WILLIAM FRANKLIN MILLIKEN

AERONAUTICAL ENGINEER, PILOT

18-4-1911 — 28-7-2012

WILLIAM Milliken, a renowned aeronautical engineer, pilot and road racer who helped dream up a car-flying stunt for a James Bond movie, has died of complications from an enlarged prostate at his home in Williamsville, New York. He was 101.

He also wrote a book (jacket, pictured) on vehicle dynamics that is considered the ''bible'' of formula one race car design, and he was a consulting engineer to General Motors, Rolls-Royce, Ford, Bridgestone and Goodyear.

Renowned aeronautical engineer, pilot and road racer William Milliken.

As an engineer for Boeing during World War II, Milliken conducted perilous high-altitude flight tests aboard the B-17 bomber and also helped develop the B-29, later used to drop the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Later, he became one of the world's foremost researchers on vehicle dynamics, the study of improving how a car handles on the road by using advanced mathematical calculations. His work as an engineer was taken all the more seriously by clients because of his extensive experience as a race-car driver and pilot.