Laurence Joseph Clancy (15 March 1929 - 16 October 2014[1]) was an Education Officer inaerodynamics atRoyal Air Force College Cranwell where his textbookAerodynamics became standard.
He was born in Egypt to Alfred Joseph Clancy and Agnes Hunter.[citation needed] In 1951 he gained a Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree from theUniversity of Liverpool.[2]
Clancy studied aerodynamics[when?] at theCollege of Aeronautics atRAF Cranfield, where his teachers wereTerence Nonweiler, later of Glasgow University, andGeoffrey Lilley, later of Southampton University.[citation needed] Clancy qualified as an Education Officer with the RAF and began teaching at Royal Air Force College Cranwell.
After 16 years with the Royal Air Force, Clancy had a long career at theUniversity of Bradford where he served as Dean of Engineering.[1] He was a colleague ofJohn Brian Helliwell.[citation needed]
He married Barbara Consterdine in 1952, they separated in 1969. He has 4 children from this marriage, Peter, Helen, Caroline & Jillian. In 1972 he married Eileen Tyne,(Nee Smith), they separated in 1986. He was married to Jane Bingham.[1] from 1992 until his death.
Clancy assembled a manuscript from his lectures. In 1975Pitman published it as thetextbookAerodynamics. It was re-issued in 1978 byJohn Wiley & Sons, and in 1986 byLongman. Abook review inJournal of Fluid Mechanics described the book as follows:
In hispreface, Clancy portrayed aerodynamics as both anexact andexperimental science:
Reviewer M.W. forFlight International wrote, "The author has a lucid style and puts across a traditionally difficult subject in such a way that the less prepared reader is able to follow the arguments of even the knottiest topics."[4]