Research for Production: The Recently Opened Fairey Research Department

IT has long been conceded that production and research should go hand in hand in the Aircraft Industry, but the precept has often differed lamentably from practice. However, most large firms have in recent years been gradually extending their ordinary works testing equipment, both mechanical and physical, to include research into the properties of the materials of aircraft construction. Further, the expansion of the Royal Air Force from its decimated early post‐war condition has also revived an industry which scant orders had rendered practically moribund, so that most firms have been able to extend their facilities for aerodynamic research. The housing during the past year of the whole of the Fairey Aviation Company's research work under one roof is a most pleasing indication that, at least in the minds of private firms, the golden ideal of production is not going to flourish at the expense of the neglect of research.