The data in this paper are derived from the European Intercity Transport Study carried out between 1973 and 1976 jointly by the OECD, the ECMT and the EEC, with the direct participation of 12 European governments. The Study report was completed in the second half of 1976 and, though not yet published, has been circulated fairly widely.

The subject of this paper touches on just one aspect of the European Study, namely the competition between air transport and other means of transport for passenger traffic in Europe. Since the interest of the paper lies in air traffic it is only concerned with long-distance travel. The European Study limited its attention to trips of over 80 km, straight line distance, which clearly includes all air trips.

The principal modes of transport which compete with air for passenger trips within Europe are car, train and bus. Other modes account for less than 2% of long-distance trips, and they appear to be about equally divided between goods vehicles and motorcycles, but these modes will be ignored in this paper. Ferries are also used, of course, for sea crossings but they are treated for analytical purposes as links in the road and rail networks.

Progress in aviation has had and is expected to continue to have a profound impact on business. Transportation has been revolutionised by aircraft in the 20th century. Technology advances and pioneering management have led to the development of an air transportation industry which has spanned the globe, all but eliminated competition from passenger steamships, and reduced the dimensions of the globe to such an extent that most of the major cities of the world are now no more than 24 hours apart. Progress has taken many forms. The time required for a transatlantic journey has been reduced by 94% from the passenger steamship to the subsonic jet transport. Concorde operations have even further reduced this time. As the air transportation industry developed, technology advances permitted it to offer other dramatic improvements such as increased comfort, service, reliability, safety, and at the same time lower fares. Thus, increased economic productivity allowed passenger fares (measured in currency of constant purchasing power) over the North Atlantic to be reduced by two-thirds between 1939 and 1976.

With the development over the last half decade of very highly manoeuverable aircraft, a new design question has arisen. This is, how do we as aircraft designers ensure that the future fighter pilot can function in an environment which pushes not only his mental but also his physiological limits to the utmost? The new generation of aircraft offers substantial increases in sustained turn rate and hence g levels. Furthermore a proliferation of controls and displays confront the pilot from which he has to collect, collate, integrate and interpret data which is not currently presented in anything like a logical manner with respect to his present flight phase.

This paper is an attempt to describe a systematic design approach to a cockpit for the future generation fighter aircraft. The paper will show the pilot's physiological limitations to high sustained g forces, the likely performance of a new generation fighter and the amount of g tolerance a pilot should find useful. Methods of providing this increased tolerance will be discussed. An analytical method of assessing aircraft information presentation requirements will also be shown which will enable information to be presented in a more logical manner.

As the first international project of this kind, the German-Dutch Wind tunnel (DNW) is under construction in the Noordoostpolder, The Netherlands. The DNW will be among the largest and most extensive complete low speed wind tunnels in Europe. This project is based on previous specifications and design work for two former national projects (now abandoned) which were similar in size and performance and mutually complementary in view of the tasks. The DNW will contribute to filling the gap still existing in the field of aeronautical test facilities in Europe for effective aircraft development work.

The DNW will consist of a closed circuit tunnel (total length of centre line: 318 m) with three interchangeable atmospheric test sections with cross-sectional sizes of 9.5m x 9.5 m, 8 m x 6m and 6 m x 6 m; the maximum speed is about 60, 110 and 145 m/s respec-tively. In addition, an open jet configuration will be available with special features for aero-acoustic tests. The single-stage speed-controlled fan of 12 m diameter has a nominal drive power of 12.7 MW. The standard equipment will include an air exchange system and a heat exchanger in the circuit, a model sting support, a six-component balance, and a distributed computer system for data acquisition/reduction and control purposes.

The electrical power consumed by an Earth-orbiting satellite is usually generated by panels of solar cells. On a vehicle such as the ESA Orbital Test Satellite the panels are attached, in cantilever fashion, to a relatively rigid centre body upon which are positioned the communication systems, attitude sensors and control equipment. The pay-load limitations of the launch vehicle imply that the relatively large solar panels must be of a lightweight construction and they are very flexible structures as a consequence. Currently-operating satellites do not appear to be troubled by the flexure of their solar panels. However, it is likely that attitude control problems will arise in the next generation of vehicles which will be equipped with considerably larger panels of solar cells.

A shock tube is a facility that produces fast and A relatively high temperature flows by driving a strong shock wave into quiescent gas. From simple shock tube theory it is possible to show that in order to obtain high Mach number primary shock waves one should employ a very light driving gas at the highest pressure and temperature possible. These conditions are most commonly met by the explosion of a stochiometric mixture of inflammable gases, such as oxygen and hydrogen diluted with helium.