John ‘Mike’ Owen, Emeritus Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Bath, died on 25th December 2021, aged 83. 

Born in Cheam, Sutton, he started a sea-going, student-apprenticeship in marine engineering at the age of 16 and followed this by service in the merchant navy. In 1965, Mike graduated with Class 1 honours from Durham University and was immediately appointed research engineer in fluid machinery in Vancouver. A year later he was invited by the University of Sussex to work on a Rolls-Royce funded project on the fluid mechanics of rotating discs, a subject that occupied the rest of his life, graduating with a DPhil in 1969 and later a DSc.

Over his 20 years at Sussex, he supervised many research students, grants and contracts, and became the Director of the Thermo-Fluid Mechanics Research Centre. His research work was funded by SERC, the MoD, and by a number of international gas turbine companies, including Rolls-Royce, GEC, Sulzer, Siemens and MTU. in 1989 he accepted a Chair at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath.

He produced over a hundred high-quality journal and conference papers, and several books, including ‘Flow and Heat Transfer in Rotating Disc Systems’ which established him as a world authority on rotating flows. He continued this experimental and theoretical work at Bath, developing the now world-renowned centre for rotating flows and researching the three key areas for rotating flows in jet engines: pre-swirl, ingress and buoyancy. He held several academic posts at Bath, including Head of School as it transitioned to Head of Department. Once asked when he was going to retire, he replied ‘never’ and indeed he was working on two scientific papers right up to his last few days.

In October 2021 he was diagnosed with Pleural Mesothelioma, a cancer that forms in the lining of the lungs following exposure to asbestos. This diagnosis is pending confirmation by coroner's report expected in early 2022. In his 2004 autobiography 'Searching for Ruth' he wrote about his merchant navy years 1954-1959: 'Not only laggers but also, out of ignorance, fitters, apprentices and ship engineers handled asbestos with impunity. In my time in the shipyards and in the engine rooms of ships, I removed and replaced asbestos lagging when it was necessary.' The gestation period for asbestos-related cancer can be decades and in Mike's case it was over 60 years. Little could he have known when he wrote those words that, like many of the laggers and their wives who washed the overalls, he would go on to die from cancer caused by asbestos many years later.  

Prior to his illness, he was very fit and strong, cycling up and down the hills around Bath and walking miles at weekends. He had a real sense of humour, he liked funny stories and, in common with most engineers, he enjoyed jokes with an unexpected twist. He was happily married for 57 years and is survived by his wife Doreen, two daughters and seven grandchildren.

Here's a link to Mike's obituary published in the Guardian Other Lives section on 31st January 2022  https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/jan/31/mike-owen-obituary