The advances made in the development of gas turbine engines during the past two decades have been remarkable. The engines have been improved tremendously in terms of power, weight, efficiency and cost. They are now being applied successfully as the prime movers for helicopters, VTOL aircraft, ground power units and for many other diverse purposes, besides the more conventional military and civil aircraft.

There have been parallel advances in the development of gas turbine engine fuel systems (which for convenience may be subdivided into the “control” and the “pumping arrangement”). These systems were originally wholly hydro-mechanical in nature. Sixteen or so years ago, the first supplementary electronic devices were introduced into fuel control systems. Since then, progressively more complex hybrid electronic/hydro-mechanical systems have been employed, with a corresponding easement of the demands on the hydro-mechanical portion. In 1957 Sturrock described to this Society what is now the classic Proteus engine control system used in Britannia aircraft. The satisfactory experience gained with the Proteus system led to the adoption of a comprehensive electronic fuel control system, coupled to a relatively simple fuel pumping system, for the supersonic Olympus engine. This system has been described by Hunt and by Colburn, Tweedy and Dent in papers presented at the joint RAeS/IEE conference “The Importance of Electricity in Aircraft” in 1962. Further papers by Rush presented at the same conference and by Airey in 1963, were devoted to the more general aspects of control.

This paper gives an account of some of the practical display problems met in day to day airline operation by BEA and the application of this experience to the improved displays specified for the Trident.

Development is the process by which a design conceived to meet a practical requirement is transformed from drawings, and perhaps a working prototype, to a piece of fully engineered hardware suitable for production which will meet the original requirement for performance (including reliability) and cost in a time-scale which makes it useful.

There are thus three main parameters in development: performance, cost and time, which are inextricably related to each other, and which must be constantly in mind during a development programme.

The technical aspect of development consists largely of optimising a basic design, making and proving individual parts of it, particularly where new technology is involved, and finally making and proving the complete equipment.

After a brief review of the classification of the couplings from the kinematic and mechanical points of view, the problem of aircraft engine Interconnection is introduced, together with some solutions which have made it possible to overcome the difficulty presented by the joint, at the expense, however, of some other mechanical requirements. The troubles experienced with couplings are to be blamed on the following three aspects of the conventional coupling designs: the use of gear-tooth couplings, sliding splined shaft arrangements, and the use of couplings of excessive weight. Possible improvements in the conventional designs using splined shafts are described, also the correct means of ensuring lubrication and the possibility of avoiding the need of lubrication by use of elastic distortion. Some Information is given about the effect of materials to be used for joint faces. The author then deals with coupling systems which are essentially based on the elastic property of materials. Three systems are investigated: flexible shafts, diaphragms and flexible couplings. Although flexible shafts are excellent for small misalignments, they do not permit axial movements of which diaphragms and flexible couplings are capable. The author then deals with sliding motions by recirculation of rollers which considerably extend the possibilities of axial movement. While couplings are devices normally intended to (ink up adjacent units, they become transmissions when units are some distance apart, and the typical feature of transmissions is that they require to be supported on one or more bearings. Straight and curved transmissions are presented, together with a brief survey of the following problems:

Typical test results are given, including those for the Breguet 941 curved transmission which has been run for 17 000 hours, that is 3.6 X 1010 revolutions, with only one relubrication at 10 000 hours. A short length instructional film showed the operation of a flexible bearing under critical speed conditions (this bearing is a part of the Breguet 941 curved transmission), and also demonstrated the endurance of the joints using sliding-type flexible couplings.

Boost-gliders offer the possibility of rapid long distance travel (e.g. England-Australia in 75 minutes) and boosters using similar technology offer the possibility of “everyday” travel between the earth and space stations. This paper uses simple parametric methods to assess conditions for boost-gliders to be commercially competitive and to discuss their evolution in relation to other boosters and advanced aircraft. It is concluded that booster-gliders using a similar state of the art to presently-projected aerospace transporters (i.e. winged, two-stage, hydrogen-fuelled vehicles) would be reasonably economical given cheap hydrogen fuel and a market large enough to support about 50 aircraft each making 5 antipodal flights per day. In addition, numerous problems would be involved in developing this type of vehicle to an acceptable level of design and operational familiarity but, at first sight, none of these appears to be insurmountable.

On receiving an invitation from your distinguished Association to come and speak to you about EUROCONTROL, I was most pleased and honoured. I am glad to be able to represent our Organisation and in the name of the Organisation I wish to thank you most warmly.

Before this gathering of legal experts I, as a technician, would fear to be presumptuous if I did not feel that nowadays no progress is conceivable without close collaboration between the legal and the technical. It is with this thought in mind that I shall lay before you some of the technical reasons which led to the setting-up of EUROCONTROL, the operation, the structure, the achievements and the future prospects of this new European Organisation for the safety of air navigation.

