Frances Beatrice “FB” Bradfield OBE, BA, FRAeS (1895 - 26th February 1967), was a wind tunnel expert. Yorkshirewoman Frances Bradfield was the daughter of a Wesleyan minister and was able to go to Newnham College, Cambridge, graduating in math in 1917 before it conferred actual degrees on women. Frances Bradfield was known widely as “FB”. She was the first to apply to the RAE when, at the end of WW1, it specifically advertised for women as technical staff, and became one of the first women directly recruited to the Royal Aircraft Establishment Farnborough in 1918, where she would have a career in the use of wind tunnels. She was promoted to be Head of Small Tunnels from 1934, as an “individual merit Senior Principal Science Officer”. She gained a reputation as a quick and reliable researcher but was not very handy with tools herself. She specialized in aerodynamics and stability, working with Dr G.P. Douglas for most of their respective careers. Her work was so exceptional that in 1935 she was put onto the male pay grade and RAE directors had to fight to keep her on such preferential salaries throughout her career. She wrote or co-wrote 130 reports, 37 Memoranda of the Aeronautical Research Council, and 40 Technical Notes, covering mainly wind tunnel techniques but also aircraft controls, slots, flaps and aerfoils. Her main contribution was to establish that wind tunnel research was technically valid and reliable, by perfecting techniques for their use and creating essential operating manuals. She worked with all the key scientists in the field at the time and was considered an excellent team player, and was excellent at bringing on younger scientists. Sir John Charnley, arriving during WW2 as a very young new engineering graduate (who went on to become the RAE’s director) remembered her running a demanding department but forever trying to put young scientists into groups within which she thought romance might blossom. SOURCE https://www.magnificentwomen.co.uk/engineer-of-the-week/february-26th-2019