An interview with….. Arthur Webb FRAeS on stressing the Armstrong-Whitworth Argosy and the Lockheed C5 Galaxy wings

Stressing the 3-spar wing Armstrong-Whitworth Series 220 Argosy and the massive Lockheed C5 Galaxy wings was a fascinating way for an aero engineer in his twenties and early thirties to begin his career. As well as describing the design challenges, including the Argosy’s early use of bonded composites, Arthur shares what it was like during the brain drain: firstly working on the Galaxy for a UK contractor, before then moving to the USA with his young family and experiencing the racial tensions of 1960s Georgia.

Between working on the two freighters, he was selected as one of the few that moved from Coventry to Kingston, and tells us about his work keeping Second World War legacy aircraft in the air and his brush with one of the most dominant figures of twentieth century military aviation, Sir Sydney Camm HonFRAeS.

Arthur starts his oral history interview with telling us about watching British aircraft overhead from German occupied Jersey and how, after an encounter with Prof AD Young FRAeS, scraped through Queen Mary’s Aeronautical Engineering degree by the skin of his teeth.

Eur Ing Arthur Webb FRAeS was interviewed by Tony Pilmer FRAeS in 2024 as part of the Royal Aeronautical Society/National Aerospace Library’s oral history project ‘If I only didn’t do it that way…….” Capturing history from the horse’s mouth' to inspire today’s aeronautical professionals'. The recording was edited by Eur Ing Mike Stanberry FRAeS.