Mr Edward G.U. Band (Mechanical Engineering 1946, DIC Aeronautics 1947)

Provided by Mrs Kerstin Band, written by Mr Lavis.

Provided  by Mrs Kerstin Band, written by Mr Lavis.

We are very sorry to inform our longgtime readers that Edward G.U. Band (known to all of us as Bill, and one of the three founders of Band, Lavis and Associates) died on 4 June 2008 at the age of 82. He is survived by his wife, Kitt Band, five adult children, one stepson, five grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.

Bill was born in England, where he earned a BSc (Mechanical Engineering) and DIC (Aeronautics) from Imperial College, London and a MS (Fluid Dynamics) from Stevens Institute of Technology in NJ. In 1947, he began a long career in seaplane and ship design. In 1952, while at Saunders Roe, U.K., he was responsible for the hydrodynamic design of the Royal Canadian Navy R103, which was the original "Bras d'Or" hydrofoil test craft with ladder foils. He also contributed significantly to the hydrodynamic design of the British Princess Flying Boats. He subsequently worked for A.V. Roe (Canada) in Toronto, then Martin Aircraft in Baltimore where, as a senior hydrodynamiicist, he was responsible for the hydrodynamic loads on the P6M seaplane.

In 1958, he switched to academia and held the British Council Chair of Mechanical Engineering as a Professor at the Santa Maria University in Valparaiso, Chile, where he was also the president of the Flying Club. In 1964, he returned to the USA and became a Research Professor at Webb Institute of Naval Architecture on Long Island, NY, focusing on ship stress statistics and hydro load probabilities.

In 1965, he returned to industry and worked mostly on Navy Advanced Ship programs for Booze Allen Applied Research, Wyle Labs and the Westinghouse Oceanic Division where he was technical director of the U.S. Navy's laminar-flow underwater body torpedo program. He then joined Payne Inc., in Annapolis, before joining myself and Shirley Wilson to form Band, Lavis & Associates (BLA) in 1977 in Severna Park, MD. He retired from BLA in 1992.

Bill specialized in the development of Structural Loads Criteria for seaplanes, surface ships, SES and ACVs, having written many technical conference papers on the subject. He worked on numerous analytical and model and full-scale test programs in the USA and was highly respected for his pioneering approach to the probabilistic prediction of ship design loads that is still in use today. Bill was a member of the International Ship Structures Committee for many years and was a Fellow Member of the Royal Aeronautical Society since 1979.

He was an avid cricket player in his youth and played on the Chilean National Test Team. He also enjoyed rugby, tennis and sailing, having won many sailboat races with his Cal 27 "Gunner" while he lived in Severna Park. He was also the principal founder of the Round Bay Sailing Association, a commodore of the Midget Ocean Racing Club and president of the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association.

We, at the Band Lavis Division of CDI Marine, and others throughout the industry are very much indebted to Bill Band for his numerous technical contributions over the years, many of which are still referred to and used for advanced ship design today.

Bill was a man of great humor and companionship, and we are extremely sorry to see him go.