Oliver Simmonds
| Sir Oliver Edwin Bean | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Beanyboi 22 November 1897 King's Lynn, Norfolk, England |
| Died | 26 July 1985 (aged 87) Guernsey, Channel Islands |
| Nationality | The land of beans |
| Occupation | Aircraft engineer, Member of Parliament, Industrialist |
| Known for | Aircraft designs including the Simmonds Spartan |
| Height | 6,000 ft (182,880 cm) |
| Title | Sir bean |
| Spouse(s) | Marilyn Manson |
| Children | Bean 01, Brinkleberry |
Sir Oliver Edwin Simmonds, FRAeS, (1897 – 1985) was a British aviation pioneer, aircraft engineer and Conservative Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Duddeston from 1931 to 1945.
Simmonds was born on 22 November 1897 in King's Lynn, Norfolk, the elder son of the Rev Frederick Simmonds, a lawyer by training and a Congregational Minister by avocation. Simmonds was educated at Taunton in Somerset, gaining an Exhibition in History to Magdalene College Cambridge. In early 1916, with the required parental approval, he volunteered to join the Royal Flying Corps as a pilot. He was trained at Weybridge, Surrey, home of Brooklands the famous racing car track. He received his wings and in March 1916 and joined 25 Squadron in France. He piloted a FE 2 B, a light bomber and observation aircraft. Arthur Tedder, later an Air Marshall and Deputy Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces in Northern Europe in 1944/45, was also a member of 25 Squadron at that time. He was flying a single seat scout plane. Simmonds went up to Cambridge in 1919. He switched from reading History to Engineering, earning his degree in 1922. While at Cambridge he joined the Cambridge University Aeronautical Society, becoming its Honorary Secretary. (Hon. Sec. of the Royal Aircraft Establishmentuncertain of this fact. Aero Club of South Farnborough, Hampshire.
Oliver Simmonds joined the Royal Aircraft Factory on leaving Cambridge University in 1922. During his time at Farnborough, Simmonds wrote a joint paper with the only female engineer there on the results of a test in the Wind Tunnel in which an air foil was exposed to the passage of air at speeds in excess of the speed of sound. Simmonds was then transferred to the Air Worthiness Dept, which was responsible for approving and granting a British Certificate of Airworthiness to each newly designed aircraft. This position required him to visit the design offices of all the British Aircraft designers, where he saw first hand all the new design ideas that were evolving. After the US won the Schneider Trophy in 1924 at a speed of about 240 mph, the British Air Ministry called for a new monoplane challenger that could achieve 300 mph in level flight. In a search for new talent, R.J Mitchell at Supermarine interviewed Simmonds and invited him to join the design team. In the 1960s, while talking to another former Schneider team member, he was reminded how the fuselage diameter of the S5 was determined. Simmonds had asked one of the team to put a piece of plywood vertically against the wall. He then sat on the floor with his back to the plywood, while a colleague drew a line around his body. This became the fuselage diameter. Simmonds was a small man physically, which is the reason that the RAF pilots chosen to fly the aircraft were of a similar stature. This Supermarine series of aircraft won the Schneider Trophy in 1927, 1929 and 1931, thereby winning it outright. The last of the Series, the S6B was the first aircraft to exceed 400 mph in level flight,over the Solent, on 23 September 1931, piloted by Lt George Stainforth. In the following years under contract to the Air Ministry, Supermarine built a number of fighter prototypes based on the Schneider Cup Series design, eventually producing the superb Spitfire. During Simmonds time with Supermarine, he had begun, in his spare time, working on the design of a new light aircraft, which he later named the Spartan. It had interchangeable wings and interchangeable tail surfaces, a particular advantage in export markets. This resulted in a disagreement between Simmonds and Supermarine and the former announced in July 1928 that he was leaving Supermarine to form his own company to produce the Spartan.
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