The Airline is satisfying a demand, a demand for transportation. Such transportation is not something in itself—people do not simply go for the ride—but is part of a bigger demand. The airline attempts to create, stimulate and, to some extent, change this demand by tariff and other means but nevertheless it is attempting to satisfy a naked demand as it arises. If the demand is for 8 a.m. out of Glasgow, we as an airline—contrary to popular opinion— attempt to satisfy the demand at that time within the overall context of profitability. In a competitive situation—and this includes competition with other forms of transport, not simply air, as well as other forms of consumer expenditure—the airline's ability to take of this demand what suits it and ignore the rest, is strictly limited. The success of an airline depends upon the efficiency with which it satisfies this demand.

British Aviation's best friends—and sometimes, recently, there have appeared to be very few of them— could hardly claim that the image of the industry, both manufacturing and operating, civil and military, has been anything but dismal during the past few years. However bad that image may be, it has been largely brought upon itself by, what an observer on Mars—or in America—might consider has been a carefully co-ordinated series of inept blunders on the part of those running successive Governments, the manufacturing industry, the airlines, the Service requirements, the administrative machine and by the Press and politicians (of all parties) as well. All are to blame—many for making wrong decisions, most for making no decisions at all.

With the death of Albert Peter Thurston we have lost a man about whom it might truly be said that he had a longer connection with aviation than any of his contemporaries. A pioneer of the early days who maintained throughout his life a keen interest in flying, he was deserving of far more credit and renown than has yet been accorded him.

Born on 31st October 1881, he was the son of Peter and Elizabeth Thurston. He graduated at East London College (later Queen Mary College), London University, in 1905, passing the BSc examination with first class honours. In February 1905 he joined the Examining Staff of the Patent Office.

My original title for this lecture was “Aspects of Accessibility.” Then I discovered that people assumed it concerned accessibility in connection with aircraft maintenance. That assumption implied that an engineer is expected to stick to engineering. Having written what is to follow, I wonder whether that implication might well be right, and that all I have to say could be entitled:

On the other hand G. K. Chesterton clearly demonstrated that when the obvious is stressed, it often turns out to have unexpected aspects.

The main contribution of psychology to the design of displays up to the present time has been in advising on detailed points of design. It is suggested that there are three areas in which psychology can make a useful contribution; these are

(a) in stating the basic characteristics of the human operator, particularly the working of the perceptual mechanism,

(b) in stating the effect of environmental conditions on performance, and

(c) in assessing the information required and in advising on man's rôle in the system.

As one of the first speakers at this Symposium, with no particular axe to grind and no panacea to offer, I think my most useful contribution will be to provide some sort of backcloth for later contributors. I therefore propose to discuss the relative effects of some of the factors affecting the design efficiency and operating costs of short-range aircraft so as to try to arrive at some impression of what are the more important things to concentrate on. This has been done before at various times, but I think it is worth doing again as a starting point for this discussion. The views expressed are my own and not necessarily those of RAE or MoA.

I shall be talking mainly in terms of generalised long-term effects, and the factors and exchange rates quoted will be the overall effects on an aircraft still in the design stage, assuming that it is re-optimised if necessary as each factor is varied. Without implying any preference one way or the other, I will assume a conventional wing-plus-body design with jet or fan engines; other contributors will be dealing with the possibilities of all-wing layouts and with the question of propellers versus jets for short ranges. I assume that we are thinking in terms of stage lengths of the order of 250-500 miles, and the costs and exchange rates will be quoted for this sort of range; so far as relative sensitivities are concerned the precise value is not very important once one is in this bracket (as compared with 1000-1500 miles, for instance).

The object of this paper is to present a study of the problem of development management and cost control in a Defence setting. It does not offer any simple final solution, nor indeed claim some sudden breakthrough. It is, however, felt that progress in this field in the UK has been retarded by the lack of publication of attempts to think about this problem. In these circumstances, the processes of both criticism and cross-fertilisation of ideas, so essential to progress in any field of endeavour, cannot get to work and there is a high probability that the same mistakes will be made over and over again. If the publication of this paper does no more than stimulate others to publish their thoughts on this important problem, a major part of the objective of preparing it will have been achieved.

It is a sign of the present needs of the aviation industry that the Twentieth British Commonwealth Lecture, delivered by Mr. J. T. Dyment, Chief Engineer of Air Canada, was devoted to “Tools of Airline Management”.

In his lecture, Mr. Dyment pointed out that competition is too keen to permit Management to continue with methods satisfactory five or ten years ago and he reviewed some typical modern tools of Management. He mentioned a wide variety of tools both for the day-by-day control of airline activities, such as crew scheduling and for such strategic problems as the nurturing of the company image presented to the public. He paid especial attention to the way in which operational research in Air Canada has been able to assist Management in raising the efficiency of the airline.

For Fifty-Five years Lord Brabazon was a member of the Society, a membership he enjoyed immensely, as the membership enjoyed him.

He was born on 8th February 1884, the son of J. A. H. Moore-Brabazon of Tara Hall, Co. Meath, Eire.

When Brab was up at Cambridge he became a member of a debating society at Trinity College known as the Magpie and Stump, founded on 2nd February 1866, less than a month after the foundation of the Aeronautical Society. Its membership included many distinguished people, Sir George Darwin, Lord Baldwin, A. A. Milne and many others.