Aeronautical Progress 1930–1936: A Review of Scientific Progress Given in the James Forrest Lecture Available to Purchase

I CAN hardly say how much I appreciate the honour your Council has conferred on me in asking me to deliver the James Forrest lecture this year. I realise fully the difficulty of the task that has been set me, for it is no easy matter to follow in the footsteps of the illustrious men who have previously addressed you on aeronautical subjects. I will, however, do the best I can to give you some idea of the development of aircraft since Professor R. V. Southwell delivered his excellent review in 1930†, and in doing so, I will not fail to bear in mind the “leit motif” of this series of lectures, which is to trace, wherever possible, the interdependence of abstract science and engineering. My lecture is, in fact, arranged with that object mainly in view, for I shall endeavour to point out the advances that have been made in the technique of research methods, and the nature of the new knowledge of aerodynamic phenomena which has resulted from them, and to show, as far as I can, how this new knowledge has reacted on the practical design of aircraft.