engineering

Ray Creasey

Ray Creasey 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 Ray Creasey rather than just read about it. In short: Raymond Frederick ″Ray″ Creasey OBE (18 December 1921 – 16 July 1976) was a British aerodynamicist with British Aircraft Corporation (previously English Electric) from 1948 until his death in 1976. He was responsible for the aerodynamics of the Lightning interceptor aircraft.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Raymond Frederick ″Ray″ Creasey OBE (18 December 1921 – 16 July 1976) was a British aerodynamicist with British Aircraft Corporation (previously English Electric) from 1948 until his death in 1976. He was responsible for the aerodynamics of the Lightning interceptor aircraft.

Early life and education Ray Creasey was born in Barnes, London on 18 December 1921. He won a scholarship to Hampton Grammar School. He had contracted polio as a child and this resulted in his rejection for military service at the outbreak of war. Wanting to contribute to the war effort, he joined a special projects team at Vickers-Armstrongs, rather than accepting a university place. While working full time at Vickers he studied for the Royal Aeronautical Society's Associate Fellowship Examinations, taking first place in all three subjects of Aerodynamics, Applied Mathematics, and Design (Aircraft) in 1942 at age 20. He was also awarded the Baden Powell Memorial Prize. He then took his degree at night school, graduating from the University of London with a first class honours degree in Science (Engineering) in 1944.

Career

Vickers-Armstrongs The early years of his working life were with Vickers-Armstrongs, where he joined Barnes Wallis's special projects team, working on projects which included the Dam Busters' bouncing bomb, also known as Operation Chastise.

English Electric In 1946 he moved to Preston to join the aeronautical design department at English Electric, which had been set up in 1944-1945 in an expansion from aircraft manufacturing to include design. In 1960 English Electric merged with Vickers-Armstrongs and Bristol Aeroplane Company to become BAC (British Aerospace Company). Further expansion and mergers created the formation, in turn, of British Aerospace and the current BAE Systems. Ray Creasey joined English Electric as an aerodynamicist, becoming Chief Aerodynamicist for the P1 project in 1950, when Teddy Petter left the company. He provided "a major input to the aerodynamic design of the A1 bomber (Canberra) and particularly the P1 (Lightning)". In 1959 he became Director of Engineering.

In an account of Ray Creasey's contributions to the company written by Ron Dickson and Frank Roe, who are themselves also described as "founding fathers of BAE" in the BAE publication of that name, they describe the importance of his ideas for wing design and his contribution to supersonic fighter planes: Even before Canberra first flew, Ray was seeking to design a supersonic aircraft. His knowledge of compressibility effects, due to shock waves appearing in the flow, showed that there were no insuperable obstacles, so long as great care was taken at just below the speed of sound. Slim profiles would generate only weak shock waves, and the boundary layers would not be slowed down too rapidly, to produce the dreaded "shock stall". These ideas led to the concept of the Lightning as a supersonic fighter plane: We believe that the initiative came from Ray Creasey to think that supersonic flight was feasible (...) the personal contributions of Ray Creasey to the concept of the Lightning, and the importance of this story to the emergence of Warton as a leading design group can not be overstated. Ollie Heath, who was a member of the Lightning design team and later rose to the role of Director of Advanced Engineering, also believed that Ray Creasey had made the greatest contribution to the design of the Lightning: Who was responsible for the Lightning? Many of the concepts were those of the late Ray Creasey, who was a brilliant aerodynamicist. A BAE Heritage Department booklet describes Ray Creasey's contribution to the aerodynamic design of the Lightning in some detail

BAC In his role as Director of Engineering at BAC and his later role as Director of Advanced Systems and Technology, Ray Creasey initiated many other projects and produced the early design for many other aircraft and systems: During the second phase of English Electric's history, that is from mid 1945, most project work was the responsibility of R F Creasey. In addition, he often had responsibility for many other departments. Projects included the TSR2 (notoriously cancelled); the Tornado; and the Typhoon. TSR2 grew from Ray's ideas, a short-span wing with heavy wing loading, for low-level ground attack, then with a blown flap to give a reasonable landing run.The patent relating to the early design work of the TSR2, patent no. 873,679, was not published until July 1961, because of security restrictions and the application was made on behalf of the configuration's earliest inventors, R.F. Creasey, B.O. Heath and G.F. Sharples. An account by A T F Simmons of the early stages of design, and Ray Creasey's involvement, is included in the proceedings of the seminar held at Filton in April 1997 to consider the history and lessons of the TSR2 project, published by the Royal Air Force Historical Society. Frank Dickson, who later became Managing Director of BAE Military Aircraft Division, described Ray Creasey as "an aerodynamic genius". Before his early death in 1976 he had received a significant number of awards (see below) and a significant number of patents had been published in his name, as inventor (see below). His knowledge of design and aerodynamics had been recognized in the UK and also abroad. He had regularly been asked to comment on, and contribute to, various projects in the USA and elsewhere, including involvement in NASA's Space Shuttle Program.

Personal life Married in 1946, and had one daughter, born in 1948. He did not live to see the births of a granddaughter, who became a psychiatrist working for the NHS, and a grandson, who became a barrister. One of his uncles was the prolific crime writer John Creasey.

Awards 1968 appointed OBE 1970 Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics for his "long and distinguished career as a leading aeronautical engineer and his work in the field of variable geometry". 1974 Royal Aeronautical Society's Silver Medal for his "work on future military aircraft assessment, including the broader aspects of operational analysis". 1976 NATO Award for "services rendered".

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ray Creasey

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ray Creasey 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 Ray Creasey 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 Ray Creasey 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 Ray Creasey

In research: Ray Creasey 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 Ray Creasey 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: Ray Creasey is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1921 births, 1976 deaths, 20th-century British engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ray Creasey 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.

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How to study Ray Creasey in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ray Creasey 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 Ray Creasey out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ray Creasey in simple terms?

Why does Ray Creasey 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 Ray Creasey?

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 Ray Creasey.