engineering

Neil Burgess Jr.

Neil Burgess Jr. is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Neil Burgess Jr. rather than just read about it. In short: Neil Burgess Jr. (August 2, 1918 – April 20, 1997) was a leading American aircraft propulsion engineer and designer.

Key takeaways

Neil Burgess Jr. belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Neil Burgess Jr. to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Neil Burgess Jr. from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Neil Burgess Jr. (August 2, 1918 – April 20, 1997) was a leading American aircraft propulsion engineer and designer. Working at General Electric with Gerhard Neumann, they won the 1958 Collier Trophy for their work on the General Electric J79 turbojet engine which powered the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.

Biography Born Neil Burgess Junior on 2 August 1918 to Roy Neil Burgess and Lucia L. Payne of Melrose, Massachusetts. He started working for GE in the 1930s. Burgess earned a Masters in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1939. In 1943 he married Evelyn Ruth Lent (1922-2000) and they had five children: Cynthia, Mark Neil, Susan, Nancy, and Wendy. In 1983, he retired as General Electric vice president for commercial engine marketing serving almost 50 years in engineering and marketing. Burgess died 20 April 1997 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

J79 The J79 and the F-104 were developed concurrently. The J79 was the first engine to exceed Mach 2, Burgess and Neumann solved the problems of rapid acceleration without compressor stall while maintaining reliability and lower fuel consumption over a wide speed range. They reduced compressor stalls by developing the J79's revolutionary "variable stator" that fine-tunes air compression at the engine inlet. The variable stator worked so well that engineers did not believe that engine test cell performance readings. The J79 started test runs in June 1954 and flew on the F-104 maiden flight on 17 February 1956. The first J79 allowed the F-104 to achieve Mach 1.1 in full power and Mach 2.2 with afterburner.

Collier Trophy Awarded in 1958 to the USAF and industry team's co-development of the F-104 airframe by Clarence "Kelly" Johnson of Lockheed Skunk Works and J79 engine by Neil Burgess and Gerhard Neumann of General Electric. Also Maj Howard C Johnson, USAF, for world landplane altitude record and Capt Walter W Irwin, USAF, for world landplane speed record both in the F-104 with the J79 engine. Using the F-104, Major Johnson established a world land plane altitude record of 91,243 Feet; and Captain Irwin, established a world straightaway speed record of 1,404.09 miles per hour.

References

External links Neil Burgess Jr. at Find a Grave

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Neil Burgess Jr.

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Neil Burgess Jr. claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Neil Burgess Jr. before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Neil Burgess Jr. ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Neil Burgess Jr.

In research: Neil Burgess Jr. appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Neil Burgess Jr. in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Neil Burgess Jr. is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1918 births, 1958 in aviation, 1997 deaths, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Neil Burgess Jr. outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Neil Burgess Jr.” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Neil Burgess Jr. in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Neil Burgess Jr. means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Neil Burgess Jr. out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Neil Burgess Jr. in simple terms?

Neil Burgess Jr. (August 2, 1918 – April 20, 1997) was a leading American aircraft propulsion engineer and designer.

Why does Neil Burgess Jr. matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Neil Burgess Jr.?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Neil Burgess Jr..