Laurence Clancy

Laurence Joseph Clancy (15 March 1929 - 16 October 2014[1]) was an Education Officer in aerodynamics at Royal Air Force College Cranwell where his textbook Aerodynamics became standard.

He was born in Egypt to Alfred Joseph Clancy and Agnes Hunter. In 1951 he gained a Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree from the University of Liverpool.[2]

Clancy studied aerodynamics at the College of Aeronautics at RAF Cranfield, where his teachers were Terence Nonweiler, later of Glasgow University, and Geoffrey Lilley, later of Southampton University. Clancy qualified as an Education Officer with the RAF and began teaching at Royal Airforce College Cranwell.

After 16 years with the Royal Air Force, Clancy had a long career at the University of Bradford where he served as Dean of Engineering.[1] He was a colleague of John Brian Helliwell.

He was married to Jane Bingham.[1]

Aerodynamics

Clancy assembled a manuscript from his lectures. In 1975 Pitman published it as the textbook Aerodynamics. It was re-issued in 1978 by John Wiley & Sons, and in 1986 by Longman. A book review in Journal of Fluid Mechanics described the book as follows:

The scope of the book is wide and includes the mechanics of flight and aircraft performance in addition to the usual topics of basic fluid mechanics, aerofoil and wing theory, boundary layer theory, gas dynamics and experimental techniques.[3]

In his preface, Clancy portrayed aerodynamics as both an exact and experimental science:

The true aerodynamicist … must combine [mathematics and experiment], using analysis to deepen and extend his knowledge, but continually experimenting in order to check the validity of his assumptions and to improve his understanding of the physical problem. (page xviii)

Reviewer M.W. for Flight International wrote, "The author has a lucid style and puts across a traditionally difficult subject in such a way that the less prepared reader is able to follow the arguments of even the knottiest topics."[4]

References
  1. "Laurence Joseph Clancy, Death Notice". Bradford Telegraph and Argus. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  2. In Memoriam Archived 2017-01-16 at the Wayback Machine from University of Liverpool
  3. A. D. Young (1978) Journal of Fluid Mechanics 77(3): 623,4 doi:10.1017/S0022112076212292
  4. M.W. (14 August 1975) Aerodynamics by L. J. Clancy, from Flightglobal via Wayback Machine
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