The Sir Harry Ricardo Interview

Engine pioneer Sir Harry Ricardo talks about his early career, the great men who influenced him and trends in engine development. After discussing working in his Grandfather’s railway engineering company, Ricardo goes onto talk about his big opportunity, when in the middle of the First World War he designed and manufactured engines for the Army’s great new weapon, the tank. Sir Harry also discusses many of the men who he influenced his work on diesel and petrol engines for both aeroplanes and cars, such as F. W. Lanchester, Sir Robert Waley Cohen of Shell, Rudolf Diesel and Ackroyd Stuart, before giving opinions of trends in gas turbine and combustion engine development. The interview was conducted in 1961 by Rex Wailes for an article in the Institution of Mechanical Engineer's magazine, The Chartered Engineer. The podcast was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS and it was digitised thanks to a grant from the Royal Aeronautical Society Foundation.