Stephen RansomStephen Ransom was born in Oxfordshire, England, and studied aeronautical engineering at the University of Salford. He completed an engineering apprenticeship with the British Aircraft Corporation at Warton in Lancashire. Prior to moving to Germany i 1976, he was employed in that company’s advanced projects office. In Germany, he was involved with the Spacelab programme at ERNO Raumfahrttechnik, Bremen, before re-entering the aircraft industry. There he worked in the advanced projects offices of the Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke and MBB’s Special Projects Division at Bremen from 1979 to 1983. Afterwards, he returned to the space industry in Bremen, once again working in the project offices dealing with future spacecraft and planetary exploration. On leaving the space industry in 2004, he has worked as a freelance aerospace consultant for more than ten years. He has spent more than 25 years researching forward swept winged aircraft configurations and has given talks on aerospace subjects, the Ju 287 in particular, to the German Aerospace Society and to Universities on the history of the development of aerospace technology. Read More Read Less