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11th August 1972, Page 49
11th August 1972
Page 49
Page 49, 11th August 1972 — meet
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Noel Penny

• Attempts to forecast the future of the road vehicle gas turbine have probably provoked more controversy among transport technicians in the past 20 years than any other stargazing exercise. And the turbine's fortunes have become so linked with personal champions that it was something of a shock when Noel Penny resigned as director and general manager of Leyland Gas Turbines a little over a year ago.

Fears that he had, as rumoured, accepted offers from American manufacturers or — worse — had lost interest in turbines were dispelled with the recent news that he had started his own company, Noel Penny Turbines, and that working from his Solihull home as a consultant he had brought in some E2m worth of contracts from abroad.

Noel has also restated his confidence that a small non-polluting gas turbine can be produced at relatively low cost, and has thus restored faith in the minds of those turbine supporters who were-beginning to wonder if this might not turn out to be yet another promising technical development succumbing to the vagaries of the technological age.

Noel Penny's early career was far removed from turbine engineering — on leaving college at 22 he got a job with the Ministry of Supply investigating the separation of atomic isotopes. , But this included the study of high-speed sealing problems in heat exchangers, which turned out to be of great value in his g.t. work after he joined Rover Gas Turbines in 1950 as development engineer and later when he was technical director.

He pays warm tribute to the help derived from the technical knowledge and feminine intuition of his wife Sybil, who worked on wartime radar and is now a director of Noel Penny Turbines.

"The younger generation are tremendously worth bothering about," says Noel. "Having the ability to think, which should be the main purpose of education, and having to sort things out in a fast-changing world. In the engineering sphere they are faced with surveying technical development in the light of long-term social progress."

Noel has a daughter of 15 and two sons, 13 and 9. "How do I get away from it all? How do I 'turn it all off'? Well, I don't really. You see, I can be playing with my sons and suddenly have an idea about a heat exchanger and then they are there with me. I get

inspiration from them.' P.B.

Tags

Organisations: Ministry of Supply
People: Sybil, Noel Penny

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