Anne Burns was a British aeronautical engineer and glider pilot.
13 Facts About Anne Burns
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Anne Burns had a career of nearly 40 years in the Royal Aircraft Establishment as an engineer and an expert in wind shear.
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Anne Burns attended The Abbey School, Reading, and then went to St Hugh's College, Oxford, where, only the second woman to read Engineering Sciences at Oxford University, she was awarded the Edgell Shepee Scholarship and graduated with a First in 1936.
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Anne Burns won a hockey Blue and squash 'Half Blue'.
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Anne Burns did research work under Professor Richard Southwell at the university's engineering laboratory.
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Anne Burns became an expert on clear-air turbulence due to "wind-shear", caused by different air movement at altitudes close to each other, such as at the edge of a high-level "jet stream".
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Anne Burns retired from the RAE in 1976 after accumulating 1,500 hours of flight time as an observer.
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Anne Burns met her husband Denis Burns at the RAE and they married in 1947.
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Anne Burns was presented with the British Women Pilots' Association's Jean Lennox Bird Trophy on 28 April 1960 by Lord Brabazon of Tara for her record flight on 10 May 1959, breaking all then existing British women's glider records.
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Anne Burns received many other awards for gliding achievements including the Federation Aeronautique Internationale Lilienthal Gliding Medal in 1966.
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Anne Burns decided to bail out but became tangled in the parachute's shroud lines, nevertheless escaping with only an injured ankle by landing in a sycamore tree.
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Anne Burns thus became the first woman since the 1930s to become a member of Irvin's Caterpillar Club and aged 62, she was the oldest person ever to join this club.
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Anne Burns then gave up gliding and took up fly fishing and snooker, again winning awards in both sports.