Features
Dr. L. H. Sumanadasa: Pioneering aviator, aeronautical engineer and educationist
He missed out on RAF service during WWII
Lokusatu Heva Sumanadasa was born on December 3, 1910. His family hailed from Ambalangoda and he was the younger brother of LH Mettananda, the well known nationalist, and perhaps the best known principal of Ananda College next to P de S Kularatne. After completing a degree in Physics at Ceylon University College, Sumanadasa won the Ceylon Government Scholarship to study aeronautical engineering at Imperial College, London in 1932. There, while he was still a student, he learnt to fly with the London Aeroplane Club at Hatfield.
His instructor was Geoffrey de Havilland Jr, the son of Geoffrey de Havilland, the English aviation pioneer and aircraft designer. Sumanadasa made his first solo flight in early 1934, passed his ‘A’ license and was duly issued with his Air Ministry private pilot’s license in April 1934.
He joined the Royal Aeronautical Society as a student in 1935 and became a full member in 1940. After graduating with a BSc and DIC (postgraduate Diploma of Imperial College) – the first person from Ceylon to qualify in aeronautical engineering – he was hired by British aerospace manufacturer Handley Page Ltd. for whom he worked from 1936-42, initially as a junior technical assistant and then as a senior technical assistant in the design office.
After the war broke out in 1939 – 40 while he was working in UK, he volunteered his services to the Royal Air Force. He was the first Ceylonese to be enlisted in the RAF as an officer according to an article titled “The Way Ceylonese Serve Their Motherland” that appeared in the wartime magazine “War & Ceylon” in August 1940. This was a monthly publication of the Information Control Department of Ceylon.
However, his commission with the RAF was canceled at the request of Handley Page Ltd who declined to release him due to the importance of the work he was doing.
He worked in a senior role for the Ceylon Plywood Corporation in Gintota. Later, he became the Government Engineer for the city of Galle. In the fifties he became Head of Civil Engineering at the Ceylon Technical College (CTC).
From 1958 he worked with the Ministry of Education to establish the Institute of Practical Technology at Katubedde, Moratuwa, which opened in 1960 with Sumanadasa as founder principal. In 1966 he became the founder director of the Ceylon College of Technology (CCT) which in 1972 became the University’s Katubedde Campus. In 1978 this became the independent University of Moratuwa which in 1980 honoured its founding father with an honorary doctorate.
Earlier in 1974, Sumanadasa became the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ceylon and retired the next year. He died on May 24, 1986 at the age of 75-years.
The Sumanadasa building, named in his honour and built in 1973, remains in use and is one of the largest on the University of Moratuwa. In 2009, in a global ranking, Moratuwa was deemed the top university in Sri Lanka and 11th in South Asia. So, the legacy of a young man who took to the skies above Hatfield, all those years ago, continues to soar to new heights.
In his memory, the Dr L.H. Sumanadasa Memorial Scholarship is awarded annually to the student with the highest Z-score entering the University of Moratuwa.
Notes by the compiler:
All the contents of this eDocument is based on information extracted from the webpage linked to http://www.hatfield-herts.co.uk/aviation/sumanadasa.html which was shared by late Dr Sumanadasa’s son, Ananda Sumanadasa.
Various sources of information indicate that close to 100 Ceylonese joined the RAF during the period 1940 to 1944 either going from the country or while being in the UK having gone there before the war broke out. Any information or material readers might have of such personnel could be shared with the compiler of this article, Gp. Capt Kumar Kirinde, SLAF, (Retd) via email (kirinde@gmail.com)