The Royal Aircraft Factory Inquiry

Abstract

THE whole question of the Royal Aircraft Factory administration and cost seems to turn on whether it is to be regarded as an experimental or a productive concern. If it is to be regarded as a factory for the production of service machines, then there is little doubt that it is not administered as efficiently as it might be. But if it is to be regarded as a purely, or at least chiefly, experimental establishment, then the case is completely altered. In the development of a new industry, such as aeronautics, there must be a certain amount of experiment, and in modern times the tendency is to arrive at a satisfactory result by the application of science to the fullest possible extent, rather than to attain that result by a lengthy process of trial and error. The inevitable result of the scientific method is that it appears as though a considerable amount of money is being wasted with no appreciable result, but in reality the money is being well spent if it leads to scientific results of a widely useful nature. The Royal Aircraft Factory should therefore be judged by its achievements in the advance of aeronautical science rather than by its actual output of machines for service use. There can be no doubt at all that the work done at the factory, in conjunction with the model experiments and mathematical investigations at the National Physical Laboratory, has elucidated many questions of vast importance concerning the design and stability of aeroplanes in a way which would perhaps never have been done by private firms, where output is the primary consideration. Once it is admitted that this scientific information is needed, the Royal Aircraft- Factory stands justified by its past work. By all means reorganise, if by such reorganisation increased efficiency can be obtained, but let it not be at the expense of the exceedingly valuable experimental work which is being done, and which can be done in no other way at the present time.