had to be built of American white wood (tulip). In my language, 3,500 instead of 5,500 lb/sq in." The plane pitched over during its first take-off at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough on 26 May 1919, killing both pilots and seriously injuring the other six people on board. Later career Chitty moved to Imperial College in 1934 where she remained for the rest of her career, initially specialising in structural stresses in aircraft. During the 1930s, she was part of a group which analysed the crash of the airship R38, and published various Air Ministry papers on stresses and strains on airship structures. She was an early member of the Women's Engineering Society. Her World War II work included research into stresses in submarine hulls under shell attack, extensible cables and pulley blocks for barrage balloons, for the Director of Scientific Research of the Admiralty and the Ministry of Supply. Later research interests included arches and arch dams - in particular, the Dukan Dam in Iraq - and she contributed to an international symposium on arched dams in 1968. Initially an Imperial College research assistant, Chitty became a lecturer in 1937, and retired in 1962. She was the first female Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (FRAeS), the third female Corporate Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and the first woman to be appointed to an ICE technical committee, in 1958. She was awarded four Telford Premium medals for papers written with Pippard, and in 1969 became the first woman to receive the Telford Gold Medal. She travelled widely and published a book, "Abroad. An alphabet of Flowers", in 1948, with her own drawings and notes about her holidays. In her will, she left a bequest to Imperial College, which named its Library reading room after her. Imperial College also presents a Letitia Chitty Centenary Memorial Prize, while Newnham College has presented a 'Letitia Chitty Award for Engineering'. References External links Photo of Letitia Chitty from http://www.imperial.ac.uk Photo of the Tarrant Tabor Blog discussion about the Tarrant Tabor http://rec.aviation.military.narkive.com/CpWMia8v/first-us-army-bomber Aeronautical engineers British women engineers Women's Engineering Society Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge People from Kensington 1897 births 1982 deaths