C. N. H. Lock
Christopher Noel Hunter Lock was a British aerodynamicist, after whom the Lock number is named.
Biography
Lock was born at Herschel House, Cambridge, the youngest son of John Bascombe Lock who was bursar of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and Emily née Baily. His brother was Robert Heath Lock. Lock was a Scholar at Charterhouse School, and in 1912 was awarded a Major Scholarship at Gonville and Caius College, where he was the only b* wrangler of 1917. He took his BA in 1917, won a Smith's Prize in 1919, and became a fellow of Caius College in 1920.He was a member of the Anti-Aircraft Experimental Section, and in 1920 moved to the Aerodynamics Division of the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, to work on the dynamics of shells. He conducted wide-ranging experiments, including on autogyros, and became an authority on airscrews. From 1939 until his death, he ran the Aerodynamics Division's High Speed Research Group. He developed the pitot-traverse method for measuring profile drag, and investigated the effect of sweepback at high Mach numbers.
He was a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Physical Society. He was a member of various committees of the Aeronautical Research Council.