Queen’s prize for engineering

I am dismayed by the general lack of knowledge of some of the contributors in Soundbites

Whilst agreeing with the selection of many of the engineers (PE Soundbites) who would merit the Queen’s prize for engineering I am dismayed by the general lack of knowledge of some of the contributors. For example Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb; that was the work of Joseph Swan 3 years earlier who granted Edison a licence to make the bulb in the US – Edison then claimed it was his invention. Examples of Swan’s light bulbs can be seen in the Discovery Museum in Newcastle where you can also see the Charles Parsons’ Turbinia the world first steam turbine powered boat which revolutionised ocean travel and also Parson’s steam turbine powered alternating current generator – also the first in the world that started the worldwide electrical generation revolution.

The DH Comet was not a great achievement – it was an engineering disaster which demonstrated the inability of its engineers to design a simple pressure vessel which could withstand a few psi pressure differential and thereby put the first nail in the coffin of the British aircraft manufacturing industry.

The clever bit of the Comet were its engines which fulfilled Frank Whittle’s dream of aircraft flying high and fast powered by the jet engine which he invented. In my view Whittle was the one engineer who had the most influence on the lives of people throughout the world in the last century.

Incidentally there were many like Clement Ader and A V Roe who managed to get aircraft to hop into the air but it was the Wright brothers who were the first to produce a controllable heavier-than-air aircraft and as such were the fathers of modern aviation.

Alec Collins, Wirksworth, Derbyshire

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