Engineer and an entrepreneur

Dyson created lots of jobs in this country so let’s commend him for that rather than something he’s not. The trick is to find someone who’s both an eminent engineer and an entrepreneur

Well done Dr Murray, someone else who can see the difference between an eminent engineer and an entrepreneur. From an engineering perspective the original Dysons didn’t “do what they said on the box”, we had one and it lost suction and blocked up more times than I care to mention.

The statement in the instruction book that the manufacturer was not responsible for “loss of suction due to blockages” should have been a warning and I didn’t think they “lost suction” anyway. Strangely the best part of the cleaner, the long stair length hose, was also the Achilles heal because when this sucked itself onto the carpet/curtain etc. the air flow stopped, the cyclone stopped working and the dust went straight through blocking the tiny filter pad. Once the filter pad was restricted the air flow (suction) was reduced and the situation escalated rapidly until all suction was lost. Taking Robert Lawson’s point, Dyson quite obviously didn’t/ doesn’t have an “excellent understanding of both practical and theoretical matters”.

On later designs a clumsy button was added to try to address the problem by letting some air flow into the tube part way along its length and maintain some flow through the cyclones but lose some from the “business end”. I haven’t looked at the latest ones, maybe someone in his organisation now is an eminent engineer.

There’s nothing wrong with entrepreneurs and Dyson has created lots of jobs in this country and exported some abroad so let’s commend him for that rather than something he’s not. The trick now is to find someone who’s both an eminent engineer and an entrepreneur.

Tony Dewdney, Southampton

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