Archibald Reith Low

Archibald Reith Low
Aviator's Certificate No.34
Born (1878-12-31)31 December 1878
Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
Died 21 January 1969(1969-01-21) (aged 90)
Wimborne, Dorset, England, UK
Nationality United Kingdom British & later Canadian Canada

Archibald "Archie" Reith Low, MA (Cantab) FRAeS (born in Aberdeen on 31 December 1878, died 21 January 1969)[1] was a British pilot and aeronautics pioneer. He is the designer of the Vickers F.B.5. and Vickers E.F.B.1.[2][3]

Ranks

He held the rank of Second Lieutenant in the City of London Imperial Volunteers He held the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve attached to the Royal Naval Air Service He held the rank of Major in the Royal Air Force.

Early life

He was one of eight children of his father, a Church of Scotland minister and Jane Stuart Reith, aunt to Lord Reith.[4]

He was educated at Watson's and Edinburgh University, and at Clare College, Cambridge

Career

In 1906 he was appointed assistant head designer, and later head designer at Johnson & Phillips Ltd, Charlton, London. In 1910 he was employed by the newly formed Bristol Aeroplane Company as test pilot and instructor. In 1911 he was appointed chief designer at Vickers in their newly formed Vickers Ltd (Aviation Department).

In 1919 he was Chief Librarian at the Air Ministry.

In 1932 he was appointed Senior Technical Officer at Orfordness Beacon, which was 'The Birthplace of Radar', where he was known as a 'boffin', a new term at the time for a person engaged in unspecified scientific or technical research, and where he became a lifelong friend of Henry Tizard, who started the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

In 1938 he was transferred to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough Airport, to work in the Directorate of Technical Development, where a second station operating on the same principle as at Orfordness Beacon was set up to provide wider area coverage and allow two-bearing fixes between Orfordness and Farnborough Airport.

In 1940 he emigrated to Canada to work at one of the munitions factories there to perfect tracer bullet techniques and then became a scientific adviser to the Canadian Government War Department.

He retired in 1949, aged 71.

Publications

  1. Normal Elliptic Functions (University of Toronto Press 1950)

See also

List of pilots awarded an Aviator's Certificate by the Royal Aero Club in 1910

References

  1. ↑ "Archibald Low". britishaviation-ptp.com. Retrieved 2017-05-15.
  2. ↑ Bloor, David (2011-10-03). The Enigma of the Aerofoil: Rival Theories in Aerodynamics, 1909-1930. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226060934.
  3. ↑ Driver, Hugh (1997-01-01). The Birth of Military Aviation: Britain, 1903-1914. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. ISBN 9780861932344.
  4. ↑ Low, R C Edmondston-Low (1970-04-01). "Major A R Low, RAF, MA (Cantab.), FRAeS 1878-1969". The Aeronautical Journal. 74 (712): 337–338. doi:10.1017/S0001924000047679 (inactive 2018-09-21). ISSN 0001-9240.


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