I feel most sincerely the weight of the great honour that has been done me in electing me as Chairman of so distinguished a Society, which most certainly does occupy a unique position as the oldest Aeronautical body in the world. The diffidence with which your very distinguished Chairman of the Session now closed assumed office, makes me wonder as to how I can most suitably step into his shoes, and, in particular, solve the difficult)- of delivering an inaugural tiddress which will not be too unworthy to rank with the papers of the high standard of the past.

An essay which is to be submitted in competition for the R.38 Memorial Prize may fairly presume a knowledge of airship history in recent years, and I shall here touch only on those circumstances which have influenced the writing of this paper. Between the cessation of airship construction in the autumn of 1921 and its revival in the summer of 1924, all branches of official research were discontinued by order of the Air Council, excepting an inquiry into the theoretical aspects of stress-calculation which had been urged by the Aeronautical Research Committee in its report on the disaster to R.38.

Prior to the war, experience in this country in the production of successful rigid airships may be counted to be practically negligible. The war period, however, produced an intensive programme of rigid airship building in which the early designers were seriously handicapped owing to this lack of previous experience, and owing to the insufficient time and opportunities for research and experiment, a state of affairs which persisted to the end of the war.