International collaboration can mean many different things depending on its context. It has been applied over recent years to almost every international activity from licence manufacture to joint design and development projects and in each case, although some features are common, there are unique difficulties and problems to be solved.

One of the most important aspects of international collaboration is that currently being practised between sections of the aircraft industries of the United Kingdom and France and, in particular, the following joint ventures of aircraft and engine design and manufacture

Captain Frank Barnwell is to be remembered as one of the pioneers of practical aviation. His love of flying inspired him and eventually killed him, for it was in an aircraft of his own design and construction that he eventually met his end; but his record of service to aeronautical design shows that he was much more than a brave and gifted amateur aviator. He was a professional engineer, a realist who foresaw the practical application of aeronautics to useful purpose. In an age when many considered aviation an interesting hobby of little practical importance, Barnwell set himself the task of designing aircraft for practical purposes.

During recent years, with the introduction of more complex aircraft structures, new techniques of aircraft servicing have been needed. It is essential to find even the smallest defects at a very early stage, but costly strip-examination must be avoided so far as possible.

Non-destructive testing is now playing an important part in this field, but many aeronautical engineers are unaware of the capabilities and limitations of the main methods.

This paper sets out to explain the basic principles of radiography, ultrasonic testing and eddy current testing. Since sampling inspections using these methods are now a mandatory requirement on all civil aircraft the paper should be of interest to all readers.

“When I use a word”, Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Lewis Carroll's words could hardly be more appropriate than to the expression “Cost Reduction” as used by the businessman. To some, cost reduction appears as a game played with imaginary money to earn “brownie points” to please a customer. To some in organised labour, the words are viewed in the same generic class as “sweat shop” and “scab”. To others, however, cost reduction seemingly implies a business discipline exercised in earnest and to be reflected in the company balance sheet. The question then, may well be asked, “What is cost reduction?“—“Is it possible to provide a meaningful management technique to motivate cost reduction activities and to measure the results?“

“Learn to Test. Test to Learn.”which succinctly state the task of the student and the graduate test pilot, were selected in 1953 as the most suitable inscription to place under the Armorial Bearings of the Empire Test Pilots’ School. This small Unit, which was formed in 1943 at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment, Boscombe Down, has, over the past 22 years, provided the formal training necessary to enable test pilots to meet the requirements of the Flight Test Establishments of the Ministries of Aircraft Production, Supply and Aviation. During this period the School has trained some 595 test pilots, 34 per cent of whom have come from 26 Commonwealth and Foreign Air Forces.

I returned to England in February 1919 to take over the duties of Assistant Director of Research and Development (Engines) under Brigadier-General Brooke-Popham, who was appointed Director of Research about the same date.

At that time it was anticipated (correctly) that there was no danger of another major war for at least ten years and the staffs of the Royal Air Force and the Air Ministry were cut down drastically to suit. The Engine Research and Development departments which had employed many hundreds during the war were reduced to about a dozen people. While this was being done the engine position as it existed was being examined. It soon became obvious that none of the engines which had been in production during the war were suitable for further development to meet the requirements of the 1920's.

From June 1937, I had been working on advanced project design schemes with a small group located at the Rolls-Royce guest house. An ideal spot for quiet concentration, in extensive private grounds by the river Derwent and on the outskirts of the village of Duffield.

Early in 1939, we were informed that Dr. A. A. Griffith would be occupying a room at the guest house. E. W. Hives (later Lord Hives) had invited Griffith to join Rolls-Royce and to work on the initiation of aero engine research, in particular the gas turbine and its applications.

We were naturally interested to learn more about him but all that I could gather from my associates was that he was “tall, thin and had a hell of a brain”.

In 1931, several years before the RAE work on box wing theory which was mentioned (in the January Journal), I joined Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft. They were designing the Atalanta monoplane for Imperial Airways, and were in difficulties with the wing stressing, my chief H. A. Francis having, as he said, applied to RAE for advice and “got the bird”. The late J. K. Reid, their leading “methods man”, had already produced the simple exponential theory of uniform box torsion which RAE later re-discovered, but unfortunately, for our tapered thin-skin wing, we soon found out that this did not work.

The “displaced frequency” method is widely used in the aircraft industry for estimating the generalised masses and stiffnesses of aircraft, which are used in response and other aeroelastic calculations. The usual procedure is to measure the natural frequencies, ωi, and the associated normal modes, zi, by standard resonance testing techniques. (The number of frequencies and modes actually measured depends, of course, on the accuracy required in subsequent calculations.) A small mass, or group of masses, is then added to the structure at a convenient point or points and the resulting frequency changes, δωi noted. Now if αi and εi are generalised masses and stiffnesses respectively, then in normal co-ordinates