BBC.CO.UK: Beatrice Shilling: Pioneering engineer's genius 'helped win World War Two'

Description

n what was then very much a man's world, a young woman's ingenuity saved many pilots' lives and arguably helped the Allies win World War Two.

As the Battle of Britain raged in the summer of 1940, a fatal flaw in the design of engines used in two of the RAF's mainstay aircraft - the Hurricane fighter-bomber and the iconic Spitfire fighter plane - became apparent.

When they dived and encountered negative g-forces, the carburettor in their Rolls-Royce Merlin engines would often flood, resulting in them cutting out - a pilot's worst nightmare in a dogfight.

The solution to the problem was discovered by Beatrice Shilling, a pioneering young engineering graduate of the University of Manchester.