The purpose of this paper is to further illustrate the utility of a wind tunnel (see refs. 1 and 2) in providing performance date on aircraft engine installations. The discussion is limited to the test work accomplished in the Propulsion, Wind Tunnel Facility (PWT) at the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) at Tullahoma, Tennessee, USA

This paper looks at several typical management and marketing aspects of the operations and organisation of a large British engineering company whose biggest market is abroad. Exporting into highly competitive international markets is, therefore, a dominant feature of its business. Although this company is involved in a specialised field of advanced technology—that of aircraft manufacture—it happens also to be one with many of the characteristics of both the capital goods and consumer goods industries. It is, therefore, probably not unrepresentative, in many respects, of large industrial enterprises as a whole which are operating internationally.

The series of Chadwick Memorial Lectures was started in 1956 by Harold Rogerson who gave a very complete picture of Roy Chadwick's life and experience as an aircraft designer. Since then lectures in this series have mainly concerned problems on future projects, which would certainly have excited his lively interest, rather than nostalgic reviews of the past.

However, when I was honoured by being asked to give the 14th Lecture of the series it occurred to me that nothing would be more appropriate than a paper on the History of the Vulcan, since it was not only a major Avro enterprise in its own right, but it was also the last project with which Roy Chadwick was intimately concerned. It had a peculiar fascination for him, because he had, all the time I knew him, an enthusiasm for the all-wing transport as the ultimate in aerodynamic and structural efficiency

The need for the testing of aircraft is of course very obvious. New types of aircraft must be flight tested to check the performance predictions, define operational flight envelopes, or set safe-life limits for various components etc. Other flight tests are directed towards the investigation of particular problems, but much of this type of study is best done by model tests; especially when information is required in those areas where theories are known to be poor or even non-existent.

There is one point which I wish to make right away because I believe it to be true, important and appropriate to this lecture which is given in memory of a great aircraft designer. Raleigh, the author of the First Volume of The War in the Air wrote: “The man who makes a machine and the man who flies it are the heroes of the epic of flight”. This sentiment I fully support and I take no exception to the fact that the “maker” takes precedence over the “flier” since, apart from any other consideration, this represents a convenient sequence of events. Putting Raleigh's statement another way, I would say that such success as the Royal Air Force has had over the years has been dependent more on the British Aircraft Industry than on any other single factor except perhaps the existence of Trenchard who, incidentally, was himself wholly alive to the importance of a healthy aircraft industry if we were to have a healthy Air Force.

The purpose of this Report is to record the result of an independent step by step check of the theories, calculations and design proposals originated by Fit. Lt. Whittle, and having for their object the achievement of practical stratospheric transport. No investigation of the patent situation has been attempted.

The inventions and discoveries of Fit. Lt. Whittle have not yet reached the experimental stage, and so the material available for investigation is, necessarily, confined to a reasoned statement of the principles involved, coupled with justifying aerodynamic and thermodynamic calculations and design proposals.

Early in May 1785, Mr. Vincent Lunardi, famous for the first balloon ascent in England on 15th September 1784, announced that he would ascend again, in his new balloon, on 13th May, this time accompanied by his friend Mr. George Biggin and a lady.

For the occasion a stipple engraving (Fig. 1) was published, entitled “V. Lunardi, Esq., Mrs. Sage, G. Biggin Esq.”, showing these individuals in the balloon’s car. On the engraving, the date of publication is given as 13th May, the date fixed for the ascent, Mr. Bovi is named as the publisher, F. Bartolozzi as the engraver and Rigaud as the artist who had painted the picture from which the engraving had been made.

When we talk about the system of air transport regulation we normally refer to the processes by which governments exercise authority over the licensing of airlines to routes and control the fares and rates which are charged on those routes. Sometimes the concept of air transport regulation is extended to embrace the controls which governments exercise over the technical standards of airline operations, and thus include the licensing of personnel and the certification of airworthiness standards. In this lecture I propose to use the term “air transport regulatory system” in a much broader sense. I want the term to be interpreted as meaning the total system by which all relevant aspects of public policy are brought to bear upon airline operations and the ways in which they influence the air services which are available to the travelling public. Under this definition of air transport regulation I shall, for example, include governmental interests in promoting a high rate of technological progress in aeronautics as part of the overall system.

The NGTE Engine Test Facility has five test cells in current use and between them they can test aircraft powerplants over a wide range of operation at the precise conditions encountered in flight. Two basic testing techniques are employed—“connected testing”, in which air is piped directly to the engine compressor at the pressure and temperature conditions provided in flight by the intake, and “free-jet testing”.

John Dudley North must be almost the last of the select group of aircraft enthusiasts who started practical aviation in this country in the early years of the century. He was certainly the last to be actively concerned with the day-today activities of his company up to the day of his death, only outlived by Sir Thomas Sopwith and Oswald Short. “To become a pioneer in a youthful spirit of adventure is one thing. To use pioneering shrewdly and deliberately as a business policy is quite another. John North was able to do both.” So wrote Walter Gaunt in a special article published in January 1955 in the periodical Business.How this was achieved is some measure of my present task.

