^{TAYSIDE & FIFE LOCAL BRANCH}                    

They heard Mr Boorer talk for over an hour-and-a-half about Sir Barnes Wallis (his long-term colleague), and describe his famous "dambusting" bomb, and also some of Wallis' lesser-known projects. The talk was illustrated by some rare photographs from the speaker's own collection, video clips of tests of the "bouncing" bombs and some of the swing-wing aircraft, and rounded off with a recording of Wallis himself.

 Speaker Norman Boorer (centre) prior to his lecture, with (from left to right)
Mr & Mrs Holmes , Branch Chairman Iain Murray, Wing Commander Mike Quigley and Dr & Mrs Barton

Norman Boorer worked in aeronautics for fifty years, much of it alongside Barnes Wallis himself. Initially a craftsman, he became a draughtsman and designer on various Vickers aircraft, also working on the “dambusting” bomb and the later “earthquake” bombs during the war. From 1945 he worked on swing-wing aircraft, rising to Chief Project Engineer and eventually Executive Assistant to the Chairman of BAC. Since his retiral in 1981, he has been a voluntary consultant at the Brooklands Museum, home to a complete Wellington recovered from Loch Ness in 1985 and several examples of Wallis’s bombs.

The range of Wallis' work covered in the lecture included:

• the successful R.100 airship; the gasbags inspired his geodetic method of aircraft construction
• the Wellesley, Wellington and Windsor geodetic aircraft
• the "bouncing" bombs designed for use against German dams and battleships
• the Tallboy and Grand Slam deep-penetration "earthquake" bombs used at the end of WW2
• the Wild Goose and Swallow variable-geometry aircraft
• the Heyday efficient torpedo
• design for a radio telescope

  

   Norman Boorer during his excellent lecture, describing Barnes Wallis' Swallow swing-wing aircraft

At 87 years of age, Mr. Boorer is the Branch's oldest ever speaker, and in appreciation of this and his trip to Dundee specially to deliver this lecture, he was presented with a memento of his visit - a simulated image of the Vickers Windsor bomber (which he worked on during the war)  in flight over the Tay Bridge!

 Norman Boorer is presented with a memento of his visit to Dundee by BA Branch Chairman Iain Murray

Sadly there was not time for questions from the audience after the lecture, but the speaker received a prolonged applause, and took some questions in person as the very appreciative audience departed.

Invited guests at the lecture included Mrs Morag Barton (founder and first director of the Brooklands Museum), Mr Robin Holmes (responsible for recovering a Wellington bomber from Loch Ness in 1985 - this is now in the Brooklands Museum) and Wing Commander Michael Quigley, Chief Engineering Officer at RAF Leuchars.

You can read the full Branch press release on the lecture here. The full BA Branch Public Lecture programme can be read here.

An audio recording of the lecture was made, and this is available on CD - please contact the Chairman for details.

Read more about Barnes Wallis on the Branch Chairman's own Barnes Wallis pages.

The Tayside and Fife Branch of the British Association are most grateful to the Scottish Executive, the University of Dundee, the Tayside Local Section of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Scottish Crop Research Institute for their contributions towards this lecture series. 

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