Beverley Shenstone
Beverley Strahan Shenstone MASc, HonFRAes, FAIAA, AFIAS, FCAISI, HonOSTIV (10 June 1906 – 9 November 1979) was a Canadian aerodynamicist often credited with developing the aerodynamics of the Supermarine Spitfire elliptical wing.
[1][2] In his later career, he established the technical foundation of British commercial airline industry[3][clarification needed] and promoted human-powered flight.
His father died on Christmas Day 1915, leaving Beverley and his two younger brothers to be raised by Kitty and their paternal grandfather, Joseph Newton Shenstone.
At the end of this tour, he worked for few weeks in an Air Ministry laboratory located in the basement of the London Science Museum.
[9] In an era when most aircraft were fabric-covered wooden biplanes, Shenstone realised that metal monoplanes were the future and that German industry was leading that field.
[12] While in Germany, Shenstone travelled to Heidelberg and met Ludwig Prandtl, who was a pioneer in the application of systematic mathematical analyses to aerodynamics.
While disappointed with Shenstone's knowledge of monoplane-wing construction, Mitchell was impressed by his expertise in aerodynamic theory and gave him a full-time position at £500 per annum following a two-month trial.
As a result, Shenstone travelled with Ernest Hives of Rolls-Royce to Germany in early 1934 and later that year to the US with where he visited NACA and a number of aircraft manufacturers.
As a result, he reported back to Mitchell on the latest NACA wing profiles and the importance being placed on a high level of aerodynamic finish by other designers.
Assisted by Shenstone's expertise in theoretical aerodynamics Mitchell with additional input from Ernest Mansbridge, Joe Smith and Alfred Faddy began to investigate using an elliptical wing.
[22][23] In 1938, Shenstone left Supermarine and went to work for the Air Ministry as a senior scientific officer for the director of civil aviation.
[25] In October 1940, he was sent to the US as part of the British Air Commission[8] working to ensure that American lend-lease aircraft were matched to the requirements of the RAF.
Despite his early research, in 1943, after a difficult experience crossing the Atlantic in a flying boat, Shenstone became convinced that they would be outmoded in post war aviation.
[31][32] He described it as "the largest, most expensive and most dubious project ever undertaken in the development of civil aircraft" stating that, "the greatest doubt lies in the improbability that the SST will be able to be profitable."
He worked with Waclaw Czerwiński in the late 1940s to design the Czerwiński-Shenstone Loudon and Harbinger and was a founder member of Project Sigma; an attempt to develop a high-performance sailplane aimed at winning the open class of the 1969 World Gliding Championships.
He presented a paper "The problem of the very light weight highly-efficient aeroplane" in the conference of the Low Speed Aerodynamics Research Association.
