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From: Mike Mike
Victor Dams was a director of HM Hobson I used to hear a lot about him - my mother remembers being there when the entire factory stood to attention when he walked through - my father said he had a special Armstrong Siddeley made just for him. His wife Clara was a close relative (an aunt but more like sisters) to my father's mother. They each had one son, Clara and Victor's son was killed in a motorbike accident, my father was promised a new car if he did not have a motorbike until he was 21. I asked Grok whether your story and HM Hobson were related and it said Yes — there’s a direct, technical connection between H.M. Hobson Ltd. (the carburettor manufacturer) and the “aviation people” in the story you told, especially Beatrice Shilling and the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) team at Farnborough.H.M. Hobson Ltd. was one of Britain’s major specialist makers of aircraft carburettors from the early days of aviation right through WWII. They started in 1903 and supplied carburettors (including the well-known Claudel-Hobson range) for everything from the Vickers Vimy transatlantic flight to many RAF types.nigelhamlinwright.wordpress.com The link to the Merlin problem and Beatrice ShillingThe story you shared is spot-on about the Merlin engine’s SU float-type carburettor cutting out under negative G in dives. That was the urgent problem Shilling solved in weeks with her simple brass restrictor (the famous “Miss Shilling’s Orifice” washer fitted in the fuel line).ultimatemotorcycling.com But the RAE engineers (including Shilling) had actually been working on a proper long-term fix since the early 1930s: a pressure-injection carburettor that metered fuel without a float chamber, making it completely immune to negative-G fuel starvation. Shilling played a key role in its development — in 1937 she and W.C. Clothier improved the design under Dr. A.A. Griffith’s original 1931 concept. It was tested on bench engines and in flight (including a Wellesley and Hercules), and it worked brilliantly. collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk The Air Ministry initially stuck with the simpler SU float carburettor for production reasons, which is why Shilling’s quick-fix washer was needed in 1941. But once the orifice was in widespread use, the RAE injection carburettor went into full production — and the company chosen to manufacture it was H.M. Hobson Ltd. From 1944 onward it was known as the Hobson-R.A.E. (or Hobson Injection) carburettor. It was fitted to large numbers of later Merlin-powered Spitfires and other aircraft, finally eliminating the problem for good. historywebsite.co.uk In short:The “long-term solution” the Farnborough engineers were developing in the story was the RAE injection carburettor. H.M. Hobson turned that design into the production unit that replaced (or supplemented) the temporary washer fix. Visuals of the hardwareHere’s a Merlin carburettor diagram from the era (the SU type that gave the trouble): en.wikipedia.org And a complete Rolls-Royce Merlin engine (the powerplant at the centre of the whole drama): en.wikipedia.org So yes — H.M. Hobson’s carburettors were very much part of the same story. Shilling and her RAE colleagues designed the advanced injection system Hobson built it. The washer was the brilliant stop-gap that let the RAF keep fighting while the proper Hobson-made solution was perfected and produced. Classic British wartime improvisation meeting serious engineering.

Current Thread	Author	Time
Miss Shilling's Orifice...[more]	Hamsterwheel	09:25:10
>> Victor Dams was a director of HM Hobson...[more]	Mike Mike	09:57:54
>> Back in the 90s I had a client who was building sheds in Stoke. We got a call to ... [more]	Hamsterwheel	10:14:11
>> Found the press report recently...[more]	Mike Mike	10:02:05

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