Laurence Joseph Clancy (15 March 1929 - 16 October 2014[1]) was an Education Officer in aerodynamicsatRoyal Air Force College Cranwell where his textbook Aerodynamics 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 the University of Liverpool.[2]
Clancy studied aerodynamics[when?] at the College of AeronauticsatRAF Cranfield, where his teachers were Terence Nonweiler, later of Glasgow University, and Geoffrey 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 the University of Bradford where he served as Dean of Engineering.[1] He was a colleague of John 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 1975 Pitman published it as the textbook Aerodynamics. It was re-issued in 1978 by John Wiley & Sons, and in 1986 by Longman. A book reviewinJournal of Fluid Mechanics described the book as follows:
In his preface, Clancy portrayed aerodynamics as both an exact and experimental science:
Reviewer M.W. for Flight 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]
