AIRSHIP CONSTRUCTION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4902, 13 November 1925, Page 4

AIRSHIP CONSTRUCTION.

& ■ SAFETY FIRST IN AERONAUTICS. SCIENTISTS’ VIEWS. Mr R. V. ‘South,well, discussing at the recent meeting of the British Assoication some aeronautical problems of the past and the future, said the future of aeronautics was hi our hands to make or mar, because practically the whole of aeronautical research and development was financed and directed by the Government. In aeronautics, which had never yet paid itsi way, but grew in the artificial atmosphere of Government subsidy, much time and money might be wasted before the fact became glaringly apparent Many well-disposed but less well-informed people, especially in Parliament, seemed to imagine that rpogress in aeronautics was'a question fmst and last of money ; that technical advance was a mercantile commodity purchasable at a definite amount per £lOOO. No view could be more fallacious. Unless our programmes. of research- and develop.meirt were well conceived, aiming at the solution of definitely formulated problems, additional money would do u $ more harm than good. It was pleasant to feel assured of a favourable hearing when we asked for money, but remembering that we had as yet no economic touchstone by which to test our schemes, we ought .to subject them to criticism all the more ruthless on that account,-to make sure that we had ideas which we needed money to develop, rather 1 than .to ask for money as a preliminary to formulating our ideas. Discussing the value of public opinion in its relation to the provision of Government funds, he said that for aeronautics it was not merely a matter for benevolent interest! that public opinion should be well informed : it might well prove to be an esseptitfl condition of its own satisfactory progress.. Thqse whose time was spent on aeronautical research could not afford to regard with complacency public opinion in which speed was held t.o be more important than reliability. It was better business to proceed steadily .with the building of a craft which would fly to India than to talk about non-stop iflghts to New Zealand. What aeronautics needed, most of all was to settle down to steady progress along natural lines of development. No other pass would lead them surely to success in the future, and very few of the “stunt” predictions of the day on examination gave any-.real promise of important advance.

Passing on to deal with the helicopter, he said that if any. Government really wanted to develop a helicopter he saw no reason why ifa should not have its desire, provided only that it adopted a reasonable procedure for getting it, which was not that of the prize competition. The problem stability must be attacked by systematic research before anything could be hoped of the helicopter. Such research ought not to be financed by, and therefore kept secret foil, the private inventor. If the helicopter had a military importance the knowledge attained would be of. national interest and provision should be made accordingly. ■ If there was airy future for the helicopter (of which he personally was not convinced) it was a problem which should be referred to the research committee and to the professional designer. Personally he did not believe that the helicopter was a form of aircraft that would prove to have much military value. He thought that the high-speed aeroplane, unlike the helicopter, was a 'suitable subject for prize competition. PROBLEM OF CLEAN .DESIGN. Year by year the best designing firms, in the country (should be induced to bring all their knowledge and experience to bear on .the problem of “clean” design. So far as possible every restriction which made the problem more difficult should be removed. The designer should not have to complain, as he had at present, that when he had built an aeroplane of “clean” design- and was counting on something striking from its speed trials, suddenly a host of experts de--scended on the helpless craft and. bedecked it with armament, wirelests, and other “gadgets,” until'it made its first ascent “looking . like a flying Christmas tree.” The way to discover the limits of possibility in high speed was to go for high speed “bald-head-ed.” Of course, any aeroplane required for service would have to sacrifice some of its otherwise attainable speed to the needs of armament or wireless, but that was no reason for making those sacrifices in an experimental machine. Rather the reverse.

Safety, comfort, and reliability were the true essentials in civil aviation. Until these could be guaranteed it would have attractions, o-nl.y for the few. High speed militated agains* all three of these essentials, besides being very costly. The lower we could afford to make the top speed of an aeroplane the lower would be ito landing speed, on which primarily safety depended. • An air speed of anything over 80 miles an hour would suffice to achieve. a saving of time over other

forms of transport. Indeed, the aeroplane or airship once established as economic and reliable would have

hardly a competitor. Was not, then research justified in its policy of placing safety first —in seeking to satisfy rather than to create a demand ? He characterised as the wildest of all aeronautical predictions those which told of the giant eapoplane. He did not say we had reached a limit in respect to size of aeroplanes,, new materials, new principles of construction, and, above all, new types, of engine, but it was idle to talk gaily of size as an advantage which nothing but our ignorance withheld froml our grasp to-day. We must take no unnecessary risk in planning the airships with which we hoped to fly to India in 1927. We must design by theory, and in these larger airships, we could employ a type of construction which lent itself better to thetheoretical treatmen* We must develop afresh the technique of girder ocns'truction, and by using stouter material we could employ more of the experience we had already gained. He wished the public could be induced to regard this airship construction as a great adventure, for that was what’ it Was. The goal was the ability .to fly to India in comfort and without change in the space o.f .100-hours; the problem was to design and construct a ship of vast capacity with- little help from past experience, by' sheer hard thinking and hai’d work. Having embarked in Britain on a definite programme of two large ships, surely common sense suggested that we ought for the next two. years to leave the design staffs

in peace to do their best, and that silence on. their part While their plans developed was a mark of health.