THE AEROPLANE OF 1930

Bairstow’s coercive behavior in the subcommittee meetings reappeared after the war. A special meeting was held in early 1921 to formulate a postwar research program under the new Aeronautical Research Committee (ARC), the successor of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.16 Called “The Discussion of the Aeroplane of 1930,” this unique event aimed at discussing the most important fields of investigation in designing the future airplanes. While various conflicting issues emerged, the discussion was chiefly focused on establishing the priority of two different research programs: one concentrating on the production of more stable and controllable airplanes and the other directed towards designing faster planes by reducing head resistance. The two programs were advocated by Bairstow and B. Melvill Jones respectively, Bairstow the new chair in aeronautics at the Imperial College of Science and Technology and Jones holding the same position at Cambridge University.

The meeting of 1921 arose from an idea of Henry R. M. Brooke-Popham, Director of Research of the Air Ministry, who asked Henry Tizard to explore “the most important lines of research which might be expected to lead up to the 1930 aircraft.”17 While preparing his own article on the topic, Tizard asked for opinions on this question from leading aeronautical engineers in Britain. Through the Secretary of the Aeronautical Research Committee, a letter was sent to these engineers in November of 1920, requesting comments and suggestions on Tizard’s article.

About ten aeronautical engineers responded, from the military, industry, and academia. Their answers conformed roughly to the format of Tizard’s questions. The report returned by Jones contained specific research proposals and a methodological discussion on the nature of technological investigations. Jones distinguished between long-term and short-term investigations. In his view the most promising field for long-term investigation was the airplane body, especially the aerodynamic interference between the propeller and the body.18

After Jones and the three other Committee members who had submitted preliminary papers had spoken at the 1921 meeting, Bairstow offered a long criticism of Jones’s proposals. The sharp conflict between Bairstow and Jones became the central issue of the Discussion of the Aeroplane of 1930. Bairstow’s position was clear: continue research into aeronautical control and stability. In arguing for this policy, he stressed three points: the main cause of airplane accidents, the high cost of insurance premiums for commercial aviation, and the need for night flying capability.19 A recent report of the Accidents subcommittee had stated that in order to decrease accidents, the investigation of lateral control and stability was of pressing importance. The report also concluded that “the knowledge of longitudinal motion is in a far more satisfactory condition than knowledge of lateral motion.” On this point, however, Bairstow drew attention to a recent accident of the Tarrant Tabor, the giant experimental airplane which had lost its longitudinal balance while taking off, causing the death of the two crewmen on board.20 Though the real causes of the accident were still unclear, Bairstow emphasized that more investigations on models were needed to secure longitudinal balance in large, manually-controlled aeroplanes.

Tizard attempted to find a compromise between Bairstow’s insistence on stability and control and Jones’s refusal to fragment the study of aerodynamic forces on the airframe. Might not some research be terminated to free resources for a new project? Specifically, he questioned the urgency of an investigation into the stability and control of a twin-engine airplane when one of its engines suddenly stopped. This problem was so complicated, he commented, that by the time it was finally solved, the current type of twin-engined airplanes might be completely outdated. Funds for this research might be better invested in Jones’s plan. But Tizard could not convince the Committee. Instead, Jones was nominated to be chairman of the Stability and Control subcommittee, and was obliged to continue his study on the control of airplanes flying at low speeds. Bairstow’s power prevailed. Researches on stability and control continued to dominate for most of the next decade.

Bairstow’s power in this instance can be compared to that of Pasteur, as described in Bruno Latour’s Pasteurization of France. In Latour’s view, Pasteur parlayed his research achievements within the laboratory into power in the outside world.21 In Bairstow’s attempt to combine the inside and the outside, his manner appears coercive. In the controversy over scale effect, for example, his contention was too one-sided. In the discussion of the Aeroplane of 1930, his statement defended his own vested interest rather than reflecting on the best research program for the next decade.

When the controversy over scale effect was finally settled, Bairstow’s argument turned out wrong. The complete controversy is cogently summarized by Joseph L. Nayler, longtime Secretary of the Aeronautical Research Committee, in his obituary account of Bairstow. There was a great controversy in the early days between Bairstow and research staff at the Royal Aircraft Factory that boiled up in the ‘Scale Effect’ subcommittee which gave rise to the Aerodynamics subcommittee. Bairstow maintained that full-scale was inaccurate and model work was dead accurate. This position did not alter much until an ‘international’ aerofoil was sent to laboratories abroad by Richard Southwell for the A. R.C., and a variety of results obtained. That led to the investigation of turbulence in wind tunnels. In another respect Bairstow was at fault. He disagreed about corrections for wind tunnel walls brought forward by Glauert, who had studied Prandtl, and the Aerodynamics Committee actually voted against their inclusion under Bairstow’s influence; but the position changed so rapidly that in a couple of years or so the swing was all the other way.22 The following section traces the story in more detail. It begins with another connection between the inside and the outside of the laboratory.