Tracing the Roots of Torotrak

I was delighted to read the letter from Tom Fellows in the June edition of PE

I was delighted to read the letter from Tom Fellows in the June edition of Professional Engineering. We always admired his sound judgement and his engineering knowledge when he was at the NRDC and we, at English Electric, were developing the constant speed drive for the alternators on the Harrier to which he refers. However, in parallel with this work we were also working on an infinitely variable speed transmission for heavy vehicles, developing the control system by using transmissions built by Tillman Langley, for whom Forbes Perry had worked. My colleague, Clifford Schofield and his team, designed a transmission for tractor tanker units which incorporated the two-regime arrangement with clutchless starting in forward and reverse to which he refers so this existed prior to the Leyland and Torotrak work. This transmission was never built and was oversized due to the lower traction coefficients of the fluids available at the outset of the design.

When English Electric merged with GEC, their Aircraft Equipment Division was sold to Lucas whose Technical Director at the time was Ewan McEwan, then President of the I.Mech.E. who was not in favour of traction drives hence the whole project was abandoned. I was at a loss to know how he reconciled his prejudice to the technology whilst his firm were building the Harrier transmissions?

Brian Padgett

Next letter: No easy, cheap or quick solution