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Aviation History
1910
1910 - 0706.PDF
I/yGHT THE first report of the Advisory Committee for Aero nautics, covering the year 1909-1910, has been presented to both Houses of Parliament and issued in the usual way as a Blue-book. Anyone is entitled to purchase this 191 page volume for the price of 85. $d., and pre sumably those whose business it is to study the subject in order to maintain their close association with the movement will buy the publication as a matter of course. When they have got it they will find that it will take some reading, and far more digesting, to obtain what may be described as any workable data from its contents. It is a very theoretical book, and we doubt if it has any appreciable value to the cursory student of flight. On the other hand, it is an admirable beginning, and we do not see how anyone could possibly want a better earnest of the sort of information that it is hoped the Govern ment Flight Office will in due course regularly provide. So far, they have hardly had time to do more than get their apparatus into working order, for it is a very big undertaking to erect any satisfactory testing plant, even though in appearance it may be of the simplest possible description. All sorts of precautions have to be taken to guard against extraneous causes and effects that would neutralise the value of the information that the apparatus is designed to provide. Even such an apparently simple object as a wind channel, wherein small planes and other shapes can be tested for lift and drift, offers endless opportunities for inaccuracy, and it is only when work of this character is undertaken by scientific minds thoroughly trained to experimental research that the data collected can be considered reliable. This aspect of the case is very often forgotten. Too many enthusiasts are apt to suppose that any sort of rough and ready arrange ment will do to make tests with, but the truth of the matter is that tests of that character are generally worse than useless, for the information is the more misleading since it is supposed by those who accept it to have been proved in its accuracy. There is no doubt that the National Physical Labora tory has an enormous potential capacity for doing good work in the furtherance of aeronautics, and if only there is maintained an active co-operation between all con cerned there should be some possibility of getting really useful results without delay. It is quite important, for instance, that problems of current import should be attacked as soon as they are definitely recognised as barring the way to advance in any particular direction. Very properly the Government have had first call on the services of the Laboratory, and practically all the time that has so far been available for definite experiment has been directed towards certain questions associated with the development of airships. Very useful work has already been done in testing the rate of leakage or diffusion of hydrogen through different kinds of balloon fabrics, and the principal results are contained in an appendix to the report Other tests have been carried out in order to ascertain the shapes of least resistance that are suited to dirigible envelopes, and also the best forms to use as rudders and elevating planes. These latter constitute practically the only research work relating to the aeroplane that has yet been under taken, but, inasmuch as the experimental surfaces were flat planes, they do not apply directly to the principal unsolved problems of the cambered plane that is used in the modem flying machine. So soon, however, as the work relating more particularly to airships has provided SEPTEMBER 3, 1910. TICS. the desired data, there is no doubt that the labours of the experimenters will be directed by the Advisory Com mittee towards investigations bearing upon the aeroplane. When these are undertaken, interest in this department of Government work will grow by leaps and bounds, for there are, figuratively speaking, a thousand people interested in the aeroplane for every one that is in terested in the dirigible balloon. Private enterprise, with a few marked exceptions, is not attracted to the development of the airship, which is very commonly regarded to be an undertaking essentially within the sphere of Government activity. There is no doubt, however, that any practical advice that the Advisory Committee are able to offer in the future as the result of the research work in aerodynamics conducted by the Authorities at Bushey House will be received with eagerness by an enormous number of the British population, many of whom will doubtless at their own expense forthwith endeavour to put much of it into effect. At the moment, the most that the Advisory Committee has been able to do has been to prepare a sort of r'esumi of the present state of the science, and this they have embodied in an appendix to the report that constitutes the greater part of the volume in question. Needless to say, a great number of very interesting and some very abstruse matters are thus referred to. The description of the experimental equipment of the Aeronautical Department of the National Physical Laboratory, by Dr. T. E. Stanton, is itself one of the most important and by no means the least interesting of the contributions, and is very properly followed by a memo randum of the general questions to be studied by A. Mallock, F.R.S. Another report by Dr. T. E. Stanton on recent researches on the forces of plane surfaces in a current of air very ably reviews the present day knowledge on this fundamental aspect of the aeroplane, while a short memorandum on stability by Sir G. Greenhill, F.R.S., affords food for reflection that will take far longer than the time occupied to peruse the text. A note on skin-friction by F. W. Lanchester com bines with a note as to the application of the principle of dynamical similarity by Lord Rayleigh, while A. Mallock, F.R.S., discusses the classic experiments of Froude. One of the most important contributions is that made by the Secretary of the Committee, Mr. F. J. Selby, who has prepared a summary of papers relating to the stability of airships and aeroplanes, and also a report as to existing knowledge on the subject of the accumula tion of electrostatic charges on balloons. One of the most bulky, and also one of the most important of the appendices is the report on the wind by Dr. W. N. Shaw, F.R.S., which is accompanied by many in teresting charts and diagrams. The work already undertaken by the National Physical Laboratory relating to the resistance of balloon bodies, the best forms for rudders, and the leakage of hydrogen, are all described in detail among the appended reports, which also contain references to engines and propellers. Of the former there is a very interesting translation presented by Rear- Admiral R. H. Bacon relating to the work done by the German Society for the Study of Airships; the memorandum on the screw-propeller is by Sir W. G. Greenhill. Flying fish and anemometers by A. Mallock are also included in this really extraordinary compendium of knowledge, which concludes with a very good collection of abstracts from foreign papers and articles. r<H
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