Built to Fly. Rockets, the Lightening and British Engineering

Built to Fly: Rockets, the Lightning & British Engineering
An evening of engineering history, first-hand stories, and hands-on aviation technology.

The Speakers

Pete Wilbourn - Flew with the Air Cadets and won a scholarship to fly the RAF's early jet, the Vampire. Went on to a career in rocket engineering during the era of the first moon landing, then gas turbines at Bristol Siddeley and Rolls-Royce, Ansty.

Scott Bouchard - Spent 20 years as an unofficial apprentice maintaining two English Electric Lightning aircraft at Cranfield, leading into a career spanning lasers, electrical engineering teaching, NMR spectrometers, gas turbine control systems (also at Rolls-Royce Ansty), subsea HV cable design for offshore wind, and hydrogen energy projects.

Part 1 - Building Britain's Rocket Power
Rocket motors designed and tested at Ansty launched Britain's Prospero satellite and powered the Buccaneer aircraft. Hear the inside story from one of the last surviving original Rocketeers.
Part 2- Bringing the Lightning Back to Life
The story of the volunteers who restored and operated the English Electric Lightning, one of Britain's most iconic supersonic fighters, overcoming the technical challenges of saving it from the scrapyard.
Part 3 - Hands-On with Lightning Avionics
An interactive session with genuine working Lightning radio and avionics equipment the clicks, whirrs, lights, and sounds of 1950s and 60s electro-mechanical engineering, up close.

Tickets for this event are free. But where financially possible we recommend a 10 donation per seat, to help the library cover its costs in running such events and keeping the doors open in it's tenth year as a volunteer run community library. This payment can be made in person on the night or via Ticketsource during booking