Some Aspects of Flight Research

Abstract

Aeronautics has advanced a long way since that December day in 1903 when Wilbur and Orville Wright successfully completed the first flight test ever to be made on a powered aircraft. Since then much has been learnt about the science of aeronautics and great developments have taken place in the methods and techniques of aeronautical research. Wind tunnels have been built capable of testing models at very high speeds and at high Reynolds numbers, and many other powerful research techniques have been developed to assist in the design of aircraft. The behaviour of the aircraft itself in flight remains the final test, however, and there are still many problems which can be investigated adequately only in flight with a piloted aircraft.In this lecture it is proposed to illustrate the contribution which flight research can make towards the advancement of knowledge of aeronautics by discussing some of the more important aspects of this work.