some of the expressions used in the book were not appropriate to a serious historical account – for example ‘The Yanks are Coming’ is the title of the chapter about the initial involvement of the US Government with the Harrier.

Christopher Budgen provides us with an interesting and readable account of what happened ‘behind the wire’ at Dunsfold. As such, it provides us with a considerable insight into a world that few of us were ever privileged to witness.

Philip Riley
FRAeS