The role of physics in aeronautical development

Abstract

The present aim of aeronautical development is to attain superiority in performance and military effectiveness of our aircraft and missiles with the hope of maintaining peace by deterring aggression. For the aircraft designer the principal technical goal is the design and construction of a vehicle which will move more rapidly from one place to another over the surface of the earth, climb faster to higher altitudes, and carry larger loads to greater distances. All this must be done as economically as possible as measured by initial investment of materials and labor and by operating cost. Other technical goals relate to the ability to operate in bad weather and darkness, to the ability to communicate with ground stations and other aircraft, and to the specifically military functions of locating and destroying military targets, and of self-defense. However, the present discussion will be limited to the performance of the airplane or missile as a vehicle. Development is taken to include the associated applied research, and the examples of the application of physics to aeronautical development are taken largely from the work of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which is an independent civilian agency of the government with responsibility for basic and applied research in aeronautics, or, in the language of the legislation establishing the agency, “for the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution”.