PROFESSOR William Penny CBE, who was instrumental in developing the black box flight recorder which improved the safety of air travel, has died at the age of 95. Professor Penny was one of the co-founders of the aerospace and industrial technology firm Penny & Giles, and it was his work with James Giles in the 1950s which revolutionised air crash investigations.
Professor Penny The black box recorder was developed by Professor Penny as an evolution from the earlier Automatic Observers , which had been used to record flight data since the late 1920s. Professor Penny, who spent many years of his life at Beachern Wood, near Brockenhurst, with his wife Beryl, was responsible for the development of flight data recorders and aircraft instrumentation to improve the safety of flight, as well as many other innovative products for industrial and aerospace applications.