Aeronautics is certainly the science of the future and its professors and preachers have the qualities of their science. When you were good enough to ask me to read a paper, by way of opening a discussion this evening, you told me beforehand the subject which I should select. It is a new departure, characteristic of these new times. If you will look at the practice of education in this or any other country you will find that hitherto subjects have been selected, not by those who are to hear, but by those who are to speak. They are the subjects upon which the teacher has already made up his mind. The principle of selection is that the teacher must be able to display superior knowledge and the process of education is a sort of wave of superior knowledge going down from the universities into the most elementary recesses without much regard for what it looks like from the point of view of those hungry for the knowledge of “how it goes,” and still more “why it goes?”

You have provoked this digression by giving me the subject, “Wind Gusts and the Structure of Aerial Disturbances.”

When I was asked some six months ago to contribute a paper to this Society dealing with the lessons to be learnt from the study of the causes of accidents when flying, I agreed to do so because it seemed to me that a discussion upon this subject could not fail to be of interest and advantage to pilots, constructors and others by bringing before them in collective form the accidents, preventable and otherwise, which have happened, and in particular those which have been investigated by the Accidents Investigation Committee of the Royal Aero Club, on which your Chairman of Council, General Ruck, and several other Fellows and Members of the Aeronautical Society are very useful workers.

The primary object of the paper which I had the honour to be asked to read' to you this evening, is not to be a mere recital of my experiences during the three years I have been actively piloting an aeroplane, although it has the title “Three Years’ Flying Experience” but I hope to be able to give to you a few points which should be of general interest, and perhaps beneficial to fellow–pilots and to others who have so kindly come here to–night to hear this paper.

I will first give you a few instances of my earliest failures, their causes and remedies. In fact, the solution of most of my troubles, when I look back, may be placed under the simple headings of inexperience and want of confidence, which, I suppose, are very nearly one and the same thing. The machines of three years ago, jt is true, were not so efficient, nor so safe, but that fact has really, in my opinion, no more than quite a small bearing on the results of those days.

Members of this Society may be forgiven if, in view of the glorious progress of aviation, they regard the balloon as an extinct species of aeronautical apparatus. The object of this paper is to show that, in spite of the strides aviation has made, the balloon still has its part to play in the navigation and study of the air, and that those who go to the trouble of making balloon ascents not only reap considerable pleasure by employing that means of transit, but they also learn facts about the atmosphere which may be of service to them in becoming more than mere chauffeurs of aeroplanes.

The best sailors who navigate our steamships have served their apprenticeship on sailing vessels, where they learn the true force and effects of winds and gain a knowledge of the sea not so readily acquired under steam power. In the same way, I venture to suggest that the much–despised balloon is a means for acquiring a knowledge of the atmosphere which cannot be gained when tearing through the air at fifty miles an hour.

It is a matter of extreme importance to be able to measure accurately the speed of the air in any situation and under any condition, because all our knowledge of the dynamical properties of the air is dependent upon a correct measurement of its velocity, and because the safety of a pilot depends upon knowing accurately the speed at which he is flying. He is then able to guard himself against the risk of stalling his machine or of attaining too great a speed. An air speed indicator is really as indispensable to a pilot as a foot rule is to a carpenter or a “hooter” to a motorist.

The velocity of the air may be determined by three main methods.

In the first method the velocity is measured directly by the time taken by a particle, body or substance floating in or dragged along by the air to travel from one point to another.

I am honoured by the request of your Council to deliver the second Wilbur Wright Memorial Lecture, and for my subject have selected some points connected with the development of the aeroplane, that machine whose capabilities Wilbur Wright was among the first to recognise and which he did so much to create.

I will commence with some well–known words:—

“I have brought to a close the portion of the work which seemed to be specially mine, the demonstration of the practicability of mechanical flight; and for the next stage, which is the commercial and practical development of the idea, it is probable that the world may look to others. The world indeed will be supine if it do not realise that a new possibility has come to it and that the great universal highway overhead is now soon to be opened.”

The horizontal wind tunnel at East London College consists of a wooden tube, .2 feet square in section by lift. 6in. long, through which air may be drawn at velocities up to 50 m.p.h. by means of a 6½ h.p. motor.

It was designed and constructed by Messrs. Cedric Lee and G. Tilghman Richards from sketches supplied by one of the authors and was modified later by the addition of a wind disperser as the result of information kindly supplied by Dr. Stanton, of the National Physical Laboratory. This disperser was added principally with the object of reducing the draught in the room and of preventing pulsations of the air current.

The tunnel is provided with a bell mouth to ease the air into it, and at the other end it is connected to the disperser by a metal duct, 3ft. 6in. long, expanding from 2ft. square to 3ft. 6in. diameter. The propeller is mounted in the enlarged end, which is cylindrical for some 7 inches, so as to draw the air through the tunnel.