Some remarks are first made on the pertinence of the topic chosen for a lecture dedicated to Dr. Lanchester. A brief historical review is then given of the development of University teaching and research activities in Aeronautics from the early years of the Century to the present. An imaginary but typical modern University Department of Aeronautical Engineering is described with particular reference to numbers of students, staff, laboratory equipment and budget. Some of the many research topics to which the Universities have made and are making important contributions are then discussed briefly. These are to illustrate the scope and tendencies of University research against the background of current developments in Aeronautics. Among the subjects referred to are such topics as the structure of the turbulent boundary layer and the measurement of skin friction, flow Separation phenomena, boundary layer drag and heat transfer at high speeds, aeroelasticity, the application of matrix methods to structural analysis using digital Computers, structural damping, secondary flows in propulsion machinery, the rotating stall and jet noise.

The paper concludes with some general remarks on the relationships between the Universities, the Government Research Establishments and the Industry and on the future of University research. The importance of maintaining on the one hand the independence of the Universities and on the other hand the closest contact between them, the Government Establishments and Industry is strongly emphasised.

The 1172nd Main Lecture to be given before the Society and the 41st to be held at a Branch centre “Ballistic Research Rockets with Particular Reference to Black Knight” was given under the auspices of the Luton Branch on 1st December 1960. Mr. F. H. Pollicutt, F.R.Ae.S., Chairman of the Luton Branch opened the meeting by welcoming the President, Dr. E. S. Moult, C.B.E., B.Sc., F.R.Ae.S., M.I.Mech.E., the other members of the Council of the Main Society who were present, and representatives from the Bristol, Birmingham and Wolverhampton, Coventry, Christchurch, Derby, Hatfield, Halton, Henlow, Preston and Weybridge Branches. He then asked Dr. Moult to preside over the rest of the proceedings.

Dr. Moult expressed his pleasure at being present on this occasion–the second time a Main Society Lecture had been presented at the Luton Branch–and then introduced the Lecturer, Mr. D. J. Lyons. Mr. Lyons took his degree in Aeronautical Engineering at Queen Mary College and subsequently joined the Wind Tunnel staff at Farnborough. During the war he became a flying instructor in the R.A.F. and later rejoined the Aerodynamics Flight Section at. the R.A.E. For the next ten years Mr. Lyons was engaged in Flight Research on stability and control. In 1951 he was appointed Superintendent of the Experimental Projects Division in the Guided Weapons Department and in 1955 was promoted to his present position as Senior Superintendent of the Ballistic Missile Group of the Guided Weapons Department. He had been responsible from the Ministry aspect for the research and development connected with the Black Knight and Blue Streak Missile systems.

“ God bless the Duke of Argyll!”

In the Lecture Hall at Hamilton Place, London, of the oldest aeronautical society in the world, that Duke of Argyll, who became its first President in 1866, looks silently down upon those members who, less than a century later, succeeded so noisily to fly faster than the sounds of their own triumphant cries of success.

A description is given of the distribution of vorticity in the surface of thin wings with large leading edge sweep. Although the delta wing is chosen as the basic plan form the deductions are general and applicable to other types of wing. The conclusions are illustrated with experimental evidence from a water tunnel.

When a Beam is subjected to a static transverse load acting through its flexural centre, the resulting deflection may be considered as the combined effect of the deflection due to bending stresses and the deflection due to shear stresses. In a majority of cases, where the span of the beam is large, or where the shear stiffness is large compared with the bending stiffness, the bending component only need be considered. However, for a short beam, the shear deflection can account for a substantial part of the total deflection. This is especially so in the case of a deep I section beam with a thin web, where the bending stiffness is large compared with the shear stiffness.

A considerable amount of theoretical investigation has been undertaken recently, into the stress concentrations arising in the vicinity of cut-outs in aircraft pressure cabins. Papers which analyse the stress concentrations around circular, elliptical, and square reinforced cut-outs, under various loading conditions have been presented by Mansfield, Hicks and Wittrick.

In all of these investigations, the problem of the cut-out in a cylinder has been reduced to a problem of an infinite plane sheet containing a hole, and the effects of the curvature have been generally assumed to be insignificant.