Anne Burns

Anne Burns (23 November 1915 – 22 January 2001) was a British aeronautical engineer and glider pilot. She had a career of nearly 40 years in the Royal Aircraft Establishment as an engineer and an expert in wind shear. As a glider pilot, she holds the British record for highest altitude, and was the first woman to cross the English Channel in a glider. Early life Anne Pellew was born in Haworth, Yorkshire. She attended The Abbey School, Reading, and then went to St Hugh's College, Oxford, where, only the second woman to read Engineering Sciences at Oxford University, she was awarded the Edgell Shepee Scholarship (the first woman to receive it) and graduated with a First in 1936. She also won a hockey Blue and squash 'Half Blue'. RAE Farnborough She did research work under Professor Richard Southwell at the university's engineering laboratory. Together they wrote one of the early theoretical papers on Rayleigh-Benard convection. At the outbreak of the Second World War she applied to join the Air Transport Auxiliary as a ferry pilot, but her engineering expertise precluded this and in 1940 she was employed by the Ministry of Supply, joining what became the Structures and Mechanical Department at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at Farnborough, Hampshire, as a scientific assistant. Her early work concentrated on flutter problems and on the measurement of the loads imposed on aircraft structures during flight. Other wartime tasks included the development of windscreen wipers for bombers and the double windscreen enclosing a supply of warm air to improve visibility. During this time she made test flights in many types of military aircraft from Tiger Moths to Hawker Typhoons and Gloster Meteors.