The guidance given by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to the Civil Aviation Authority begins with a very important sentence—though some might regard it as a truism. It says that civil air transport exists by serving the public. As it happens, it was I who wrote those words and perhaps you will permit me to paraphrase them in everyday language, rather than the language of White Papers.

Civil air transport is about people. It is about the people who fly in aeroplanes as passengers, or who would like to do so if they could afford it. It is about the people who work for airlines, whether they be on the flight deck or in the cabin or on the ground. It is about the people who run airlines, whether they are the chairman of public corporations like Henry Marking or the founders of independent airlines like Adam Thomson or Freddy Laker. And finally it is about the people who regulate airlines; those who lay down the grant strategy like the members of the Edwards Committee and those who say you may or you may not.

It is a great honour and pleasure to be invited to deliver this Lawrence Hargrave Memorial Lecture in my home town—particularly as it gives me a chance to pay tribute to a man whose contributions to the development of the science of flight are commonly overlooked and usually under-rated.

I can remember vividly Professor Stephens delivering the first of these Memorial Lectures in 1956. With his whimsical sense of humour he started in a rather unconventional way. Without any of the usual introductory words he flashed a portrait of Lawrence Hargrave on the screen and said “Well, there he is—a handsome fellow—what you can see of him.” In a sense these words sum up the theme of my lecture. I want to discuss some of the outstanding problems of the international airline industry—an industry whose handsome features are at present somewhat obscured by adversity.

In the past, new concepts have largely stemmed from the use of intuitive techniques by original thinkers. These approaches, though still useful, are now reinforced by more powerful, formal, and systematic, methods of examining the possible patterns for the future. These methods are part of the process of technological forecasting and are described in references.

The results of the forecasting process may then be assessed and evaluated using further methods of operational research such as cost effectiveness analysis.

When I agreed to give this paper I did not appreciate the problems I would have in trying to quantify what I had as a pilot been putting into practice for some years, I have always been conscious of helicopter noise when operating into heliports or landing areas within a community and tried, by practical means, to reduce the amount of noise annoyance.

Subject to the economics being satisfactory, the more widespread use of helicopters in passenger transport might easily be seriously inhibited by restrictive noise limitations. Pilots can help to avoid this if they operate the present generation of noisy helicopters with due regard to this problem.

The main objective of the first builders of flying machines was to fly; the question of handling qualities was not so important as the question of performance. But when the fight against weight began to be won, the pilots wanted to fly easily. This was a reasonable requirement but very difficult to comply with because everybody had their own opinion about the meaning of “easily”. The engineers added some confusion by introducing mathematics. After many years of discussion during which everybody talked about Cm, Cmq,stability and manoeuvrability, the engineers won the battle and prescribed the holy regulations that they wanted and that they hoped would be eternal. For instance the centre of gravity lost its freedom and was assigned a position always ahead of the neutral point.

It is a prerequisite that by investigating the financing of aircraft procurement in relation to transport systems, we first accept the predominance of the defence budgets on all aircraft projects. However, because the penalty of democracy is public accountability, defence procurement is supposedly in one ledger and civil projects in another. Whereas budgets, accounting and technical errors in the defence category cause only domestic problems with the electorate, similar mistakes in the civil field can have far more disastrous effects on overseas clients and world trade. How short this paper would be in the USSR. Just a case of debiting the manufacturer with research, development, raw materials, labour and overhead—if that exists—and then, when each aircraft is ready for delivery, credit the manufacturer with total cost—surely profit is unthinkable—and debit the USSR Air Force and Aeroflot.

In 1973, automatic flight controls is one of the most exacting fields of technology, requiring a balanced combination of art, science and human understanding, and the efforts of large project management teams backed by adequate resources to bring any new concept to fruition.

Today's systems derive almost entirely from the technology of the past 25 years, and hence it is little known that there was some activity in automatic flight control for fixed wing aircraft as long ago as 1873, some 30 years before the world-changing events at Kittyhawk and when mechanical flight was still confined to balloons and a few rudimentary gliders.

Hot wire anemometers have found widespread use in the measurement of turbulence for many years. Recently, considerable improvements in the signal to noise ratio of these instruments has facilitated measurements in the high wavenumber region of the energy spectrum, where the turbulent energy level is usually relatively low.

Of major concern in the measurement of very small scale turbulent fluctuations by the hot wire method is the error introduced by the spatial averaging effect of the wire. Clearly, for fluctuations with wavelengths of the same order of magnitude as the wire length, or less, the line integration of the wire results in measured amplitudes which deviate considerably from those which would be recorded by a probe of infinitely small size.

To say that air transport is a complicated business is trite but nevertheless true. Only part of the job of providing service to the public is done by the airline itself. To operate efficiently in the complex environment of the world's airways, some clearly defined, some not, an airline requires a co-ordinated system of highly developed technical equipment, skilled personnel and competent management, largely financed by Government authorities who believe it is in their best interests to do so. In the beginning, the airlines were creatures of Government, either actually owned by them or supported and subsidised by them in one way or another. Then and now, the airlines are subject to close Governmental control both as regards their technical standards and performance and their commercial environment. The airline industry has now grown up and is big business. Many airlines are still owned by Governments wholly or in part but all are now expected to operate on a commercial basis.

