David Hassard, who spent a lot of time with Ralph towards the end of his life looking after his affairs, sorting out his house and contents and frequently visiting him, has put together a talk from Ralphs’s personal photographs and memorabilia. He presented it to the Association at the YMCA Hawker on 8th March.
David started with Ralph’s family background, He was born on January 30th 1926 in Hornchurch, Essex, to Herbert Ralph Hooper, a civil servant, and Margaret (nee Spenser), a distant relative of the Elizabethan poet, on 30th January 1926. He had one elder sibling, his sister Sheila who was to become a renowned botanist at Kew, Neither Ralph nor Sheila ever married. When Ralph was 8 the family moved north to Hull in Yorkshire where Ralph attended a well regarded private school, Hymers College. His principal hobby was designing and building flying model aircraft. He decided to become an apprentice at Blackburn Aircraft Ltd in Brough. He enjoyed the practical workshop training very much but decided to take the Diploma (equivalent to an HNC) route at the Hull University Technical College,
At 21 Ralph started on the aircraft design course at the new College of Aeronautics at Cranfield in its inaugural year. Besides his academic studies he continued aeromodelling and took up gliding gaining A, B and C certificates. In 1947 he started his first job, at Hawker Aircraft Ltd, which he chose over Vickers because it was easier to get to Redhill aerodrome to continue with gliding. He gained a Silver C and a Competitors Licence. In 1951 he joined a syndicate to buy a Slingsby Kite sailplane and became a founder member of the Surrey Gliding Club at Lasham. In 1952 the syndicate members modified the Kite to improve its performance, Ralph’s contribution being the design and manufacture of four underwing air brakes.
Ralph’s social life was centred on gliding every weekend and skiing in the winter which he did in his Hawker holidays. Around this time he became attracted to Sydney Camm’s secretary, Sheila Quinlan, Their relationship became serious and together they visited Sheila’s parents in Ireland. However, the relationship went no further, possibly because her family were Roman Catholic. Ralph continued flying, both gliders and Tiger Moths with skiing in the winter. His parents retired to Somerset.
SIn 1957 the gliding syndicate bought an 18m Slingsby Skylark III in which Ralph made over 300 flights. By now Ralph was conceiving the P.1127 powered by Gordon Lewis’s vectored thrust Bristol engine, to be developed into the Pegasus.. In 1960 Ralph visited NASA Langley where he made an important and enduring friendship with Marion McKinney who recognised the importance of the P,1127 and personally authorised the building of free flight controllable models to wind tunnel test the VTOL and transition characteristics of the P.1127 before it flew (VTOL and hover) in October-November 1960 at Dunsfold. The first double transition was made in September 1961.
In 1967 Ralph received on behalf of HSA the American Helicopter SocietyAward for “significant contributions to the development of VTOL aircraft”. In 1967-68 he flew 29 hours in Rollason Condors from Fairoaks. Whilst in hospital the Technical Publications department sent him a ‘get well’ card showing him in a four nozzle bed surrounded by senior colleagues with appropriate speech balloons. In 1971 Ralph received the Coachmakers award for HSA work on the Harrier. Ralph personally received the Royal Society SG Brown medal for inventors and the Royal Aeronautical Society Silver Medal in 1973 for “practical achievements leading to advances in aeronautics”.
During 1972-1973 Ralph was still skiing but stopped flying,
1978 saw him appointed OBE and Technical Director of BAe’s Kingston-Brough Division, In 1983 Ralph and John Fozard were jointly awarded the Mullard Medal and for Ralph alone was the top Royal Aeronautical Society gold medal for “work of an outstanding nature”.
Having become unhappy with some of the BAe board activities and decisions Ralph took early retirement in 1985. At his large retirement party the secretaries presented him with a laptop computer. David Hassard found it, unused, amongst Ralph’s effects. In fact he never used a personal computer in his life.
. A 1986 signed photo of Bill Bedford with Sea Harriers on a carrier as the background is inscribed “To Ralph Hooper without whose creative genius it would never have happened – thanks for everything Ralph”.
In 1992 Ralph’s Lasham syndicate, Frank Irvine and Bill Tonkin, bought back their old Slingsby Kite and refurbished it. It now resides in the historic collection at Lasham. David showed group photographs taken at the Hawk’s 21st anniversary, the 35th anniversary of of the P.1127’s first hover and of the delivery of the first Sea Harrier FA2 to the Royal Navy, the latter including Gordon Lewis, originator of what became the Pegasus with whom Ralph had worked closely throughout the development of the P,1127 and Harrier family.
Ralph had always been interested in other designers’ aircraft and built plastic model kits of dozens of types which David discovered in cabinets, drawers and cupboards when clearing his cottage. None were painted because Ralph built the models to see how their designers had solved layout problems, not for decorative purposes. Ralph was a founder member of the Hawker Association and served on the committee and attended talks and events, even in a wheelchair, until close to his death when he was too frail.
Please visit http://easyurl.cc/HAVideoArchive to see the video recording of David’s talk and the photographs and memorabilia he showed together with much more detail.