In 1912 Sydney Camm was the enthusiastic secretary of the Windsor Model Aeroplane Club (WMAC) designing and making models and starting the design of a man-carrying glider. In the early months of 1966 Sir Sydney Camm was in correspondence with Dr. Jamison of Bristol Siddeley Engines about the possibilities and potential of hypersonic fighter aircraft. In the intervening period he had been Chief Designer, and later a Director and Chief Engineer of the Hawker Company at Kingston for 41 years. This shows how impossible it is to cover, or even attempt to cover, his life and Work in any detail in a lecture of reasonable length. There is enough material for a series of lectures, of which this must be looked on only as the first. Because this is the first, I propose to take advantage of the fact and give a broad general review highlighting the main periods and achievements of his career, although even this is difficult in view of the steady intensity of his effort and his constant devotion to aviation right up to his death.

A careful reading of this Report will show that there were not a few events of considerable importance, which occurred during 1970. These are worthy of mention.

Early in the year the Society was informed that, as from the end of the first quarter, the financial support, provided by the Ministry of Technology and the SBAC for the work of the Engineering Sciences Data Unit, would cease. Although this was not unexpected, it obviously posed problems on the future working of the Unit. The Future Policy Committee considered the future of ESDU and recommended to the Council that the prices of the Data Items be increased, and that the Society alone bear the financial burden. The Council agreed and the recommendations were put into effect.

In April 1961, the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron was activated at Hurlburt Field, Florida, to train US Air Force aircrews in the varied and difficult skills of special air operations.

Because of the increasing emphasis on counter-insurgency (COIN) operations brought on by the conflict in South East Asia, the concept grew from a training squadron to a numbered Air Force equivalent headquarters with two wings and a Special Operations School. Designated the USAF Special Operations Force (USAF SOF), this unit of the Tactical Air Command is responsible for training US aircrews for special air operations in counterinsurgency. Over ten different types of COIN aircraft are used in these tasks, from the multi-mission C-47 with nearly 35 years of continuous civil and military service to the newest aircraft capable of COIN operations, the OV-10A. Some of these aircraft are performing in conventional air operations such as the tactical air support mission of the forward air controller. All have COIN capabilities which have been used or are available for special air operations.

We have come to honour the memory of a great Australian. Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith was one of that small band of pioneers who forced us to start down the road which we all tread with so much confidence today. So, in our discussion I ask you to remember the men who started it all by flying unsophisticated and not too reliable aeroplanes over oceans and deserts, and who frequently lost their lives in the attempt.

I imagine that almost any speaker here would refer to aviation's humble beginnings, its phenomenal growth over the years since the war, and the brilliant and seemingly limitless future which lies ahead, and the figures certainly are impressive.

In an analysis by the matrix force method of a structure containing thin tubes of open cross-section, it is commonly assumed that the torsional stiffness of such members may be taken into account by considering the St. Venant shear stresses only. This effectively introduces the assumption that the cross-section of an open tube is able to warp freely, whereas in practice the warping may be constrained by the surrounding structure.

In this note a method is presented which allows such warping constraint effects to be taken into account in a finite element analysis using the Force Method. Because of the assumption of linear variation of direct stress along the element the full flexibility matrix does not have to be used, which may be an advantage in certain cases. The “exact”, but more complex, flexibility matrix has been derived and will be presented in a later note.

At the present time, the only established method of metering a pulsating fluid flow involves the installation of damping devices in the system between the source of pulsation and the flow meter to ensure that the flow through the meter is essentially steady. Such devices may comprise a combination of frictional and volumetric damping and the method by which the required degree of damping is determined makes use of the Hodgson criterion. In many systems, it is undesirable (or, at least, inconvenient) to have to incorporate this damping and, therefore, the more direct approach, involving the metering of flow which is actually pulsating, is of considerable practical interest.

In the present note, the various factors affecting the metering errors in pulsating flow are discussed in relation to the results of an experimental investigation into the pulsating flow of air through a number of standard orifice configurations.

The free vibration of an elastic system represented by a finite number of degrees of freedom leads to the problem of determining the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of the equation

where K and M are symmetric matrices of order n, and x is an n-dimensional vector of generalised co-ordinates. Under certain circumstances as, for example, when the matrices are of large order and only a few eigenvalues and eigenvectors are required, it is preferable to use an iterative procedure for solving eqn. (1) or an equation equivalent to it. However, when the system has one or more rigid-body degrees of freedom the stiffness matrix K is singular. This precludes an iterative solution.

A general review of the state-of-the-art in relation to stability augmentation in aircraft design, with an attempt to produce a co-ordinated view on the philosophy of its application, is something that I have long felt I should like to see done—but not by myself. My initial reaction on being asked to present such a paper was that this would better come from those concerned with the development of auto-control systems, but on second thoughts, there appeared to be some merit in considering the situation from the point of view of one concerned with the more basic aspects of aircraft handling and operation, putting the emphasis, therefore, on what is required or desirable in these respects, rather than on how it might be achieved. This, then, is my first aim; to consider various possible areas of application of stability augmentation, and advanced control techniques, to aircraft design; my survey will not attempt to be comprehensive but rather, selectively illustrative; it will, however, extend out beyond the confines of pure aircraft design, to externally guided aircraft flight, and in particular automatic landing.