ALEC FIELD ATKIN CBE FREng HonDSc BSc(Hons) FRAeS

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

He was born in Hull on 26 April 1925, the only son of Alec and Grace Atkin and educated at Riley High School. He was evacuated to Bridlington at the start of he war and left school at 15 without any qualifications. He then completed an apprenticeship with Blackburn , during which time he very successfully pursued his education at Hull Technical College at evening classes, obtaining the Whitworth Prize and the Prize of Hull Society of Engineers. In 1943 he won scholarships from Blackburn Aircraft and from Hull Corporation for 2 years study at Hull University to read aeronautical engineering. He graduated in 1945 with the University's Diploma with distinction and was awarded the Senate Prize.

CAREER

Subject to a wartime emergency works order he joined the English Electric Company in 1945 working as part of their design team at Preston as a technical assistant on aerodynamics. He later returned to Hull to read mathematics at University College, gaining a First Class Honours External London Degree in 1950. He also won a two-year scholarship for post-graduate study in the USA, but did not take this up and returned to English Electric, rejoining the Company in the summer of 1950 as an aerodynamicist. Later that year he was placed in charge of the new Flight Test Department, then dealing with the Canberra programme and then in 1954 with flight testing the P1, the first UK (and European) truly supersonic aeroplane, a missile-armed fighter capable of exceeding twice the speed of sound, later named the Lightning.

At the end of 1954 he was promoted to Deputy Chief Aerodynamicist and in 1957 Head of Experimental Aerodynamics, supervising wind tunnel activities in addition to flight testing activities. With further progress in the development of the Lightning and the coming into production of the early marks of aircraft, he was appointed Assistant Chief Engineer, Lightning in 1959. Later that year with ultimately 5 marks of Lightning progressively being developed and coming into production he was appointed Project Manager Lightning, responsible for all aspects of bringing these aircraft into operational service in the RAF. With these responsibilities he then took a leading role in successfully promoting exports of the Lightning to Saudi Arabia and to Kuwait. During this period there were progressive amalgamations of the UK aerospace companies, English Electric Aviation becoming a major part of British Aircraft Corporation.

In January 1964 he was appointed Special Director of the BAC Divisional Board 1

and in 1967 was made a member of the Board of the Saudi Arabian Consortium, which was comprised of companies holding major contracts for the new air defence system of Saudi Arabia. During 1968 he assumed extra responsibilities of supervising the Jet Provost aircraft programme and for overseeing the design of new trainer aircraft projects.

He was appointed a Director of the Preston Division in 1970 and became Assistant Managing Director, Division in 1973. During this period, BAC was made overall responsible for the maintenance of Lightning and Jet Provost aircraft and for the training of many of the personnel of the , and he had overall responsibility for managing what was at the time the largest export order ever for the UK.

He was promoted to Deputy Managing Director of the Division in 1975 and in 1977 the company became the largest single division of the newly nationalized . He was promoted to Managing Director (Military) of British Aerospace and Chairman of each of the Warton, Kingston-Brough and Manchester Divisions. He was appointed Managing Director, Marketing, British Aerospace in 1981 and retired from the company in 1982.

AWARDS AND ASSOCIATIONS

He was awarded an OBE in 1969 and the CBE in 1978. He is a Fellow of The Royal Aeronautical Society and of The Royal Society of Arts. He was elected a Fellow of The Fellowship of Engineering, later the Royal Academy of Engineering, in 1979. In 1997 he received an Honorary Doctorate from Hull University.

FAMILY AND LEISURE

As a youngster he was an excellent swimmer, becoming junior champion of Yorkshire at 16 and but for the war he would undoubtedly have been called for trials for the English swimming team. Throughout his adult life he was a keen yachtsman and owner of six, starting with a 12 foot dinghy as Commodore of the Ribble Cruising Club ending with a 44 foot cruiser during retirement. He was an outstanding, larger than life, personality. He always had a point of view supported by his intellect, and his willpower meant his views often seemed to prevail, but it was all held together with great charm and a wonderful sense of humour which never appeared to desert him.

In 1948 he married Nora Darby and they had a son Peter, (who died in 2005), a daughter Helen and the second son Martin. This marriage was dissolved after he relocated to live in the south in 1980. In 1982 he married his second wife, Wendy, he adopted his stepson Duncan, and retired to live in Guernsey. This marriage was later dissolved and he married Lynn in 2006.

The family of Dr Atkin helped compile and approved this obituary. 2