Sir Stanley George Hooker, CBE, FRS,DPhil, BSc, FRAeS, MIMechE,FAAAS (30 September 1907 – 24 May 1984), was a mathematician and engineer. He was employed first at Rolls-Royce in 1938 where he was instrumental in the design of superchargers for the Merlin engines used in the iconic Spitfire aircraft. He then moved to Bristol Aero Engines where he helped bring the Olympus turbojet to market as used in the Vulcan Bomber and Concorde. He then designed the famous Pegasus vectored thrust turbofan used in the Hawker Siddeley Harrier “Jump Jet”.
In 1971, Rolls-Royce was driven into receivership by its hugely expensive RB.211 project. Just prior to the bankruptcy, Hooker was asked to come out of retirement to become the technical director to improve both power and fuel consumption of the engine. Just before he got the improved engine on test Rolls-Royce was declared insolvent. Hooker was immediately appointed to the board of the new nationalised company, Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. As technical director, he provided the expertise, drive and energy to lead and inspire the team and soon the RB.211 was in production. Its first application was for Lockheed’s L-1011 Tri-Star. Hooker and his revitalised team then went on to complete the design of the more advanced RB211-524 series used on the Boeing 747. Hooker was knighted in 1974 for his role in saving Rolls-Royce. After another four years, he retired once again in 1978.
The last year of Sir Stanley Hooker’s life was a brave struggle against disease. He was determined to complete his autobiography, and in 1984, his autobiography was published, entitled, Not Much of an Engineer, referring to a quip that Lord Hives had made upon seeing his qualification during Hooker’s job interview in 1938.
In the late 1980s, Bill Bedford who was the original test pilot for the Harrier Jump Jet said “…if I was asked who Britain’s greatest ever engineer was, I’d have to decide between Brunel and Sir Stanley Hooker, but I’d probably go for Sir Stanley.” In a television series produced by Johnathan Lewis, Sir Kenneth Keith stated: ‘I always thought that Stanley was a near-genius. He was very, very clever and a very good engineer. Very good engineers are very difficult to find. You don’t get too many in a generation or in a country.’
We have chosen to include Sir Stanley Hooker in our RIED Inspirational People page because of his personal contribution and leadership through many of the key engines and aircraft in aerospace history and for the wide recognition he rightly deserved.
