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Aerodynamics — retrospect and prospect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

Extract

      ‘In offering to the public the first instalment of the present work, the author desires to record his conviction that the time is near when the study of Aerial Flight will take its place as one of the foremost of the applied sciences, one of which the underlying principles furnish some of the most beautiful and fascinating problems in the whole domain of practical dynamics.’
    F. W. Lanchester — Preface to Aerodynamics (1907).

Frank Lanchester was born in 1863 and died in 1946. He lived through, and contributed significantly to, an astonishing expansion in aerodynamic knowledge and understanding. When he was a very small child, the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain was formed. Arguments about the underlying principles of aerodynamics were abundant, and manned powered flight was some 40 years into the future. When he died aerodynamics was well-established, codified and central to efficient aircraft design. Transonic flight through jet propulsion had almost been achieved.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1982 

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