Wallace Rupert Turnbull

Wallace Rupert Turnbull was a New Brunswick engineer and inventor, born on October 16, 1870 in Saint John, NB. The Saint John Airport was briefly named after him. He died November 24, 1954. He was inducted in the Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame in 1977.

His life

Wallace Turnbull graduated in mechanical engineering from Cornell University in 1893 and undertook postgraduate work in physics at the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, Germany. In 1902 he built the first wind tunnel in Canada. During the next decade he continued researching the stability of aircraft and investigated many forms of airfoils. During World War I Turnbull was employed by Frederick and Company aircraft builders in England, where he designed a number of propellers, the most successful being the variable-pitch propeller. His interests extended into many fields, such as hydroplanes, torpedo screens, bomb sights, and consolidated tidal power, but his systematic approach to aeronautical engineering remains his greatest contribution.

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