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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0290.PDF
288 FLIGHT, 16 March 1956 Research—a Philosophy Thirty Aphorisms from the Bieriot Memorial Lecture, given in Paris by E. T. Jones, Director-General of Technical Development (Air) "A PHILOSOPHY OF AERONAUTICAL RESEARCH" was the subject of the ninth Louis BleriotLecture, delivered in Paris last week by Mr. E. T. Jones, C.B., O.B.E., M.Eng., F.R.Ae.S., who is Director-General of Technical Development (Air), Ministry of Supply, and president-elect of theRoyal Aeronautical Society. His paper was of a refreshingly "different" kind, and to summarize or abstract it by any orthodox method would be to do it less than justice; so, since its length precludesreproduction in toto, we have here selected a number of brief passages almost any one of which is well fitted to stand alone as a statement of original thought, rather in the manner of La Rochefoucauld'sfamous maxims. A note on the Paris meeting appears elsewhere in this issue. "Sir," said he, "you have seen but a small part of whatthe mechanic sciences can perform. I have long been of opinion, that, instead of the tardy conveyance of shipsand chariots, man might use the swifter migration of wings; that the fields of air are open to knowledge, andthat only ignorance and idleness need crawl upon the ground."—Dr. Johnson, Rasselas, 1759. IT is alleged that to a lady who once asked "Professor, what isthe use of your discovery?", Faraday replied "Madam, what isthe use of a baby?" ... To the Wright brothers their "baby" was not a discovery. It was their way of presenting to the community in a direct and obvious manner the results of prolonged scientific enquiry. To the community, however, the Wrights had made a most momentous discovery for they had found a means of flying without first climbing a mountain. • • The second 50 years of powered flight holds a challenge more forbidding, though no less interesting, than the first; the success achieved will not be measured by man landing on the moon but by whether in the process we have learned wisdom and in doing so have restored the free exchange of knowledge within and between all communities on the surface of the earth. • * The engine man experiences a form of thrust-reversal when he is reminded that the glider has attained an altitude two-thirds as great as the most powerful operational aircraft in the world; and the aerodynamicist becomes thoughtful . . . when seeing in flight, and for the first time, the Rolls-Royce "Flying Bedstead" and realizes how little his science has contributed. • • Whilst materials have helped considerably in forging the key to aeronautical progress, the need for better materials would not have been recognized nor pursued but for the advances made by the aerodynamicist, the structural engineer and the propulsion engineer. • • The application of nuclear power to aircraft may well be needed before the range of powered aircraft can be substantially increased. The conquest of heat will need to be achieved before we can fully realize the conquest of space. To be able to control the release of fusion energy as we can now control the release of fission energy would make easier many future aeronautical problems. • * Though many scientific data will be obtained from an orbiting unmanned satellite, and the prestige of the community that has developed it and put it into space will be greatly enhanced, the •. advance registered will be less real than that achieved by the succeeding vehicle which can navigate, and contain man. • » To conceive automatic equipment which could detect elec- tronically or by any other means the elements of the local struc- ture of the atmosphere to the extent that the human being has proved he can do is impossible whilst we remain ignorant of some of the input signals man automatically uses but cannot precisely describe. Man's flexible brain, together with the precise data which instrumentation can provide, form between them an integrated control which neither alone can achieve. • • We must ensure that today's problems are not eclipsed by tomorrow's prospects; we must make aircraft safer and safer as well as faster, further and higher; and this demands, in the ultimate, aircraft which can land in any weather conditions with- out forward speed. The aeronautical problems of the future are therefore immense. There are some who would delay the launching of satellites, space-ships and so on in the belief that man may get to know more than is good for him; but man already knows more than is good for mankind, and not until he knows still more will he be able to adapt what he knows to the benefit of mankind as a whole. . . '. anyone who has travelled much by air is immediately impressed by the ease of world travel . . . The most lasting im- pression, and the most important, is the friendliness of all peoples of the world and the fact that one can meet more people of other nations in one year than can be met in a lifetime using other forms of travel. • • Aircrews are at home in any and every country of the world ... the air on which they ride is "standard gauge" the world over, and the same codes of practice obtain throughout; in fact, aircraft design and operation are to a first approximation independent of the habits and customs of any particular community. In other words, the popular cliche that aeronautics is making the world smaller is true; it is sweeping away boundary fences and reducing local habits and customs to a common denominator. Yesterday aeronautics was exploited because of its potential in war, today it is exploited because of its potential as a deterrent to war, and tomorrow we hope it will be exploited because of its potential as an explorer, philosopher and communal friend. • • Scientific capital is the fund of scientific knowledge possessed by a nation and it is this fund of knowledge which forms the foundation on which new techniques and processes are built; though a high individual and high collective intellect of a com- munity are valuable assets they are not in themselves sufficient to ensure that the rate at which a nation is accumulating scientific knowledge is comparable with that of other nations. • • In our limited wisdom it seems that there is no present way of exploiting the available knowledge to the ultimate good of man- kind rather than for merely destructive purposes, or to ensure that the technical effort available is so fully employed in exploiting scientific capital for the benefit of mankind that no effort remains for subversive aims. But who would then dare to be the arbiter of good and evil and at what point in time could a right judgment be made; thequestion "What is truth?" has remained unanswered down the ages. The philosopher's cry that life is one vast illusion is probably the most concise and cogent reason why the unceasing and uninhibited search for knowledge must continue. • • The scientific capital available for exploitation in the aero- nautical sciences is bounded by two frontiers, the frontier of knowledge amassed by scientists working in all fields and, super- imposed on this, an advanced frontier of knowledge in the specialized aeronautical field. • • The subject of fluid motion has attracted some of the best qualified people in the world and, despite the enormous effort devoted to the subject over the last 50 years, we still find today that more theses from aspiring doctors of philosophy are sub- mitted on fluid motion than on any other subject associated with the aeronautical sciences. • • Man has occupied the earth for at least 200,000 years, yet it is only during the last century that the fruits of research and invention have been made available to all and sundry as part of their way of life. Continued on page 289)
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