PETER ROWLAND PAYNE, FRAeS (1927-1997)

Peter Payne died suddenly at his home in Severna Park, Maryland, on December 10th 1997. He was born in Chipping Camden in 1927. His early years were spent in various parts of the world while his father served in the Royal Air Force, but he returned to Chipping Camden for his secondary education. Becoming impatient at the leisurely pace of university education he determined that he could progress more rapidly on his own. This began his intensive study of the literature of aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, a habit that he pursued throughout his life, ending as one of the world's foremost authorities in the hydrodynamics of high-speed water craft.

After completing his National Service in the RAF, Mr. Payne started his career in 1948 by working on helicopter design at Bristol Aircraft under Raoul Hafner, at Saunders Roe and at Auster Aircraft. When he emigrated to Canada in 1956 he headed a team designing a jump-start autogyro at Avro (Canada) and, when that company closed, at Avian Industries.

He moved to the US in 1960 to Frost Engineering in Denver. During this period he played a major role in establishing biodynamics as a useful, scientific discipline. He introduced the "Dynamic Response Index" as a method of assessing acceleration-induced stress in the human body. This model is now standard in the US and NATO countries. He later extended these concepts to the quantification of vehicle ride quality.

He founded Payne Inc. in 1964 and remained in this small-business environment, in various configurations for the rest of his life. Apart from many routine engineering activities, such as the design of gas-turbine intakes, airborne antenna systems, tow-tank and wind-tunnel models, the company quickly built a reputation for innovative solutions and for quickly reducing them to practical hardware.

Over time, the pattern of Payne's work developed in two clear areas of specialization. Firstly, his greatest investment of time and money, often his own, was in the design and construction of more than twenty advanced, experimental, water craft and, secondly, the parallel development of hydrodynamic theory. His best known contributions were to the design and construction of the first ultra-low-drag, passive-laminar-flow torpedo (1968), the FICAT (Favorable Interference CATamaran, 1964), the Gayle Boat (an early planing catamaran, 1969), the SeaKnife (1971), the WaveStrider (a foil-supported catamaran, 1982) and the Dynafoil (a hydrofoil boat with a sprung foil to give "automobile-like" ride comfort, 1994). All of these were supported by elegantly developed theory, and often based on carefully re-analysed tank-test data from many years ago and from many sources. Many of his ideas have been incorporated in modern commercial ferries. His analytical work is typified by his BOAT3D, a time-domain, computerized, loads-and-motions programme; he called this his "mathematical tow tank for high-speed boats".

Peter Payne was never one to suffer fools gladly and he was often mystified and frustrated by the slow acceptance of his ideas by the boat-building establishment. Sometimes this led him to exaggerate the performance of his boats simply because he could see beyond the actual achievements of his prototypes to the performance that they should be able to reach if the means were available to properly develop them. He liked nothing better, however, than an informed discussion, was happy to accept other people's ideas and suggestions even if they conflicted with his own. His work was his principal hobby but he was a man of many interests and he had many loyal and life-long friends. Although he wrote two books and several hundred archivally published papers, his desk is still covered with many half-finished projects and half-completed work. His death is a great loss to his family, his friends, his community, to the world of hydrodynamics and to Peter's belief that one man, often working alone, can still make a considerable mark in this high-tech world.

Edward G.U.Band, FRAeS.

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