John Robert Pannell
John Robert Pannell (1885-1921)
1922 Obituary [1]
JOHN ROBERT PANNELL was born in London on 8th August 1885.
He received his technical education at the Northampton Institute, London, after which he went through the shops of Messrs. Bruce Peebles, Edinburgh, and for a short time worked at the Chiswick depot of the London United Electric Tramways.
In 1906 he went as a student assistant in the engineering department of the National Physical Laboratory, where he helped Dr. Stanton in work on the strength and fatigue of welded joints, the results of which were published in their joint names in 1912. Most of his work was done in connexion with reports to the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and in 1916 he took part in most of the model measurements on resistance and the efficiency of controls, and when, after the War, it became possible to compare these results with full-scale tests, he took charge of the latter and made many experimental flights, notably in R 33 and R 36.
He was killed in the disaster to H.M. Airship H 38 while making observations on behalf of the National Physical Laboratory, on 24th August 1921, at the age of thirty-six.
He became a Graduate of this Institution in 1909, and an Associate Member in 1912.