Designed engines for many of the world’s greatest aircraft

Innovative, determined and results driven

Some would say Britain’s greatest engineer

Contributed to victory in the Second World War and Falklands conflict

Mathematician and aero engine engineer Stanley George Hooker was born in Sheerness in 1907 and studied at Imperial College London and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he gained his DPhil.

Transforming fighter planes

In 1938 he began working at Rolls-Royce, where he was permitted to study anything that caught his fancy. He started reviewing test data from Merlin engine superchargers and calculated that big improvements could be made to their efficiency. His recommendations boosted the power output of the Merlin 45 engine by 30%.

Hooker then went on to design a two-stage supercharger for the Merlin 61 engine, used in the Spitfire Mk IX in 1942. Just in time to give the Spitfire a desperately needed advantage in rate of climb and service ceiling over the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 despite its much larger engine.

Spitfire IX powered by Merlin 61 engine

In 1940 Hooker was introduced to Frank Whittle, who was setting up production of his first jet engines. Hooker involved Rolls-Royce chairman Ernest Hives and soon Rolls-Royce took over jet engine manufacture from the car maker Rover. Hooker was chief engineer of the new factory, delivering the engines that powered the earliest models of the Gloster Meteor – the first jet aircraft to see service with the RAF and the only Allied jet aircraft to be used in combat.

Powering Concorde

Hooker moved to the Bristol Aero Engine company in 1949 and designed the Olympus – the world’s first two-spool axial-flow turbojet aircraft engine design – used to power the Avro Vulcan bomber. The design was further developed for supersonic performance and was used in Concorde.

Concorde powered by Olympus engines

Creating Pegasus for the Harrier jump jet

In 1952 Hooker was asked to produce an engine to power a lightweight fighter. His response was his first completely original design, the Orpheus, which went on to power the Fiat G91 and other fighter jets. Hooker used the Orpheus as the basis of an experimental vectored-thrust engine for VTOL aircraft, at that time considered to be the next big thing in aircraft design. He modified the Orpheus by adding a turbofan to power the forward vectoring nozzles while the jet exhaust powered the rear nozzles – and so the Pegasus engine was born, allowing the creation of the Harrier jump jet. This famous aircraft proved crucial to the British forces in the Falklands conflict, downing 30 Argentine aircraft without a single combat loss.

Harrier jump jet powered by the Pegasus engine

Reviving Rolls Royce

In 1970, Rolls-Royce was heading for receivership. Just prior to the firm’s bankruptcy, Hooker came out of retirement to survey the situation. He was appointed to the board of the new nationalised company. As technical director he provided the expertise and drive to lead and inspire the team, bringing in old colleagues (some long retired), to rectify the problems and bring yet more innovative designs to fruition.

Boeing 747 powered by RB.211 engines

Greater than Brunel?

In the1980s Bill Bedford, the original test pilot for the Harrier, spoke of the fighters he had flown – many of which had been powered by Hooker’s engines. He said, ‘If I was asked who was Britain’s greatest-ever engineer, I’d have to decide between Brunel and Sir Stanley Hooker – but I’d probably go for Sir Stanley.’

You can read more about Stanley Hooker in his modestly-titled autobiography Not Much of an Engineer, first published on the day he died, 24 May 1984. It seems he was determined to see his last project through to completion.