There is nothing new in attempting to design an aircraft to give trouble-free service. This has always been one of the major parts of a designer's job. In recent years there has been a lot of talk about improving design from the maintenance point of view and suggestions for “maintenance cells” in drawing offices. I would suggest that if aircraft have become too difficult to maintain, it is not entirely due to lack of appreciation of the problem in the drawing office, but mainly to the great increase in complexity of the modern aircraft, particularly in the past 10 years.

Introducing the paper Air Commodore Merer pointed out that the Americans, the French and the British were concerned in a close partnership in the Air Lift, but the Americans carried by far the larger portion of the load delivered into Berlin. The spirit of comradeship and endeavour which that joint task engendered was one of the heartening experiences of the operation and beyond all praise.

Measurements were made in the Royal Aircraft Establishment High Speed Tunnel of the drag of a wing with various grades of surface roughness in the form of camouflage paint. The measurements were made for a range, of Reynolds number from about 4.5 × 106 to about 15 × 106 at a constant Mach number of 0.2, and for a range of Mach numbers from 0.2 to about 0.7 at a constant Reynolds number of 4.5 × 106 and to about 0.6 at a constant Reynolds number of 6.0 × 106. It was found that for the range of Mach numbers tested compressibility had no appreciable effect on the drag increase due to roughness (Figs. 2 and 3). Further, the drag effect of each roughness tested was such that an equivalent size of sand roughness Ke, of the type tested by Nikuradse, could be readily associated with it. For each finish tested a number of roughness records were taken by means of a roughness gauge developed by Dr. Tomlinson, of the National Physical Laboratory (Fig. 5).

Air travel at 600 m.p.h. to 650 m.p.h. in the next decade and the use of multi-seat twin rotor helicopters on internal air routes to help to solve terminal delay problems, bring in their train growing problems of Air Traffic Control. Full use of high speed civil transports and helicopters does not seem practicable within the British Isles unless the problem of the siting of landing strips is reviewed and unless ideas on this subject are recast in the light of growing experience.

To the commercial airline pilot Great Britain is indeed a “tight little island.” It will appear smaller yet when the de Havilland Comet jet air liner operates to time-tables of approximately double the speed of most of the existing schedules of today.