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Aviation History
1909
1909 - 0288.PDF
MAY 22, 1909. . paratively indifferent to the purely scientific aspect of the problem, taking an active part in the movement, in In the above photograph the submerged object can be dimlythe water, and the apparatus, by means of which the effect upon it is registered, is mounted above the trough such a manner as to enable practice to go hand in hand with theory. They need have no fear that their good work will not be taken account of by those who will now have charge of the less exhiliarating but equally impor- tant experiments comprehended within the scope of the National Physical Laboratory. It is only natural to ask, what is the National Physical Laboratory going to do ? But for the moment no definite answer can be given to this question, for the very simple reason that there has been no time in which to formulate a definite plan of campaign. There are many things that want doing; it is merely a question as to what the Flight Committee decide may be most profitably undertaken first. To those who have studied the science of flight a little, it is a never ceasing wonder that so much should have been accomplished while so many things remain unknown. It is true that men have speculated on the possibilities of flight for centuries, but it is equally true that these speculations have in the main been remarkable rather for the diversity of their conclusions than for the establishment of reliable theories. Practical men have at last been found to build machines which, with the aid of the modern petrol engine, can successfully fly, and by the process of elimination such machines will undoubtedly be improved more and more as time goes on There comes a time, however, when the direction in which improvement can be undertaken is no longer so easily ascertained from the results of actual flights. The designer comes to need information of a character which can only be satisfactorily obtained from experimental work conducted with the sole purpose of establishing some specific point and no other. The designer may wish to know, for instance, whether he can possibly improve the curvature of his main surfaces, for having, perhaps, evolved a type which gives reasonable satisfaction he is unwilling to go to the expense of an alteration in a full-size machine without some sub- stantial assurance of success. This is where theory assists the practical man. Theory is not, as some people seem to think, a collection of childish myths, nor is it as others would have us believe, the dogmatic expression of un- founded opinion on the part of some reputed " wise man." Theory, as it is understood at any rate in all practical m^^m^^3\ professions, is the doctrine of the relationshipbetween the fundamental laws of nature so far as they affect the science in question. The fact that bodies fall to the ground if unsupported is so much a matter of common, observation that it seems nothing out of the way to the man in the street, but as a funda- mental theory in physics it spreads out ramifications so far reaching that it may be said to affect every problem in mechanical science. Yet if man had never been curious about the common properties of falling bodies, he would not have made for himself a tithe of the conveniences by which his life on earth to-day is civilised. So, too, in the development of flight. Two courses are open, either we can sit down and wait for a lucky "discovery" on the part of some practical aviator who has been trying everything he can think of regardless of expense, or we can systematically go to work and make our discoveries to order, in which case they are no longer discoveries but theory; which is to say they are a guide for all time to all seen underof the flow Having concluded the indoor experiments on models in atuniform current of air, Dr. Stanton carried out wind- pressure experiments with larger structures mounted on thetop of the above tower. The arms stretching out from the platform are 40 ft. apart, and carry an apparatus whichenables simultaneous measurements to be made of the wind pressure at each point. It is from these experiments that ithas been found that the pressure was never simultaneously the same in the two places. men who engage themselves in the conquest of the For the convenience of taking a practicaJ examph 290 air..example of,"
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