Wg Cdr Kenneth Wallis MBE
16th April 1916 – 1st September 2013
Wg Cdr Kenneth Wallis MBE, DEng (hc), CEng, FRAeS, FSETP, PhD (hc), RAF (Ret’d); the man who created and flew the gyrocopters used in the James Bond movie “You Only Live Twice” in addition to a distinguished Royal Air Force and engineering career, sadly passed away on Sunday 1st September. He was in his 97th year.
Ken was to have been the keynote speaker at this year’s HAA Symposium and had very kindly accepted the invitation to present his story of "Bombers to Bond". We very much regret that this is not to be and are saddened to learn of Ken’s passing.
Wg Cdr Wallis had a life-story that was a match for Ian Fleming’s fictional James Bond, or equally his ever-inventive boffin “Q”, for whom some believe Wallis was the inspiration. After making his first solo flight at Cambridge in 1937 in a de Havilland Gipsy Moth, Wallis flew Westland Lysanders and completed 24 wartime missions over Northern Europe in Vickers Wellington bombers, before spending twenty years as a scientist and pilot engaged in armament and weapon research.
Wallis’s work with lightweight rotary-winged aircraft spanned five decades and between 1968 and 2002 he set 34 world records, many of which he still held at the time of his passing. Among the records still standing is the 3km speed world record for autogyros which in 2001, he set at 207.7 kph. He was still flying past his 96th year and 75th year as a pilot.