BOUNCING- MAN - FEATURE FACTS

“Bouncing-Bomb Man: The Science of Sir ”, by Iain Murray published by Haynes, 29 October 2009, 288pp., 27 x 21 x 1.7 cm

This book is the story of Barnes Wallis’s inventions, how they worked and why they were (often) better than alternatives of the time.

Most famous for the “bouncing ”, used by 617 Squadron (“The Dambusters”) to breach the Möhne and Dams in Nazi Germany in 1943, Wallis’s engineering skills covered a vast range of areas:  designer of the and “earthquake bombs” used by the RAF against concrete bunkers, underground targets and bridges in 1944 and 1945  designer of the geodetic structure used in the Wellington (the mainstay of RAF 1939-1942) and in several other aircraft  designer of the R.100 which flew successfully to in 1930, then was scrapped following the crash of the (separately designed) R.101 airship  main developer and promoter of variable geometry “swing wing” aircraft from 1945 until around 1960, when others picked up his baton  continued to design supersonic and hypersonic aircraft through the 1960s and into his retirement in the 1970s  also designed , telescopes, cooling towers, golf balls …  knighted in 1968, he was also a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Aeronautical Society and many other learned societies, and holder of honorary degrees from Cambridge, Loughborough, UMIST, Oxford and Heriot-Watt Universities  died in 1979, aged 92

This book features:  the most detailed study of the workings of Wallis’s inventions, including coverage of his extensive portfolio of patents  descriptions of how the “bouncing bombs” worked - why they had to bounce, and how all the dropping parameters were set  the most in-depth coverage of Wallis’s post-war work on variable geometry  coverage of the controversy over how Wallis’s VG work was “stolen” by the Americans, and then taken away from him in the UK  information on Wallis’s ideas for post- hypersonic passenger aircraft  coverage of many of Wallis’s many miscellaneous projects  extensive illustrations and archive photos, many published for the first time, including maps of all the relevant locations in the Wallis story  substantial appendices, including the first list attempting to detail all of the experimental drops of the “bouncing bombs” and “earthquake bombs”

Author Iain Murray is a lecturer in the School of Computing at the University of Dundee.

Further information on Wallis can be found at www.SirBarnesWallis.com