Flight Lieutenant Lennard Barber - Telegraph The system proved to be the model for the "auto-land" systems now in everyday use by civil airliners, allowing them to operate in zero visibility, all weathers and in complete darkness - capabilities which are taken for granted today. Lennard Charles Barber was born in Finchley, north London, on March 12 1921, and educated at Worthing High School before going to Brighton Technical College. He graduated with an external degree in Physical Chemistry from Imperial College, London, in 1940, and had a brief opportunity for postgraduate studies before joining the RAFVR in 1941. Posted to No 220 Squadron of Coastal Command with Fortress aircraft, Barber then served in various British locations installing, testing, fault-finding and generally investigating early airborne electronics, including Bomber Command's H2S ground-mapping radar and its derivative, Coastal Command's air-to-surface vessel (ASV) radar. He was soon noticed as a man with a nose for equipment and system problem-solving both in the air and on the ground. In due course he was transferred to the Telecommunications Flying Unit (TFU) at Defford in the autumn of 1943. His initial work in conjunction with TRE was on aspects of aircraft radar homing aids, and on the design of specialist antennae . This led directly to his work on radar-based fully automatic landing systems. With the full encouragement of the Air Ministry, in September 1945 Barber filed a British patent application to cover his invention, which was followed by a similar patent filed by the Ministry of Supply in the United States in 1947. He was later awarded £200 by the Committee of Awards to Inventors, which was set up after the war. In early 1946 Barber was posted to the Blind Landing Experimental Unit at RAF Woodbridge to continue work on the automatic landing system . On leaving the RAF later that year, he settled at Worthing, gradually establishing a successful small business which was to last almost 50 years; this devised automatic pilot systems (both magnetic compass and gyro supplemented) for pleasure craft, fishing boats and specialised vessels with challenging steering requirements. Lennard Barber married, in 1946, Betty Wallington, who survives him with their son and daughter. Flt Lt Lennard Barber, born March 12 1921, died February 5 2013