A01=Harald Penrose
aerodynamicist
Author_Harald Penrose
Avro 504
Avro Tudor II
bombers
Category=DNBT
Category=JWMV
Category=WGM
Delta Wing
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Fairey
Harald Penrose
powerful fighters
Roy Chadwick
Saunders-Roe
ultra-light aeroplanes
Vulcan
Westland
Product details
- ISBN 9780719845994
- Weight: 830g
- Dimensions: 180 x 240mm
- Publication Date: 08 Jan 2026
- Publisher: The Crowood Press Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Most famously designer of the great Lancaster bomber, Roy Chadwick was one of the most significant personalities in the aviation world in the first half of the twentieth century. His career encompassed both wood-and-fabric biplanes before the Great War and the futuristic delta-winged Vulcan jet bomber. This classic biography by Harald Penrose – himself a significant figure in the development of aviation – tells his fascinating story.
Both Roy Chadwick and the author lived through the same contemporary events, so this biography of the great Avro designer not only deals with aircraft evolution but reflects the atmosphere of those days.
No sooner was one design under way than Roy Chadwick was imagining the next and the next, totalling some two hundred. They range from initial experience with pre-Great War precursors and the world-famous Avro 504 trainer through a sequence of prototypes including ultra-light aeroplanes, powerful fighters and bombers. In particular the Avro 504 with its 20 variants, the twin-engined Anson and the mighty Lancaster were built in huge numbers.
In a swift-moving story Penrose depicts Chadwick’s career through the changing years from the early revelation of flight to his 54th year when he initiated design of the futuristic delta-winged Vulcan, ending with his tragic death in the crash of the Avro Tudor II airliner in 1947.
Harald Penrose was at London University from 1922 to 1926, where he studied aeronautical engineering. In 1926 he joined Westland as a designer-technician, and a year later learned to fly in the Royal Air Force Reserve. In 1928 he was made manager at Westland Civil Aircraft and achieved his commercial-class pilot’s licence enabling him to participate in testing the aircraft he built. Three years later he was appointed chief test pilot, and over the next two decades flew nearly 400 types and variants of aircraft of British and foreign design, embracing light planes, fighters, bombers, airliners, seaplanes, autogiros and helicopters. In 1946 he was awarded the OBE. In 1953 he became group sales manager of the combined Westland, Fairey, Saunders-Roe and Bristol divisions, followed two years later by appointment as special director. His 42 year career witnessed many of the most important and exciting developments in British aeronautical design and engineering, and brought him in touch with major personalities in the world aviation scene. Harald Penrose retired in 1968 and his wide knowledge of aviation took a literary slant, his many works including a five-volume history of British aviation.
