What has Great Britain invented?
Stuart Dodman
Stuart Dodman, former Royal Marine Commando at Royal Navy (1986-2012)
Updated Sat · Upvoted by Tony Jackson, lives in The United Kingdom (1981-present) and Clive Anderson, lives in The United Kingdom (1956-present)
Here is a fine example of British ingenuity put to work. Its a Nimitz class carrier of the USN. What on earth did Britain have to do with an American aircraft carrier?
Well….
First iron warship: British, HMS Warrior 1860 (still exists at Portsmouth)
First screw (propeller) driven ship: British, SS Archimedes 1838
What drives the screws? Steam Turbines, Yes British, Turbinia 1894 (also still exists)
First Full flight deck aircraft carrier, British, HMS Argus 1918. Also the first to have aircraft elevators. You need an hydraulic accumulator for the elevator-British, Armstrong 1852.
First Purpose designed aircraft carrier to be laid down, British HMS Hermes 1917. Hermes was also the first to have an off set tower.
Angled Flight deck, British HMS Centaur 1950
Steam catapult, British, HMS Perseus 1950
Mirror landing aid, British Illustrious 1950
Even the glass on the control tower was made by the (British) Pilkington method.
Ski Jump flight deck (not on the Nimitz Carrier) Yep, British.
Radar - British!
One more thing in the end, first ever Jet airliner to fly was Comet 1 manufactured by De Havilland again British.
So, there you have it, a small example of how our little island has influences the modern world.
48.2k views · View Upvoters · View Sharers
Peter Burgess
Recommended
All
Stuart Dodman
Stuart Dodman
Original Author · Oct 2 · 61 upvotes
Well spotted! I was drinking a glass of red wine at the time! I also forgot to add, Radar, Computers, Swing wings.
Harold Meredith
Harold Meredith
Oct 2 · 75 upvotes
We didn't invent radar. Yes, it was first demonstrated in London in 1904, but by a German inventor demonstrating it with ships on the Thames. It worked fine, the only blindness being that of the watching Admiralty who saw no use for it. What we did invent that revolutionised radar was the magnetron.
There is a common myth in the UK that when the Germans saw the radar masts on our shorelines at the beginning of ww2, they did not know what they were.The reality was that they did not believe they could be radar, because it implied we were still using VHF when they had advanced to UHF.
We however add:
The Maritime Chronometer (Harrison 1761) and GMT without which prior to LORAN etc naval navigation was pretty hit or miss.
First jet to land on a carrier (Winkle Brown)
The gas turbine (Whittle) most fleet craft using such though Nimitz is nuclear yes?…oh but then we can add
First splitting of the atom (Rutherford)…and its aircraft 2ill be using gas turbines.
I assume the Nimitz includes float glass? (Pilkingtons) and probably a fair old number of pop rivets.
Stuart Dodman: Thank you for the correction! And for the additional inventions that I missed. But the point was ...
Alan Coy
Alan Coy
Oct 2 · 34 upvotes
First Purpose designed aircraft carrier to be laid down, British HMS Hermes 1817. That really does display uncanny foresight but an even longer wait for aircraft than HMS QE!
Mark Weldon
Mark Weldon
Oct 2 · 31 upvotes including Alan Coy
It was adapted to take on the Trump planes using the airports in the revolutionary war.
Paul Putney
Paul Putney
Oct 2 · 5 upvotes
Good old Trimp and his reverse foresight.
Nev Anderson: Good old Trump, may he rest in pieces.
Nicholas Armstrong
Nicholas Armstrong
Oct 5
Um - I believe Stuart said HERMES was laid down in 1917, not 1817. You may be confusing the date with the hydraulic accumulator which he added was invented in 1852.
Ulf Samuelsson
Ulf Samuelsson
Oct 5 · 3 upvotes
Impressive , only 40 years after the airports used during the American Revolution ;-) and ~90 years BEFORE the Wright Flyer…
Nick Murray
Nick Murray
Oct 2 · 10 upvotes
Oh, and the Plimsoll line system for keeping a ship's loading within safe limits. So there's that.
Windy Wilson: Lloyd’s of London and the distribution of insurance risk, as well as the system of rating the shi...
Benjamin Kowarsch
Benjamin Kowarsch
Oct 3 · 1 upvote
Radar was invented in 1904 in Germany.
Jim Seymour: Clever chap, Herr Huelesmeyer. radar...
Peter Nolan
Peter Nolan
Oct 2 · 6 upvotes
Don’t forget the first working way of calculating Latitude for Navigation
Allan John Belisle
Allan John Belisle
Oct 5
What about the history of the introduction of the alternate slanted deck configuration?
Pupsius Pupuliukas
Pupsius Pupuliukas
Oct 2 · 6 upvotes
Yup they invented a lot of stuff..
| The text being discussed is available at
and
| |
