Research for Aeronautics: Its Planning and Application

THE invitation of your Council to deliver the Wright Brothers Lecture in commemoration, on this occasion, of forty years' development in aviation is an honour of which I am deeply sensible. The responsibility of doing justice to it would be heavy at any time. The turn of the tide of our joint fortunes in this War makes it greater rather than less. For the burden of success, whether in war or in peace, is far greater than that of failure. But so also is the stimulus to our courage.