Frederick William Meredith

Frederick William Meredith (10 July 1895 in Killiney, Ireland, 1980) was an Irish engineer, communist and Soviet agent.[1] In 1945 he began the development of a new generation all-electric three-axis autopilot system called SEP-1 (Smiths Electric Pilot Mark 1) or the military version MARK 9.[2][3]

Life

As a child, Meredith attended a preparatory school, Aravon School in County Wicklow between 1903 and 1909 before attending Bromsgrove School. Meredith won a foundation scholarshop in economics in 1914 that enabled him to attend Trinity College in Dublin.

Research

Until 1938, Meredith was a researcher at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at Farnborough Airport. In 1935 following his studies in the wind tunnel, he published a report titled: "Note on the cooling of aircraft engines with special reference to ethylene glycol radiators enclosed in ducts" for the Report and Memoranda (R&M) of the Aeronautical Research Committee of the Air Ministry.,[4] in which he demonstrated the possibility of transforming the air flow towards the cooling system of endothermic engines on the radiator, thanks to its conveyance into a suitable duct on the heat exchanger, containing a mixture of water and ethylene glycol as engine coolant, at certain speeds, into additional thrust. This study experimented on the Supermarine Spitfire[5] and subsequently carried out with the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine on the North American P-51D Mustang aircraft, which became known for the use of the Meredith Effect[6] and used under the erroneous name of Frank W. Meredith from the NASA Merdith Cycle.[7] as the principle for the study that created what is now the ramjet.

In 1938 Meredith left the RAE. laboratories to take up an appointment at Smiths Aircraft Instrument company in Cricklewood Works in Cricklewood, London as head of the Physics and Instruments department. Meredith was able to continue developing his studies for several patents in the field of aircraft instrumentation.[8]

Espionage

During the period from January 1952 to December 1953, he was placed under investigation and supervision for suspected espionage activities with the Soviets, confessing to having collaborated with them from 1936 to 1939 for ideological reasons[9].

References
  1. Ewing, Keith; Mahoney, Joan; Moretta, Andrew (5 March 2020). MI5, the Cold War, and the Rule of Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 161. ISBN 978-0-19-255059-0.
  2. Langrish, J.; Gibbons, M.; Evans, W.G.; Jevons, F.R. (1972). Wealth from Knowledge: Studies of Innovation in Industry. London: Macmillan. p. 477. ISBN 9781349010547.
  3. Meredith, Frederick William (1949). "The Modern Autopilot". Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society. 53: 409.
  4. Meredith, Frederick William (14 August 1935). "Note on the cooling of aircraft engines with special reference to ethylene glycol radiators enclosed in ducts" (PDF). H. M. Stationery Office. Aeronautical Research Committee Reports & Memoranda. Archived from the original on 4 November 2015. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  5. Hansen, James R. (1987). "Chapter 8 Exploring Unknown Technology: The Case of Jet Propulsion". Engineer in Charge, A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory 1917-1958. NASA History Series. Langley: NASA. pp. 228, 547. Note 21
  6. Chorlton, Martyn; Tooby, Adam; Chasemore, Richard; Palmer, Ian (2012). Allison-Engined P-51 Mustang. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 30, 64. ISBN 9781780961521.
  7. Hansen, James R. (1987). "Chapter 8 Exploring Unknown Technology: The Case of Jet Propulsion". Engineer in Charge, A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory 1917-1958. NASA History Series. Langley: NASA. In 1936 Frank W. Meredith had pointed out in England that not all of the waste heat of a piston engine had to be lost when transferred to the cooling airflow of a radiator. If the pressure at the exhaust of the radiator tubes was higher than the free static pressure of flight, some of the dissipated heat could produce a small thrust
  8. Nye, James (2014). A long time in making : the history of Smiths. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198717256.
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