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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0761.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD FOUNDED 1909 and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No 2473 Vol 69 FRIDAY 15 JUNE 1956 Editor MAURICE A. SMITH D.F.C. and BAR Associate Editor H. F. KING M.B.E. Technical Editor W. T. GUNSTON Production Editor ROY CASEY Iliffe and Sons Ltd Dorset House Stamford Street London, S.E.I Telephone • Waterloo 3333 (60 lines) BRANCH OFFICES Coventry 8-10 Corporation Street Telephone • Coventry 5210 Birmingham 2 King Edward House, New Street Telephone • Midland 7191 (7 lines) Manchester 3 260 Deansgate Telephone • Blackfriars 4412 (3 lines)Deansgate 3595 (2 lines) Glasgow C.2 26B Renfield Street Telephone • Central 1265 (2 lines) Toronto 2, Ontario 74 College Street , Telephone • Walnut 4-5631 New York 6, N.Y. Ill Broadway Telephone • Digby 9-1197 '.- SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas • Twelve Months, £4 10s. U.S.A. and Canada, $14.00 In, this issue 764 Flying the 707 767 Cranfield—the First Ten Years 770 Student's Progress 774 Westland Wyvern 780 A Tour of 2nd T.A.F. 783 Helicopters in the Antarctic Cranfield Decade IN this issue appear two articles concerning respectively the past and presentwork of the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield, now approaching its tenthanniversary. What lessons can be learned from the short history of this remarkable institution? There are several: some hopeful, some disappointing. The story of Cranfield's birth and development has not been an untroubled one, for the College has been the focus of controversy, its efforts have been hindered by apathy, and there have been difficulties in obtaining creative men of mature judgment to teach and to learn there. These disappointments have stemmed basically from misunderstanding of the technologist's role and from British traditionalism in industry and education. A technologist, be it noted, is one who does not merely use techniques as skills to fashion material to a required form, but rather one who can evolve new tech- niques. Such a man must be creative: he must therefore have developed insight through study and experience. He must in all probability be one who is or has been subject to inspiration. The genesis of Cranfield was largely in the brain of Sir Stafford Cripps, who himself aspired to technology in chemistry before graduating in law. His advisers included men well aware of the benefits of the Continental system of continuous technological training to a really advanced level. And yet the idea was not accepted. No college came into existence until 1946, and the universities and the aircraft industry did not support the project. For some inexplicable reason, the foster-parenthood was given to the Ministry of Education—a Ministry with no aeronautical scientist, no engineer, no technologist in its constitution; no back- ground of research or development; and no means of assessing the requirements of such an establishment as Cranfield. The causes of the subsequent difficulties were to be found in traditional British attitudes and inclinations. Sir Stafford Cripps left the field of aeronautical activity and became Chancellor; the universities all aspired to the enlargement of their own aeronautical resources; and the British aircraft industry apparently lacked confidence in the merits of academic study on an increased and more expensive scale. In general, it seemed, leaders of industry believed only in the apprentice- ship system. "Engineering," they said, "is learned best in the university of life —the university of industry." But times change; and with them change educational methods, attitudes—and aims. Only now are people realizing that the once-so-called "extravagant expense" of Cranfield is not extravagance at all. For the training of technologists is inevit- ably an expensive business. Just around the corner are hidden solutions of problems which at present seem insoluble. Those solutions will be found only by men capable of seeing through the eyes of understanding—which comes, in part, through diligent study, time for thought and the cross-fertilization of ideas. For (as all College of Aeronautics men know) ideas are carried about in the Cran- field air as seeds ready to germinate—as, indeed, they always are in any really advanced and lively institution devoted to learning and the evolution of new means to new ends. The most vital need of Cranfield today is not money; it is men. There are not enough people going through the College who have adequate ability and adequate experience to produce adequate value. It should be practicable for men from industry of, say, 28 years of age—married men, with families, who are already on the ladder to the higher posts—to go to Cranfield for a year or two years in reasonable conditions of security and provision. And this is precisely the require- ment which the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force recognize. The fact that those students who have achieved the highest distinction at Cranfield have been, on the whole, the officer-engineers of the Navy and Air Force shows that they have been in the right stage of mental development to derive most benefit. Let no one suppose that the College will go ahead in the next ten years unless there is a new recognition among employers that time and money must be found for advanced training at the right age.
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