JONES

UNITED KINGDOM (see also List of Individuals)

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28.1.1887 Liverpool/UK - 31.10.1975 Umberleigh/UK

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Bennett Melvill Jones went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge and there graduated as a mechanical engineer in 1910. He then joined the National Physical Laboratory NPL and in 1914 the Royal Aircraft Establishment RAE in Farnborough, moving in 1916 to Oxford Ness, where he started work on aerial gunnery and learned to fly. In 1919 Jones was appointed professor of aeronautical engineering at Cambridge University. He there studied the processes occurring when an airplane stalls; this led to a major advance in understanding and contributed to a reduction in flying accidents. In 1929, Jones presented a paper to the Aeronautical Society on the streamline airplane. By streamlining, the power required to propel an airplane was demonstrated to be greatly reduced. This paper was in advance of its time and had a great influence on the development of the monoplane during the next years.

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From 1919 to 1935 Jones and his team worked on the development in flight by a direct and elegant method of measuring the drag of a wing section. This led to further study of the nature of the flow in the boundary layer and the possibility of reducing drag by maintaining the layer in the laminar state. In 1943, Jones moved to the Ministry of Aircraft production in London and became Chairman of the Aeronautical Research Council ARC. When he returned to Cambridge after the war he was determined to further reduce the drag of airplanes. He realized that this could be done by sucking air in through the surface so as to maintain the boundary layer in a laminar state resulting in a substantial reduction of drag. After his retirement in 1952, Jones worked for a number of years as a consultant at RAE. Jones established in Cambridge a formidable school of aeronautics which attracted students of the highest quality. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1939 and knighted in 1942.

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_{Anonymous (1978). Sir Melvill Jones. Obituaries from the Times 1971-1975: 274-275. London. Anonymous (2000). Bennett Melvill Jones. The Aeronautical Journal 104(12): 580. P}

_{Hall, A.A., Morgan, M. (1977). Bennett Melvill Jones. Obituary Notices FRS 23: 253-282. P}

_{Jones, B.M. (1923). Control of aeroplanes at low speeds. Aeronautical Journal 27(10): 473- 487.}

_{Jones, B.M., Griffiths, J.C. (1925). Aerial surveying by rapid methods. University: Cambridge. Jones, B.M. (1929). The streamline aeroplane. Journal Royal Aeronautical Society 33: 358-385. Jones, B.M. (1934). Stalling. Journal Royal Aeronautical Society 38: 753-770.}

_{Jones, B.M. (1937). Profile drag. Journal Royal Aeronautical Society 41: 339-368.}