Robert Lickley

Sir Robert Lang Lickley CBE FRSE FREng FRAeS FIEE (19 January 1912 – 7 July 1998) was a Scottish aeronautical engineer, and Chief Engineer at Fairey Aviation during whose tenure the Fairey Delta 2 became the first aircraft to exceed 1,000 mph.

The French, however, saw the development potential for the FD2 concept, and their Dassault Mirage aircraft would be produced in many variants and exported to many countries.

In the 1950s Lickley was a member of the Aeronautical Research Council and Society of British Aerospace Companies.

His proposers were Donald McCallum, Sir John Atwell, Francis Penny and Thomas Diery Patten.

[4] On 25 November 1981, speaking as President of the Institution of Production Engineers, he said the Government appears to have developed a smooth transfer line which moves the oil revenues to the unemployed without any intervening checks or delays.

Instead the checks and delays exist, it would seem, to restrain industry from becoming more efficient and to reduce the likelihood of more young people moving into engineering.

He was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1973 and knighted in the 1984 Queen's birthday honours.