The first meeting of the 1928-29 Session of the Royal Aeronautical Society was held in the rooms of the Royal Society of Arts, John Street, Adelphi, London, W.C.2, on Thursday, October 4th, 1928.

The President : Mr. North is one of the foremost designers in the country. Since early in 1911 he had devoted his activities exclusively to aeronautics and for many years had been responsible for the design of all aircraft produced by Boulton and Paul, of Norwich.

Mr. North had been very intimately connected with the design of the Government airship now in an advanced stage of construction at Cardington. His great experience of light steel structures had been utilised to the full in this connection.

The Royal Air Force Far East Flight formed at Felixstowe in May, 1927, to carry out long cruises in the East with four flying boats of the Southampton type. Some of the principal objects of the cruises were:—

1. (a) To give Service personnel experience in carrying out long cruises with a Flight operating independently of surface vessels and shore bases, and to exercise their initiative and resource under widely varying conditions.

2. (b) To gain technical and operational experience for the development of flying boats.

3. (c) To collect information on seaplane bases, harbours and local conditions affecting aircraft throughout the routes flown; and

4. (d) To show the flag and foster the spirit of mutual co–operation between the Mother Country and the parts of the British Empire visited.

The personnel of the Flight consisted of a Flying Party of four boats’ crews of two officers and two airmen each, and a Base Party of three officers and 23 airmen.

It may be of interest to give a resume of the Cirrus engine from the time of its conception up to the present period. The main idea actuating the designer was to produce an engine whose features would be reliability, low maintenance costs, and capacity to run for long periods with little more attention than a motorist gives to his car engine, and also so constructed that the average owner driver or motor mechanic could readily understand it and maintain it in perfect running order. The first Cirrus type engine was completed in May, 1925, and was submitted to the 100-hour Air Ministry type tests. These tests were successfully passed. The series of tests laid down by the Air Ministry Form A. P. 840 are of a most exacting nature.

During the past quarter of a century great strides have been made in perfecting the science of aviation. Too much credit cannot be given to the men who have laboured untiringly in the laboratories in an endeavour to determine with mathematical certainty the physical laws that govern the mechanical devices which mankind is using in his conquest of the air.

Science has done more for civil aviation, however, than unravel the mysteries of aerodynamics and internal combustion engines. It has provided many important aids to air navigation, such as improved lighting facilities for airways and airports, wireless as a means of communication between ground and aeroplane, and also as a beacon to guide the pilot on his course, and numerous instruments which now adorn the cockpit of every aeroplane.

While at times the development of air transport may suffer because of lack of co–ordination between the laboratory and the factory, it will suffer far more should a similar condition exist between the scientists and those charged with the duty of regulating and promoting civil aviation.

The above meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society was held in the rooms of the Royal Society of Arts, John Street, Adelphi, W.C.2., on Thursday, November 29th, 1928.

The President : 'The technical aspects of the production of aircraft were of considerable importance because, from whatever point of view one regarded aircraft, economical and rapid production were essential. Mr. Sigrist is a Director of the Hawker Engineering Co. He was associated with Mr. Sopwith as far back as 1910 and had been intimately connected with the affairs of the Sopwith Company—particularly the technical affairs relating to design and construction. He had been responsible for the design of one of the first British machines to win the Schneider Trophy. His wide experience would enable him lo speak with special authority on the technical aspects of the production of aircraft. The Society was particularly glad to welcome Mr. Sigrist as a lecturer for the first time before them.

The science of aerodynamics consists in the study of the phenomenon following upon the motion of a body through air, the object being to investigate the nature of the forces brought into action and to discover the reasons for these forces. We know from experience, for instance, that under certain conditions an aeroplane wing fails to exert sufficient lifting force to keep the aircraft in steady flight. From experiment it has been found that these conditions correspond to a breakdown in the flow of air over the upper surface of the wing,, and if we can discover some means of preventing this change we have, at least, served some useful purpose.

This paper contains a report on the principal aeronautical research work carried out by the Aeronautical Committee of the Royal Swedish Institute for Scientific Industrial Research.

