Ian Artus Collection of Papers

Collection of files containing research papers related to the development work and subsequent building and testing of the internal combustion turbine, later known as Jet Propulsion Plant, by Metropolitan-Vickers at Trafford Park. Includes day files containing the correspondence and papers of Dr David McLeish Smith, a senior engineer at Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co Ltd, with members of staff from the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Ministry of Supply and the Air Ministry. Also contains information about initial testing in Lancaster Bomber and then eventual flight test in Gloucester F9/40 Meteor aircraft.

After the war Metropolitan-Vickers discontinued the work on gas turbines for aircraft and continued to research and develop turbines for power generation. The later series of files reflects this work and contains documents related to the company's involvement in the designing and building Turbo-Generators. The documents contain details about planning and scheduling, along with published works on the subject of time and materials management. There are also numerous documents about design and installation projects the company was commissioned to take on behalf of power generators. Along with early manuals and documents for the automation of machine tools and the use of the 1010 series computer used to process research findings.