The 1,179th Main Lecture to be given before the Society–and the first Main Lecture to be given in the new Lecture Theatre–“Ten Economic Lessons from Short-Haul Airline Operations,” was given by Mr. S. F. Wheatcroft, B.Sc.(Econ.), A.F.R.Ae.S., on 15th December 1960. Mr. P. G. Masefield, M.A.(Eng.), F.R.Ae.S., Hon.F.I.A.S., Immediate Past President, presided.

Before introducing the Lecturer, Mr. Masefield said ttiat this was an auspicious occasion because this was the first Main Society Lecture to be held in the Lecture Theatre. Although he was sure there was nobody better fitted than Steve Wheatcroft to give this first lecture and no more valuable subject than the economic lessons from short-haul airline operations, Mr. Wheatcroft unfortunately had let the side down by not requiring any of the modern pushbutton equipment which was a feature of the Lecture Theatre.

Steve Wheatcroft was known to everybody in air transport, not only in this country but all over the world, where he spent half his time when he was not advising B.E.A. on what not to do. Mr. Wheatcroft obtained his B.Sc. degree with first class honours in economics at the London School of Economics in 1942. After the war, during which he served as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, he returned to the London School of Economics, taking a Leverhulme Post Graduate Studentship and studying, in particular, the economics of air transport. He was appointed Economic Adviser to British European Airways in 1946 and subsequently joined the Commercial Department as Manager in charge of Research and Tariffs. In 1953 he left the Corporation to go to Manchester University as a Simon Research Fellow and wrote a book called “The Economics of European Air Transport”. Wheatcroft on “The Economics of European Air Transport” was still a standard and was rapidly becoming a classic work. Since 1954 he had acted as a Consultant and had been retained as Economic Adviser to British European Airways. In 1958 he was commissioned by the Canadian Government to make a study of the desirability and economic consequences of trans-continental competition and his report, “Air Competition in Canada,” was published in June 1958. In 1959 he was appointed Chairman of a Committee set up by the Government of India to investigate the cost structure of the Indian Airline Corporation. More recently he had been a member of the Tymms Committee to the West Indian Government to advise on civil air policy in the West Indies, and now, he was about to go to Nigeria to tell them how to do it.

My first illustration Fig. 1 shows how the World's very first powered flight was announced in this Country—and it had no more notice in any other—I cannot help feeling that the first manned space flight will cause a slightly greater fuss.

I suppose it really all began, so far as my urge to fly was concerned, in the summer of 1910. At that time I owned half a 166 ton schooner—the owner of the other half was my old friend Bill Eyre.

Incidentally, the engineer in charge of the auxiliary engine was Fred Sigrist. We were to remain in partnership through many varied experiences in aviation for the following 30 years.

We had left Le Havre and as we were becalmed in the Channel we put into Dover Harbour. There we heard that an American architect of Spanish descent, Johnny Moisant, was flying a Bleriot monoplane (Fig. 2) in a field nearby so we thought we would go and have a look.

A solid propellant rocket motor consists essentially of a propellant charge in a container fitted with an expansion nozzle and igniter. Since, before a rocket motor can be designed, it is necessary to have some knowledge of the properties of the propellant to be used, a description will first be given of the propellants which are currently available.

The difficulties of keeping the aeronautical infant alive were great. Few scientists or engineers could be persuaded to believe in heavier-than-air flight, although a number lent a readier ear to the possibilities of the airship.

Automatic navigation systems for aircraft often use gyroscopes to measure the changes in the direction of motion of the aircraft they are controlling. These measurements are fed back to the mechanisms moving the control surfaces of the aircraft.

Such a system is usually designed, in the first instance, assuming the aircraft structure to be rigid and such that the system is then stable.

Now suppose the aircraft structure, considered elastic, is disturbed in flight by, say, a gust. Normal modes of vibration of the structure will be excited, the resulting oscillations will be detected by the gyroscope and fed as error signals to the control surface actuators. If the actuators are capable of following these error signals, the control surfaces will also oscillate, exciting the structure further and so completing the cycle. This cycle may be unstable.