Geoff Wilde

Geoffrey Light Wilde OBE (21 May 1917 – 18 August 2007) was a British engineer and the designer of the Rolls-Royce RB211.

He was born in Warwickshire.

He was first educated in France, where his father, Alfred, was working. His father died when he was 12. He moved to Leamington, and attended Warwick Grammar School. He was then apprenticed to the Daimler Company in Coventry. He gained an HNC in Mechanical Engineering from Coventry Technical College.

He did much of the design work for R-R's compressors. In 1938 he joined Rolls-Royce Limited in Derby. While working on test beds for the Merlin engines, he proposed a variable-speed supercharger, to increase the performance at altitude, that was subsequently incorporated in the Merlin XX. He helped Stanley Hooker to design and develop the Merlin two-stage supercharger used in the Merlin 60-series.

Early jet engines were being developed at Lutterworth in Leicestershire, which were having problems with surging. He tested the centrifugal compressor at Derby, and found a solution to the difficulties of surging.

In 1943 he was put in charge of the supercharger and compressor department at Derby.

In 1947 he was put in charge of the design and development of the AJ65 Avon axial-flow jet engine. It had had difficulties with compressor blades breaking. He produced solutions for the design for the multi-stage compressor of the Avon, one of R-R's most successful jet engines.

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