science

Reginald Turnill

Reginald Turnill is a science 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 Reginald Turnill rather than just read about it. In short: Reginald George Turnill (12 May 1915 – 12 February 2013) was the BBC's aviation (and space) correspondent for twenty years during the beginnings of crewed space exploration and the early jet age in aviation, including the breakthrough in supersonic passenger flight represented by Concorde. He covered NASA's space missions and all the Apollo program Moon missions for the BBC.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Reginald George Turnill (12 May 1915 – 12 February 2013) was the BBC's aviation (and space) correspondent for twenty years during the beginnings of crewed space exploration and the early jet age in aviation, including the breakthrough in supersonic passenger flight represented by Concorde. He covered NASA's space missions and all the Apollo program Moon missions for the BBC. Turnill's connection with the BBC, as a freelance, continued for some years after his official retirement.

Career Reginald Turnill began his career at the age of 15 as a reporter's telephonist at the Press Association, the British news agency, becoming a reporter by 1935. After war service as a machine gunner in the Middlesex Regiment, and as a warrant officer reporting courts martial for the Judge Advocate General's department in Naples, he returned to the Press Association in 1946, where he remained until his recruitment by the BBC in 1956 as assistant industrial correspondent. In 1958 he became the corporation's Air and Space Correspondent, with a brief to include defence as well. He was not a War correspondent; he concentrated on technology. He became friendly with Wernher von Braun, who was only three years older, although his approach was initially frosty and reticent. He covered all the crewed spaceflights as well as the introduction of passenger jets from the Comet IV to Concorde. On 2 March 1969 he was the BBC's reporter on Concorde's maiden flight at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport. In April 1970, he was the first journalist to report on the Apollo 13 catastrophe via the BBC World Service when based at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center on 13 April 1970. After retiring from the BBC staff on his 60th birthday he continued working as a freelance broadcaster, writing many books and continuing as Newsround's Space Editor until the mid-1980s. In 1990 he presented Return Ticket, a five-part Radio 4 series about the Apollo 13 mission. In 2006 he won the Sir Arthur Clarke Award Lifetime Achievement Award.

Writer He contributed to books, including the Observer's Book Book of Manned Spaceflight and the Observer's Book of Unmanned Spaceflight in the 1970s, published by Frederick Warne & Co. In the 1980s he edited Jane's Spaceflight Directory. He was disappointed by the cancellation of the Black Arrow British space programme in July 1971, at the moment that it was providing results. In 2003 he published The Moonlandings, An eyewitness account, in which he recounted how and why the first men landed on the moon. Turnill wrote obituaries of people involved in aerospace and other figures for The Guardian, The Times and The Daily Telegraph, the last to appear during his lifetime being of James Arnot Hamilton, who helped design Concorde's wing. It appeared in The Guardian in May 2012.

Personal life He married Margaret Hennings in 1938 in Westminster. They had two sons. He lived in Sandgate, Kent. Following a few months of poor health, Turnill died aged 97 at the Pilgrim's Hospice in Ashford, Kent, on 12 February 2013.

Publications The Moonlandings: An Eyewitness Account (foreword by Buzz Aldrin), 2002, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-81595-9 Celebrating Concorde, 1994, Ian Allan Publishing, ISBN 0-7110-2296-8 Farnborough: the Story of the RAE (with Arthur Reed), 1981, Hale Publishing, ISBN 0-7091-8584-7 The Language of Space: A Dictionary of Astronautics, 1970, Littlehampton Book Services, ISBN 0-304-93657-X Moonslaught: The full story of Man's race to the Moon, 1969, Purnell and Sons Jane's Spaceflight Directory (edited by Reginald Turnill), various editions during the 1980s, Astronautics, 1970, Littlehampton Book Services, ISBN 030493657X Observer's Book of Manned Spaceflight, 1972, Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd, ASIN B0055OFWQ8 Observer's Book of Unmanned Spaceflight, 1974, Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd, ISBN 0723215227, ISBN 978-0723215226

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Reginald Turnill

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Reginald Turnill claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, 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 Reginald Turnill 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 Reginald Turnill 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 Reginald Turnill

In research: Reginald Turnill appears in science 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 Reginald Turnill 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: Reginald Turnill is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1915 births, 2013 deaths, Aviation journalists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Reginald Turnill 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 Reginald Turnill in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Reginald Turnill in simple terms?

Why does Reginald Turnill matter?

Because it connects several science 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 Reginald Turnill?

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 Reginald Turnill.