Sir Frederick Handley Page

Frank Vann studied mechanical engineering at University College Nottingham in 1941, before joining A.V. Roe in Manchester as a draughtsman and then as a stressman. In 1947 he moved to Auster Aircraft where he was appointed Chief Stressman in 1950, where he met his future wife Janet, also an aeronautical engineer. In 1953 he joined de Havilland as a stress engineer. He became Chief Airworthiness Engineer at Hatfield in 1968. In 1969 he became the representative of Hawker Siddeley Aviation in Munich working on the Airbus programme. In 1979 he was appointed Chief Structural Engineer at Hatfield and then Chief Engineer. He retired in 1987 and acted as a consultant on aircraft repair problems, as well writing five books on technical subjects and a biography of Willy Messerschmitt. The text of this biography of Sir Frederick Handley Page was completed in the final year of his life. Frank died in January 2000 after a short illness.