To be invited to give the British Commonwealth lecture was an honour which I was proud to accept. As one whose professional life has been concerned mainly with airworthiness of civil aircraft, the choice of the title of the lecture was simple.

But I found some difficulty in choosing a theme. The invitation to give this lecture coincided with the issue of the White Paper Civil Aviation Policy. This White Paper placed a large question-mark against the pattern of airworthiness control in future. It seemed to suggest considerable changes to the form in which the Air Registration Board had existed for 33 years, but what the future form would be was obscure.

The history of the seaplane is almost as old as flying itself, dating back to man-carrying Box Kites only two years after the Wright brothers memorable flight at Kittyhawk.

The First World War greatly increased the pace of development, which continued to its peak just before the Second World War, when the flying boat became a mainspring in the opening of routes to the Empire. During the Second World War seaplanes played a major part in the Allied war“* effort but decline was already evident, and increased during the early post-war years.

The relative numbers of landplanes and seaplanes used by one principal carrier are shown on Fig. 1, which indicates the rise and fall of the popularity of the seaplane passenger aircraft relative to other aircraft. This paper attempts to analyse the seaplane's virtues and drawbacks, reviews its past and attempts to anticipate its future. The problems and characteristics of the seaplane base are also examined together with some past solutions.

It was quite a few years ago that BLEU showed the feasibility of automatic landing. In the intervening period, considerable development has taken place. Before we look at the recent developments, it is worthwhile reiterating the early findings of BLEU. They showed that an aircraft could be landed automatically using an extension of a standard autopilot plus radio altimeter and an autothrottle system. In the pitch plane the aircraft is controlled on the glide slope as usual, but continues to a low height (100ft-150 ft) (30-36 m); a short period of constant attitude flight follows to about 50 ft (15 m) when the autopilot switches to flare and the throttles are closed at a steady rate. The control for the flare comes from the radio altimeters and an exponential flight path is aimed for. The rate of descent is kept to one-fifth of the height. In the lateral plane the control is purely an extension of the usual localiser control. Originally it was intended to use leader cable, but this had added complications of installation, and as techniques developed the localiser was found to give adequate performance.

My object first of all is to illustrate the background pressures which generate a need for an aircraft such as the Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA) and the various national gyrations which have pursued it through recent years. In describing past technical activities, I necessarily deal more with the UK contribution, rather than with Messerschmitt- Bolkow and Fiat, not with any parochial intention but because time is limited and I am naturally rather more familiar with that element from BAC work covering the Anglo-French aeroplane with Dassault and the UK studies which were intermediate between co-operation with the French and with our German and Italian colleagues.

For aviation to become commercially usable and reliable, in addition to the development of aerodynamics, of reliable structures and reliable engines, there had to be the development of instruments, communications, and navigational aids. Suppose, for example, that today one could not fly through cloud, or at night, then nothing remotely resembling a regular service would be possible. Flying would still be a sport.

To illustrate what I mean I shall quote the example of another innovation with quite different properties in this respect. The first railway was immediately commercial and usable without any aids. It can be seen at once that the train running along rails is constrained compared with aircraft. It is obvious that the navigation problem here is very simple, and that there is not really a problem of control or stability—the first railway trains did not even have brakes. The mechanical skill of operating and maintaining the new device had to be learned; but very little else.

When Mr. McManus and I first agreed to give this lecture, we did not realise that the audience would be likely to contain so many pilots. It could be construed that our job is to automate pilots out of business. However, I wish to assure you all that this is far from the truth. Our job is to completely automate the whole flight envelope so that pilots become “Systems Managers”. The result will be more accurate, reliable and safe flying, with the pilot assuming manual control on a minimum number of occasions consistent with keeping in practice.

Your President and Mr. B. D. Blackwell of the Rolls-Royce company were brash enough to have suggested that I present the Halford Memorial Lecture. And 1 fear that I was impetuous in having accepted. I am sorry that I did not know Major Frank Halford, but from what I have read and from those with whom I have discussed his achievements, he was indeed a leader, an engineer, a designer, a man of much foresight, without whom our world of air transport would not have progressed so far. I know he would have been interested in the engine design trends which form the subject of my discussion—The Development of Small Gas Turbines for Aircraft Auxiliary Power.

The year 1909 was certainly the Golden Age of aviation in Europe, but another year was to pass before practical flight became a reality in England. In this country in 1909 not only was the need felt for an efficient aeroplane, but a good flying ground was also lacking. The year saw three brave attempts to establish such a ground, those of Noel Pemberton Billing at Fambridge, the Aero Club at Shellbeach and the Aeronautical Society at Dagenham. Only at Shellbeach did any flights take place, and all of the grounds were to be abandoned as unsuitable by the end of the year because of their rough terrain. Of Fambridge and Shellbeach some history has been recorded, albeit not enough, but Dagenham has been sadly neglected, even in the Society's own histories. This paper is an attempt to rectify this omission.