Herbert S. Ribner
From The Space Library
Herbert Ribner was born in Washington in 1913. In the 1940s he distinguished himself as an excellent theoretical aerodynamicist at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the forerunner to NASA. He was at Langley Field in Virginia from at least 1941 to 1950. He taught at the University of Virginia in 1946. In 1951 to 1954 he was at the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland Ohio. His 1945 paper "Propellers in Yaw" became a standard work in the field. In late 1954 Dr Ribner moved to Canada and took a position at the University of Toronto.
He was elected first chairman of the Astronautics section of the Canadian Aeronautical Institute in 1958. Under his guidance the Canadian aeronautical industry as represented by the CAI moved into the astronautics field.
He was promoted to professor at University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies in July 1959.
In the 1970s Dr Ribner was working at UTIAS on shock waves and supersonics and conducted experiments in creating artificial thunder.
In 2004 he authored "Inclusion of wave convection effects in Lighthill's equation" a paper submitted to the AIAA.
He died in Toronto at the age of 92.