Which British author was also an aeronautical engineer?

Neville Shute Norway (17th January 1899 - 12 January 1960), was an English author, who also had a career in aeronautics, working for De Havilland and Vickers, and later founding his own company. Whilst with Vickers he worked on the design of the R100 airship, being promoted to Deputy Chief Engineer under Barnes Wallis (of bouncing bomb fame) in 1929. When Wallis left the project Neville became Chief Engineer.

He kept his literary and work areas separate, using his full name for work, and his pen name, Neville Shute, for his writings. Amongst his novels, perhaps the most famous are "On the Beach" 1957, and "A Town Like Alice" 1950, both of which were adapted for films. "Slide Rule", which is autobiographical, tells of his time on the R100 project and alludes to the shortcomings and shortcuts that dogged the government built rival R101, which crashed with great loss of life, and effectively ended British interest in airship production.

Shute wrote 23 books in the course of his career, many of which are still in print.