The Royal Swedish Institute for Scientific Industrial Research in 1925 appointed an Aeronautical Committee with the object of promoting–scientific technical research work and general development work in the field of aeronautics. In the first place work has been concentrated on such problems in aeronautics which are of particular importance with regard to special Swedish conditions.

The Aeronautical Committee has been concerned in establishing an aeronautical chair, combined with an aeronautical laboratory, at the Royal Technical University in Stockholm. The aeronautical professorship is now established by Parliament, and a professor will shortly be appointed. The establishment of the aeronautical laboratory has been postponed for the present, but there is hardly any doubt that the laboratory will be in being within the next few years.

A meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society was held in the rooms of the Royal Society of Arts, John Street, Adelphi, London, W.C.2, on Thursday, October 18th.

The President (Colonel the Master of Sempill): Dr. Schutte, the President of the German Aeronautical Society, had stated that his Council had scanned the list of lectures to be delivered to the Royal Aeronautical Society during the present session, and had come to the conclusion that Mr. Sutton’s lecture was from their point of view one of the most interesting. That indicated how very closely they were following the Society’s work, and how extremely interested they were in the problem of corrosion. Having in view the increasing popularit} in this country of marine type aircraft, the investigations of light alloys assumed ever greater importance than previously, if that were possible.

He was sorry to be compelled to leave the meeting early in order to represent the Society at a function of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and he asked Mr. Pye (Deputy Director of Scientific Research), Air Ministry, acting for Major H. E. Wimperis (Director of Scientific Research), to preside.

In the July Journal a number of figures from the reprint of the above paper read before the Institution of Automobile Engineers in March, 1917, were unfortunately omitted. The figures are printed below. In the reprint of the paper by Signor V. Isacco (Reprint No. 43) these figures have been placed in their proper position in the text.

In 1915, when dealing with various problems connected with Lifting Screws, the author desired to obtain a general idea as to the performance of a propeller when it was moved at various speeds forwards and backwards along its axis of rotation, and to express this information in some simple way, so that the approximate performance of any similar propeller working in a fluid medium of any density might readily be deduced.

If, when comparing the performance of similar propellers working at the same slip ratio, the resistances due to skin friction and viscosity are assumed to follow the velocity squared law, and change of density in the neighbourhood of the propeller is neglected, there are six main factors to be considered.

For the purpose of one brief lecture, it is necessary to set close boundaries. In expansive mood one might, with your permission, discuss the aim in general of aeronautical research, the bending of this Force of Nature to the Use and Convenience of Man; a subject so wide and so difficult, especially our critics would say in respect of Convenience, as to call for a series of lectures rather than this single one. The immediate aims can be dealt with more briefly, and it is that which T propose to attempt. They are, in the first place, safety im flight, and, in the second, increase in what is termed performance. No other aim 6f aeronautical research compares in importance with these.

It is now more than ten years since, in conjunction with my brother, I gave a lecture to your Society in London on “Steel Tubes, Tube Manipulation and Tubular Structures for Aircraft.” Since that time great progress has been made both in the production and manipulation of steel tubing. Things which were thought ten years ago to be impossible are now being done and it is, therefore, desirable that the paper should be brought up-to-date.

I greatly appreciated the invitation of your Society to give this lecture on recent progress of aeronautical science in France; and if I hesitated a moment to accept it was only because I feared the difficulty of the task.

As a matter of fact, aeronautical science covers such a wide field that it is difficult to give an exact idea of the progress made in the different branches. Many results are obtained by the improvement of various details, and it is not easy to see clearly the influence of every one of them. I shall endeavour to be as clear as possible, and to describe to you the main purposes of. the French engineers and the results they have obtained in the way of their realisation.

The main objectives of French aeronautical progress have been safety in flight, development of commercial aviation, and metal construction. In every part of aeronautical science we shall find progress along those lines. They concern aerodynamics, building of aircraft, flying boats, motors and aerial navigation.