Dr David Kiely

Dr David Kiely, who has died aged 86, made a significant contribution to research and development in the field of electronic warfare, and whose report on the scientific aspects of marine navigational aids set Great Britain and Ireland on the course towards unmanned lighthouses.

Kiely is, however, best remembered when, as Chief Naval Weapons Systems Engineer in the Procurement Executive, 1983–84, he introduced a new procedure for the procurement of defence equipment known as cardinal points specification (CPS), which was adopted, in various degrees,  worldwide.  Cardinal point specification was intended to prevent the military ‘gold-plating’ their equipment requirements and freezing the design at too early a stage;  while, by defining only the key performance features of an equipment,  it was hoped to allow industry the maximum scope to innovate and to cut costs.   Kiely’s ideas, set out in Cardinal Points Method Defence Procurement: the Equipment Buying Process (1990), had a dramatic effect upon stabilizing weapon budgets and reducing the costs of new weapons in the UK, in NATO and in other countries.  

One success of the cardinal point methodology was the procurement of the Army’s new self-propelled gun whose CPS was written on one side of paper, but critics of CPS pointed out that while it was suitable for the volume purchase of single systems, it did work so well for the acquisition and integration of complex systems like warships.  

Nevertheless Kiely’s administrative innovation was just as soundly practical as his many scientific contributions to defence.

David George Kiely was born July 23, 1925 in Ballynahinch, Co Down and educated at Down High School, Downpatrick and at Queen’s University, Belfast where he gained a BSc and an MSc.   He was also awarded a DSc in 1956 by the university of the Sorbonne, Paris after a viva voce in French.

In 1944 Kiely joined the Admiralty Signal Establishment, then at its wartime home at Lythe Hill House, Haslemere where his laboratory was the cricket pavilion and he carried out research in the application of electronics to naval weapon systems.  The value of the work of Kiely, and his colleagues at Haslemere and elsewhere, was recognised when they were formed in 1946 into the Royal Naval Scientific Service. This remarkable service produced a corps of naval scientists who were also extensively educated in naval matters. Kiely himself went to sea in surface ships and submarines, and in 1961-62 he completed the naval staff course at Greenwich.    This enlightened policy gave him knowledge of the conditions in which equipment he was researching and designing would be used, and integrated research scientists like him into the fabric of naval life, yielding not only effective equipment but a positive identification with and loyalty to the Royal Navy. 

Kiely was always innovative and concerned in the application of the technology of the day to weapons and sensors; he had a fertile mind and contributed a series of original proposals over the years in which practicability was a prime consideration.   One of his first achievements in 1947-48 was the first VHF radio link in Ceylon, for which he used elephants to transport his equipment.

During his career he published a considerable body of technical papers, including Dielectric Aerials (1952), which he reprised in Progress in Dielectrics (1961), on solid-state aerials without metal parts or heavy rotating mechanisms, opening the way for the development of the large fixed-array radars carried in warships today and also used on land to give early warning of ballistic missiles launches.  

Kiely was known for his independent thinking and his objectivity, and between 1974–89, in parallel with his career in the Ministry of Defence, he was chairman of the research & development committee of the General Lights Authorities of UK and Eire, a sometimes uneasy alliance of representatives of Trinity House, the Northern Lighthouse Board, and the Commissioners Irish Lights.    One of his first tasks concerned the loss of the Hull trawler Gaul, and Kiely’s report Sudden Disasters at Sea (1974) led eventually to the installation in ships of emergency position indicating buoys  which would float off a sinking ship and report its position automatically by radio.

His investigation of the future of navigational aids for British and Irish coastal waters, Marine Navigational Aids for Coastal Waters of the British Isles (1987), was a defining document which anticipated, correctly, that over the next two decades satellite navalisation would be introduced and lighthouses would be automated.  

As Director General of Telecommunications 1972–74, Director General Strategic Electronic Systems 1974–76, and Director General Electronics Research 1976–78, he was among the first to appreciate the significance of satellites for worldwide communications, and he pressed for their introduction into the armed services.   His foresight was vindicated by the advantage which this gave British forces during the Falklands War.   As Director, Naval Surface Weapons at the Admiralty Surface Weapons Establishment (1978–83) Kiely made himself and his staff available at all hours to answer messages and calls from ships in the South Atlantic and provide electronic ‘fixes’ and improvements to weapon systems including countermeasures to the French-built Exocet missiles.

In retirement he was briefly managing director of Chemring, 1984–85, but took to a life of lecturing and writing.   His publications such as Naval Electronic Warfare (1988) and Naval Command and Control (1989) became handbooks used by the navies of the world, and he wrote Defence Procurement (1990) and The Future for the Defence Industry (1990):  the forewords to his books were written by Admirals such as Henry Leach, Edward Ashmore and John Fieldhouse. 

Kiely was also keen gardener and a fly fisherman, and spent many seasons with his family, all anglers, on the Hampshire Avon at Fording bridge.   He was governor of Portsmouth College of Technology 1965–69, chairman of the council of Chichester cathedral 1985-89 and governor of Springfield School, Portsmouth 1993–97.

Kiely who died on March 24, 2012, married Dr Ann Kilpatrick in 1956 who survives him with their daughter and son.