The Sixth Lanchester Memorial Lecture, “Trends in Unsteady Aerodynamics,” was given by Dr. W. P. Jones, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.Ae.S., F.A.I.A.A., of the National Physical Laboratory, on 22nd November 1962. Professor A. R. Collar, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.Ae.S., F.A.I.A.A., F.C.A.S.I., President-Elect, took the Chair for the President who was visiting the overseas Divisions.

Before the lecture, Professor Collar introduced Dr. William Greulick, Scientific Attaché U.S. Embassy, who presented the John Scott Award to Mr. J. W. Sparke, R.A.E., for his invention of the Visual Glide Path Indicator, in use at most major airports of the world and adopted as the U.S. Standard. Dr. Greulick gave a short history of the Award, which was founded by John Scott, a chemist from Edinburgh, in 1816 and given to the City of Philadelphia. Its premiums were for distribution among “ingenious men and women who made useful inventions” and the award was of a truly international character. It was now of the value of $1,000, with a copper medal and a scroll.

Professor Collar, introducing the Lecturer, said that Lanchester had been a great scientist, a musician, a poet and an engineer of distinction in a great number of fields. It was to him a pleasure and a privilege to preside on this occasion, especially as he himself had delivered the second Lanchester Lecture. He was delighted that Professor Schlichting and Professor Young, two other Lecturers in the series, were present. Dr. von Kantian and Monsieur Legendre, the two other Lanchester lecturers, regretted that they could not be present.

The Sixth Lecturer, Dr. W. P. Jones, was Superintendent of the Aerodynamics Division of the National Physical Laboratory. He had been educated at St. David's College, Lampeter, and at The Quee's College, Oxford. He had joined the N.P.L. staff in 1935, where Professor Collar was himself working at the time, and had been at Teddington since then, except for a year (1960-61) when he was the Jerome C. Hunsaker Visiting Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Jones had written a large number of scientific papers on aerodynamic problems related to flutter and aeroelasticity and was the Editor of the AGARD “Manual on Aeroelasticity,” a volume of great substance and interest.

The Seventh Sir Henry Royce Memorial Lecture of the Derby Branch of the Society —"NATO's Firstborn: The Atlantic" by Captain R. Bloch, F.N., F.R.Ae.S., A.F.A.I.A.A., given on 5th November 1962—was also the 53rd Main Lecture of the Society to be given at a Branch Centre. Mr. A. A. Rubbra, F.R.Ae.S., Chairman of the Derby Branch opened the proceedings by welcoming the members of Council who were present, the visitors from other Branches and, especially, their distinguished visitors from Belgium, France and Germany. He expressed the regrets of the Branch that the President was unable to be present because of his absence overseas, but welcomed the President-elect, Professor A. R. Collar, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.Ae.S., F.A.I.A.A., F.C.A.S.I., Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at Bristol University, who would preside for the rest of the evening.

Professor Collar said how delighted he was to be at Derby again on such an occasion; it was also the first time he had presided at a Main Lecture of the Society. Introducing Captain Bloch, Professor Collar said that although he was not yet 40 years of age he had had a distinguished career. He had achieved distinction at the Ecole Polytechnique, and at the Licencié es-Sciences and was also an M.A. of Harvard University. Captain Bloch was an Ingénieur du Génie Maritime and Ingénieur de l'Aéronautique and held the Diploma du Centre de Perfectionnement dans l'Administration des Affairs. He was a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur and a Combatant Volontaire de la Resistance and held the Médaille de la France Libre and the Médaille de l'Aéronautique. From 1952 to 1961 Captain Bloch had been head of Research and Development for French Naval Aviation and since 1961 had been Assistant Director of Aeronautics for International Affairs in the French Defence Ministry. He was also the French Representative of the NATO Maritime Patrol Aircraft Steering Committee and Permanent Chairman of the Technical SubCommittee; since 1957 he had been French Co-Chairman of the Anglo-French Naval Aviation Committee. He was an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a member of the American Institute of Radio Engineers, a member of AFITAE and a Fellow of the Society.

An All-day Symposium on Airline Engineering was held in the Society's Lecture Theatre on 21st January 1963. Mr. B. S. Shenstone, M.A.Sc, F.R.Ae.S., F.A.I.A.A., F.C.A.S.I., President of the Society, who is also Chief Engineer and a Director of British European Airways, was in the Chair. About 40 airline engineers from 23 airlines attended the Symposium at the invitation of the President. The airlines represented were: Adria (Yugoslavia), Aer Lingus, Air France, Air India, Alitalia, American Airlines, British European Airways, British Overseas Airways, Canadian Pacific Airlines, Central African Airways, Finnair, K.L.M., Lufthansa, Middle East Airlines, N.Z. National Airways, Olympic Airways, Qantas, Sabena, Swissair, Trans-Australia Airlines, Trans-Canada Air Lines, Trans World Airlines and United Air Lines.

