Anne Burns 1915-2001

“Who was Anne Burns?” I hear you ask.It is admittadly a fairly ordinary name,but she was an extraordinary woman.I personally had heard nothing of her until recently,but she is worthy of wider recognition in the annals of aviation history.Perhaps these words will go some way to redressing the balance…
She began her flying life with a trip in a Gipsy Moth in 1927- it was the start of a long and distinguished aviation career.
After gaining a degree in engineering at Oxford,she joined the RAE at Farnborough in 1940,specialising in the measuring of structural loads on airframes.However she was not just an observer,and throughout the war she flew various types of military aircraft doing various forms of test flying.She flew everything from Tiger Moths & Magisters to Typhoons & Meteors.
In the early post-war years she was also heavily involved in the development of the English Electric Canberra,putting the aircraft through it’s paces over Europe,North Africa,America and Australasia.
By 1954 she had been appointed Principal Scientific Officer at the RAE.This position and her experience in structural engineering meant that she was heavilly involved in the investigations into the crashes involving the DH Comet airliner.
It was known that the aircraft in each case had broken up in flight while flying above 25,000ft, indicating a structural/pressurisation problem.Part of the research into possible causes was for her to fly as an observer in an unpressurised Comet at altitudes of anything up to 40,000ft.In her own words “We flew about waiting for the windows to blow out.”
It was highly skilled and dangerous work as nobody knew quite what was wrong with the Comet,meaning that it seemed possible at the time that the aircraft could disintergrate at any moment!
For her efforts in the Comet investigations and her previous exploits,she recieved a Queens Commendation For Valuable Services In The Air in 1955.
Her contribution to aircraft safety was already considerable, but she didn’t stop there!Even before the Comet accidents she was well recognised for her expertise on turbulence,in particular that nasty stuff called CAT (Clear Air Turbulence).
She flew an RF-4 (a French Ultra-Light) over the Pennines and Welsh mountains,probing the realms of this then-unfathomed phenominan.She described the experience as “a thrill of scientific discovery”.
She also had a great passion for gliding which began at the RAE back in wartime when she test flew a number of assault gliders.
In 1955,after only a year of flying civilian gliders,she achieved a women’s long distance gliding record when she flew from Lasham in Hampshire to Market Drayton in Shropshire.In her usual modest and casual manner she ascribed it to “begginer’s luck” !
She went on to claim a number of gliding titles alongside her husband(Denis Burns,another noteworthy RAE pilot)-Between 1959 & 1966 she smashed five world records and 12 british records,she also won the Jean Lonnox Bird Trophy,The Brabazon cup(twice),and the O.P. Jones Cup.In 1962 she and her husband had already been awarded the Royal Aeroclub’s Britannia Trophy for “The most dazzling display in any field of aviation since the beginning of flying history”.This was in addition to the Royal Aeronautical Society’s R P Alston Medal awarded to her in 1958.
In 1961 she recieved a second Queens Commendation For Services In The Air,and finally the Whitney-Straight award in 1968.
She must certainly be counted as one of the most amazing women in British aviation history,if not the world,and should be counted alongside such names as Amy Johnson or Amelia Eirheart.
It always amazes me how the women in aviation were often overlooked and it is perhaps now the time to try and put things straight.