In his general review of the Civil Aviation Act 1971 and its implications for the regulation of civil aviation in the 1970s, Mr. Colegate has mentioned the general functions of the Civil Aviation Authority. In my contribution I will describe the safety function in greater detail and the pattern of legislation and direction within which the Authority will work.

The approach and landing of a transport aircraft is a complex operation over which the pilot has only limited control. Although the efficiency of the crew and the serviceability of the aircraft and its systems are to a considerable extent within the command of the pilot, the standards of air traffic control, the availability of navigational aids and the runway length and lighting are beyond his immediate influence. Letdowns with imperfect air traffic control and limited precision aids, particularly if complicated by adverse meteorological conditions, lead to very high workloads which the pilot may find difficult to assimilate. Under these circumstances difficulties may arise during the approach and landing.

A lecture on the background of the MRCA project was presented to the Society three years ago, at which time most of the basic definition of this trinational project had been completed. The development of the programme in terms of performance, cost and schedule has in the meantime been essentially in accordance with the plans established during 1969.

The overall scope of these plans are mainly contained in the decade of the seventies (Fig. 2). Development started in mid-1970 and series production deliveries will have reached the full target rate in the last quarter of the decade. Also the eighties will see substantial employment of our industries on this project if the aircraft proves as good in performance and price as is intended.

It is a special honour and privilege to be asked to give the Wilbur and Orville Wright Lecture this year. My good friend, John Seekings, has reminded me that 1972 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Around the World in 80 Days. That celebrated voyage by Phineas Fogg is particularly appropriate to our contemporary world of air transport. Many of the problems he faced are still with us—and we will probably have them 100 years from now.

It was also just about a 100 years ago that the Russian scientist, Mendeleyev, described the skies as “air oceans”. That description seems particularly apt today. And it is the basis for my thesis that we are now adrift on the “air ocean”. We are adrift because we have the technical means to tie the world together aeronautically but we cannot seem to agree on a heading to follow.

Technology has compressed a trip around the world from the 80 days of Phineas Fogg to a matter of hours. When we consider that it has only been 45 years since Lindbergh's historic flight across the Atlantic, the advances of technology seem even more staggering. But, while we have performed some technological miracles, we have also engendered some of the most difficult and complex problems since man rolled the first wheel downhill.

The experience of the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area in the setting up of the “downtown” heliport will give some notion of the obstacles one encounters, and how the interested agency may surmount those obstacles—which it is possible to do when all goes well.

If someone were to introduce a certain gracious lady as ”… that well-known Queen of England, Elizabeth II …” he would expect to meet with a slightly incredulous stare. We agree that it is a bit superfluous to say that the lady is well-known. Some propositions are so inherently true that it is better to say less rather than more, to make a point. I hope I have not gone excessively round-about to express my diffidence in setting out to prove the obvious, that the helicopter has a place in the modern, urban transport system. Equally obvious should be the fact that the down-town heliport is a natural and essential link in such a system. The proposition may require demonstration. It hardly needs proof.

The target world like Gaul is divided into three parts, namely:

• Converted aircraft

• Specially developed pilotless drones

• Towed targets

and I propose talking about these three types in turn.

The only converted manned aircraft in use in the UK is the Meteor U.16. This is a conversion of the Meteor F.8. The main structural change is the extended nose which houses the necessary black boxes, e.g. Autopilot, Control Radio Receiver, Telemetry transmitter, etc. By this means the aircraft can be flown with a pilot in the cockpit in the conventional way for non-firing runs or alternatively as a safety pilot when checking out the drone system.

The title of this paper may suggest that it sets out to bring the report of the Edwards Committee up-to-date. That would be an interesting and challenging task; but although some aspects of the Committee's conclusions will be considered in the light of more recent experience, I have no intention of attempting to perform, in the course of an evening, something which a number of well-qualified men, ably served by an experienced secretariat, required 18 months to complete. Nevertheless, because air transport is a dynamic industry in which change is commonplace, even the work of the Edwards Committee has to some extent been overtaken by events. Its principal recommendations have been implemented, wholly or in part, and in turn, this has set the scene for further change so far as British civil aviation is concerned. Despite this apparent emphasis on change, the industry needs stability. Sometimes stability is confused with stagnation—so let me make it clear that what is required is stability accompanied by sufficient flexibility not only to reflect change but to influence change when this is necessary.

In many ways the scene for the 1970s was set by the events of the previous decade. If there were time it might be interesting to consider some of the more important factors which have influenced the past decade, but the Edwards Committee itself examined much of the evidence of the 1960s in reaching its conclusions.

The aim of this article is to describe a method of power utilisation in a man-powered oscillating wing machine and to suggest features of design, which it is hoped might be of practical value to the many man-powered flight enthusiasts wishing to engage in what might, perhaps, become a relatively cheap and exhilarating sport.

With considerable expenditure of time and resources, successful attempts at man-powered flight have been made in the not so distant past. These exercises, at or near the limits of man's physical endurance, have been rewarded with flights lasting but a short while. And it is believed that any improvement of results in the near future can be only marginal.