The woman who saved Britain frm Hitler

Image via Wikipediah

Tilly Shilling was an aeronautical engineer who fixed the Rolls Royce Merlin engine.  Unusual for her day, she studied electrical and mechanical engineering and found herself in the aviation industry in the 1930s.

The Merlin engine had a problem that it would lose power or even stall when the plane experienced negative G forces as the engine got flooded with fuel.  Shilling devised a restrictor disk - basically a washer whose center hole was just large enough to pass the fuel needed at maximum power.  The restrictor was attached to the carburettor's fuel intake.  Problem solved.

This meant that the Spitfire fighters could now shoot down Luftwaffe planes that would otherwise have escaped and winning the Battle of Britain.

Miss Shilling also raced motorcycled in the 1930s.  Quite a pioneering woman.