A Fresh Phenomenon: The Importance to be Attached to Buffeting

WE have thought it well to devote considerable space in this issue to the important report of the Accidents Investigation Sub‐Committee of the Aeronautical Research Committee on the accident last summer to a Junkers monoplane in Kent. At the time, the accident caused exceptional stir, partly on account of the position in Society occupied by the passengers. In aeronautical circles it aroused an interest that was similarly beyond the ordinary, because it appeared definitely to belong to the unusual class of breakage in the air. The fact that this should have occurred to a well‐tried type of aeroplane, to which no suspicion of structural weakness attached, in the hands of one of the most capable and experienced pilots engaged in British civil flying, in circumstances which permitted of no obvious explanation, gave an atmosphere of mystery to the occurrence which was, to say the least, disquieting.