In January, 1926, Major Buchanan gave a lecture before this Society on the Schneider Trophy Race for 1925. He then gave a very complete history of the race and full information about the machines up to that period. I propose to give a brief description of the development which has taken place since then in the design of British high–speed seaplanes.

After the failure of the British team to win the race in America in 1925 it was brought home to all interested that our machines were a long way inferior to the American machines, and that if we wished to again hold our own in this important field of aviation we should have to treat the matter much more seriously. Furthermore, it became obvious to all that machines could no longer be entered for these races by private enterprise. It is true that the Air Ministry had loaned the machines for the race, but very little opportunity had been given for research and experimental work, and the engine designers and aircraft designers had been working independently.

To commemorate the great French pioneer Louis Bleriot, who made the first crossing of the English Channel by aeroplane on 25th July 1909, the Association Franҫaise des Ingénieurs et Techniciens de l'Aéronautique, better known as A.F.I.T.A., has instituted a series of lectures to be known as The Louis Bleriot Lectures. The Lecture is to be given annually and the intention is that it should be given alternately, in Paris and London, by an Englishman and a Frenchman.

The first Louis Bleriot Lecture was given in Paris on 12th May 1948, in a lecture hall attached to the Hotel George V, by Air Commodore F. R. Banks, C.B., O.B.E., F.R.Ae.S., M.I.Mech.E., F.I.Pet. It was attended by the President of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Dr. H. Roxbee Cox, D.I.C., F.R.Ae.S., F.I.Ae.S., Sir Frederick Handley Page, C.B.E., F.R.Ae.S., Past-President, the Secretary, Captain J. L. Pritchard, Hon.F.R.Ae.S., F.I.Ae.S., and by a number of members of the Society and of the Aircraft Industry.

All aircraft engineers profess a belief in the importance of low structure weight. To implement this belief our efforts must be comprehensive and consistent and in the search for sound method it is important that we review, from time to time, familiar habits that are based on compromise. In the past the comparative merit of a particular aircraft structure has depended on a series of individual assessments, many of them semiarbitrary.These assessments have covered the whole field from the choice of the initial design load factors and the valuation of the working stresses right up to the ultimate maximum permitted all-up weight.

It cannot be denied that many of the prewar valuations were haphazard, usually conservative. This is demonstrated by the successful types of aircraft operating in service at weights considerably in excess of their original design estimate. Although this state of affairs proved highly fortunate it is a method that should not be perpetuated.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to examine the relations between airworthiness and safety.

It seems to me that the problem of safety in aviation is fundamentally a problem of human behaviour. The human controlled aeroplane is mechanically extended man. To quote Sherrington

If we exclude the effect of the counter strategies of competition an accident is a measure of the incompleteness of this dominance.

When invited to give this lecture in a building overlooking London's river, my thoughts wandered back to many pleasant hours spent in watching Nature's graceful handiwork—the common seagull, so lamiliar to those of us who still have “time to stand and stare” in these hustling days of speed arid yet more speed. Wheeling with arched pinions and webbed feet retracted backwards into auxiliary tail organs, these effortless soarers are a vision of to-morrow. What aeronautical engineer, released for a moment from the narrow confines of the drawing board and the workshop, could wish for more profitable day-dreaming than a quiet half-hour spent on London Bridge (shall we say?), admiring the cunning perfection of natural flight? And who could wish for better inspiration for the subject of this paper than a glimpse now and again at Nature's own elegant solution of the undercarriage problem?

The heading of this lecture is the “Development of Air Transport During the War” but because time is limited I have had to exclude any mention of the ferry organisation which was responsible for the delivery by air of many thousands of aircraft. The work has however been, described in “The Atlantic Bridge.” The period with which I propose to deal is the 21 months ending in September, 1946. In this short period, in response to the demands of war, the Transport services of the Royal Air Force flew rather more passenger miles than did British Civil Aviation in the preceding 21 years up to the same date, and carried in addition great quantities of freight and military stores. This volume of transport flying, packed into a few short months, gave rise to many problems but also afforded unique opportunities for testing out new ideas and new equipment. My purpose tonight is to give a brief account of what was accomplished, and against this background to examine some of the lessons which were learned and the ideas for the future to which they gave rise.