The Symposium was divided into four periods, each with a short introduction followed by Discussion; they were “What is worth developing for the Airlines,” introduced by Mr. M. B. Morgan, C.B., M.A., F.R.Ae.S., Deputy Controller of Aircraft (R & D), Ministry of Aviation; “Blind and Automatic Landing,” introduced by Mr. R. C. Morgan, O.B.E., F.R.Ae.S., Chief Project and Development Engineer, B.E.A.; “Engineering Problems of Supersonic Transport,” introduced by Mr. Charles Abell, O.B.E., F.R.Ae.S., M.S.L.A.E., Chief Engineer, B.O.A.C; and “Engineering Problems of the Jet Flap and STOL Aircraft,” introduced by Mr. W. E. Rhoades, B.S., Vice-President, Engineering, United Air Lines.

Opening the meeting Mr. Shenstone said that the Symposium was part of an Airline Chief Engineers Conference. This first day was open to anyone but the following two days would be confined to discussions among the specially invited airline delegates. He then outlined the programme for the first day and suggested that the discussions should consider the general problems of airline development rather than detailed domestic problems.

The following report of the contributions to the Symposium was prepared by Mr. R. H. Whitby, B.Sc, A.R.C.S., D.I.C., F.R.Ae.S., Performance and Analysis Manager, B.E.A.

The effect of the longitudinal membrane stress on the flexural edge stresses in a thin cylinder under axially symmetrical loading is considered. A general solution is given, and applied to two specific problems to illustrate the magnitude of the effect.

The Inaugural Lecture of the Air Law Group of the Society “Crime in Aircraft” by the Hon. Mr. Justice Wilberforce was given in the Lecture Theatre, 4 Hamilton Place, London W.l. on 31st October 1962. Mr. L. A. Wingfield, M.C., D.F.C., A.R.Ae.S., Solicitor to the Society, presided. Introducing the lecturer Mr. Wingfield said that the Hon. Mr. Justice Wilberforce was a Judge of the Supreme Court (Chancery Division). He had also been the leader for the United Kingdom at no less than four diplomatic Conferences on Air Law—Geneva in 1948, Rome in 1952, The Hague in 1955 and Guadalajara in 1961—he had also been the Chief United Kingdom member of the Legal Committee of I.C.A.O.; to find a more distinguished contribution to air law than Sir Richard's would be difficult.

The Society's Air Law Group arose indirectly from a lecture to the Society in January 1961 by Mr. H. Caplan on “The Law versus Science in Aeronautics”. The Group was formed in September of that year, and since its inception Sir Richard had acted as Chairman. One of the first tasks tackled by the Group had been the study of the draft convention adopted by I.C.A.O. at Munich in September 1959 on offences occurring on board aircraft. At the request of the Ministry of Aviation the Steering Committee of the Group, voicing an independent view, reported on the draft convention.

Not only was this the Group's inaugural lecture, it was also the first occasion in the Society's 96 years that it had been addressed by one of Her Majesty's Judges.

Before beginning his lecture the Hon. Mr. Justice Wilberforce congratulated the Society on its initiative in forming the Air Law Group and paid tribute to the Secretary of the Society, Dr. A. M. Ballantyne, T.D., B.Sc, F.R.Ae.S., F.A.I.A.A., Hon.F.C.A.S.I., for the work he had done and the assistance he had given in organising the Group.

The following report is taken from the tape recording of the lecture.

During the flight development of a high altitude bomber some difficulty was encountered in the measurement of static pressure error, due, in the main, to the relatively high ceiling and Mach number limits of the aircraft.

There was found to be a need for a method that was self-contained within the test aircraft, allowing a complete flexibility of test conditions. This report describes the method evolved which requires the use of ai radio altimeter and a low speed trailing static head.

When an aircraft lands on a runway on which there are extensive puddles, it appears that sometimes the water exerts a large upwards force on the wheels, so preventing them from making contact with the ground. The wheels are then said to “aquaplane”. In the aquaplaning condition the braking effectiveness of the wheels is reduced virtually to zero, and even at touch-down speeds insufficient to cause aquaplaning, when there is some contact between the wheels and the ground, water on the runway may cause appreciable reductions of runway friction forces. This note offers some tentative suggestions concerning the nature of the water flow when aquaplaning occurs, and is put forward as a basis for discussion of this important practical problem.

The loss of torsional or flexural stiffness due to thermal stresses in a thin solid wing is now well known and has been considered by a number of authors, e.g. Dryden and Duberg, Vosteen and Fuller, Bisplinghoff, Hoff, Budiansky and Mayers, Argyris, and the present author. Exact analyses are available only for the “one-dimensional” case of a wing of infinite aspect ratio with arbitrary chordwise distribution of wing thickness and temperature. The loss of stiffness in a similar wing of finite aspect ratio is not as great and, in particular, the proportional reduction in flexural stiffness in a low aspect ratio wing will tend to be less than the proportional reduction in torsional stiffness.