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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1657.PDF
JUNE 6, 1940 509 MAIN ROUTES (SEPT 1939) NATIONAL ROUTES (SEPT. 1939) SZZSZ POSSIBLE FUTURE ROUTES Fig. i. Air routes of the British Empire. 1 LOOKING FORWARD® Prolegomena jor a Detailed Study of the Future of British Civil Aviation : The Wilbur Wright Memorial Lecture of the Royal Aeronautical Society By H. ROXBEE COX, Ph.D., D.I.C., B.Sc, F.R.Ae.S., A.F.I.AeJ& "; ,';""\^.. ON May 30, 1940, at the Institute of ElectricalEngineers, London, the 28th Wilbur WrightMemorial Lecture was delivered by Dr. H. Roxbee Cox to an audience which included many distinguished aeronautical personalities. Many others were prevented from attending by the increased national productive effort which is tailing very heavily on the aircraft industry. In the absence of the President, Mr. A. H. R. Fedden, who was in America and had expressed his intention of spending that day with Wilbur Wright's brother, Orville, Lt. Col. J, T. C. Moore-Brabazon was in the chair. He read the good wishes which had been telegraphed from America by Mr. Fedden and from the Institute of Aero- nautical Sciences and the telegram which the Society had sent to Orville Wright. He then explained how the lecture which the audience had gathered together to hear was in- tended to keep evergreen the memory of Wilbur Wright who, with his brother, was responsible for the first con- trolled and sustained flight on December 17, 1903. He noticed among the audience many who knew Wilbur well, and he counted himself fortunate to be among those who had been friends of this great man. Wilbur, he said, was a superman, a man of extraordinary interest, yet neverthe- less of great simplicity of character and few words—a friend to be loved and honoured. One could not stress the idealism of the Wright brothers too much. Mechanical science has rushed forward so swiftly that it has outstripped the wisdom of man, and the lengths to which the prostitution of science to military ends has been carried would be a shock to Wilbur Wright could he come back to-day. He then called upon Dr. Cox to deliver the lecture and said that, following the distinguished names which we had had in the past on these occasions, there now stepped for- ward another who was young, clever and ornamental. His career following his scientific education at Imperial College led him to the Austin works during 1918-20, after which he was a designer at the Royal Airship Works and then a principal scientific officer at Farnborough and visiting lecturer at Imperial College. Until the war he was chief technical officer of the Air Registration Board, but at present was engaged on war work. Dr. Cox then read some of the more important parts ot his paper, and hereunder, and in subsequent issues, follows a precis of this document : The list of the Wilbur Wright lecturers is a long and dis- tinguished one, and I feel it a great honour to have been asked to join this eminent company, because no greater compliment can be paid an aeronautical engineer. There can be no doubt that when a country is fighting for its life, its primary aim is to win the fight, but it is generally agreed that we are fighting also for our civilisa- tion. It would seem axiomatic, then, that we must pre- serve the means of civilisation, of which civil aviation is one. British civil aviation at the outbreak of war was at the beginning of a struggle to make for itself a position in world aviation worthy of the Empire. Unless the struggle is sustained we shall find at the end of the war that our position in relation to our greatest rivals is desperately, if not irretrievably, inferior. Plans would have been made for the furthering of British civil aviation had the war not happened, and plans—more modest plans, perhaps—must still be made. In other fields great efforts are being made that our instruments of com- merce and communication may remain unimpaired. It is my conviction that our air communications also should pro- ceed as closely as may be possible along the lines of their peacetime development. The Committee Period This Wilbur Wright lecture is in two respects unusual. Whereas previous lectures have generally been reviews of contemporary knowledge, this one ventures on to the dan- gerous ground of the future ; the tradition that the lecture is not debated is in consequence doubly welcome. In the second place, it is unusual that the lecture should have a chiefly domestic appeal, but I should like my American friends to know that, however dull they may find it, it is no whit less sincere a tribute than its predecessors to Wilbur Wright.
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