Ralph Hooper
| Ralph Hooper | |
|---|---|
| Born |
30 January 1926 Hornchurch, Essex, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Engineering career | |
| Discipline | Aeronautics |
| Institutions | RAeS |
| Employer(s) | Hawker Siddeley |
| Significant design | Hawker Siddeley Harrier |
| Significant advance | Hawker Siddeley P.1127 |
| Awards | Mullard Award (1983, with John Fozard) |
Ralph Spenser Hooper OBE FREng FRAeS (born 30 January 1926) is an English aeronautical engineer, recognised mostly for his work on the Hawker Siddeley Harrier, specifically in relation to the marriage between the Pegasus engine and the layout of the aircraft, allowing it to safely hover with margins of stability.
He was born in Hornchurch, then in Essex, now in the London Borough of Havering. He was the son of Marjorie Spenser and Herbert Hooper. He is a distant relative of the poet Edmund Spenser. He went to Hymers College in Hull. Due to the Hull Blitz he was evacuated to Pocklington Grammar School for one and a half terms. His sister Sheila went to Newland High School, a girls' grammar school in the north of Hull. He was an apprentice at Blackburn Aircraft Company when aged 15 in January 1942, then went to University College Hull (became the University of Hull in 1954), gaining a Diploma in Aeronautics. He moved to Hawker in 1946.
He is sometimes referred to, with Sir Stanley Hooker and Sir Sydney Camm, as being one of the three people who created the Harrier aircraft. Unlike them, he was not knighted. He was awarded the Royal Aeronautical Society's Gold Medal in 1986 for his work on the Harrier and Hawk. He received the OBE in June 1978.
He was succeeded as Chief Designer of the Harrier in 1965 by (later Professor) John Fozard, who continued in this post until 1978. Fozard became Chief Designer of the P1154 from October 1963.
He later became Deputy Technical Director of British Aerospace at Kingston upon Thames (the base of Hawker) in Surrey.
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