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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 1465.PDF
and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER Editorial Director G. GEOFFREY SMITH, Editor - -CM. POULSEN Assistant Editor - MAURICE A. SMITH, D.F.C (W/NG COR., R.A.F.V.R.) Art Editor - - JOHN YOXALL FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY W THE WORLD •• FOUNDED 1909 Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices -. DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.I Telegrams : Flightpres, Sedist, London. Telephone i Waterloo 3333 (50 lines.) COVENTRY: 6-10, CORPORATION ST. Telegrams : Autocar, Coventry. Telephone: Coventry 5210. BIRMINGHAM, 21 w E D WAR D R HO^USE, Telegrams . Autopress, Birmingham! Telephone: Midland 7191 (7 lines). MANCHESTER, 3 i ' 260< DEANSGATE. Telegrams: Hiffe, Manchester. Telephone: Biackfriars +412. GLASGOW. C2: 26B, RENFIELD ST. Telegram) : lliffe, Glasfow, Telephone: Central 4857 SUBSCRIPTION RATES : Home and Abroad : Year, £3 I a Registered at trie C.P.O. at a Newspaper 6 months, £1 10 6. No. 2019. Vol. LH. September 4th, 1947 We Outlook Thursdays, One Shilling'. Problems—Profound and Profuse . " t • "^HE patient efforts of a large number of workers I in wind tunnels and in flight during the past forty years have, in large measure, established an understanding of the factors affecting aircraft perfor- mance. The rapid developments in aviation during re- cent years have faced workers all over the world with new problems, and the aircraft designers and experi- menters are having to begin the task of establishing the basis of high-speed design all over again." That sentence, the opening words in Mr. W. G. A. Perring's paper (one of the seven presented yesterday at the joint Anglo-American Aeronautical Conference) sums up the present position admirably. In very truth, de- signers and research workers are having to begin all over again. And they are much worse off than were their counterparts forty years ago; then the experi- menter did his own simple designing, and often his own piloting as well. And when the crash came, as it nearly aways did, so simple,, was the aircraft structure that repairs took but a few days, or a couple of weeks .tthe most. Almost any reasonably flat piece of ground served the purpose of airfield, with perhaps a small wooden shed as the combined hangar and workshop. How different is the picture to-day. The insatiable thirst for speed has driven us into realms where know- ledge no longer suffices, and where even the imagination boggles. Before the simplest bit of construction can begin, reams of calculations and acres of drawings have to be laboriously produced, and even then there is no guarantee that the aircraft which has been born in such labour will behave as it should after taking off from a runway of inordinate length, constructed at fantastic cost. Should we, then, abandon our probing and prying into the problems which lie behind the present veil? To that question no one would answer "Yes," but it is essential to retain a sense of proportion in these things, and there seems to be a danger that we are losing this sense. That is one reason out of many why we welcome the Anglo-American Aeronautical Conference. No one who has the opportunity to attend the lectures or study the printed papers can fail to be impressed by the mag- nitude and multitude of the problems which confront designers and scientists. While thus the contributions by American and British specialists add to the common fund of knowledge, they also serve as a timely brake on unwarranted optimism. # The curious situation appears to have arisen that scientists know more about the supersdhic region than they do about the transonic, yet aircraft will have to fly through the latter twice—accelerating in one case, decelerating in the other. That is a sobering fact which is apt to be too often overlooked, not by designers and scientists, to be sure (they are only too well aware of the formidable obstacles), but by those of the public who believe that it will be but a year or two before the Atlantic is crossed regularly in a couple of hours. The Radlett DisplayW ITH the emphasis strongly on export, as it is at the present time, the display organized by the Society of British Aircraft Constructors comes at a very opportune moment. Never was this country more in need of convincing the world that, contrary to widespread opinion abroad, Great Britain is very far from being "finished." There is, of course, no denying the fact that in certain classes of transport aircraft we have a great deal of lee- way to make up—one of the many legacies of the war, but in other respects the aeronautical goods which will be displayed to our foreign guests at Radlett when the exhibition opens next Tuesday will afford convincing proof that British designers and manufacturers can com- pete in quality with any in the world. Bearing in mind the great difficulties under which
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