498 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



pioneers. In their early work they were happy in their hour, for al- 

 most anything that was done was necessarily original and almost any 

 invention was bound to be new. There was little need to consult the 

 records of the past. The Aeronautical Research Committee was, and 

 still is, mainly drawn from these men and those they have trained. 

 With the support and confidence felt in them by the Government, they 

 were able to develop ideas, whether arising from their own ingenuity 

 or from workers and industrialists outside. It was an example soon 

 followed by the United States, and its latest adherent is Australia, the 

 newest country to take up aeronautical engineering as a serious national 

 effort. 



It is impossible not to be struck by the stimulus which this specially 

 directed scientific research work has given to other branches of engi- 

 neering. It represents the spearhead of attack in applied science, since 

 so many of its problems arise from practical conditions of unusual dif- 

 ficulty, owing to the intensity of the desire for light construction com- 

 bined with strength and durability, and for very high efficiency factors. 

 It is hardly surprising therefore that such apparentl}'^ nonaeronautical 

 fields as the design of steam turbine blades, of power boats, of indus- 

 trial fans, of light vehicles should owe so much to the results of 

 aeronautical research. 



THE AIR ARM 



Among the world's many political preoccupations there is no more 

 pressing or more intractable problem than that of curbing in some 

 way the universal growth of armaments. It is true that insofar as 

 the product is entirely produced within the country of origin the mere 

 cost is of little moment. One makes armaments instead of making 

 something else, and in the case of a people who loved above all having 

 lots of lethal weapons there would be nothing more to be said, though 

 the taste might be thought odd ! 



It is not, however, solely a matter of finance, since normal peoples 

 would much prefer the energy directed to armament production to 

 be given to articles of service in civil life such as houses, pictures, sail- 

 ing boats, holiday camps, and the like; and for the general body of such 

 activity to be guided into channels which fit in with the quantity and 

 quality of the labor available in the country. Moreover, just as a house 

 containing a store of high explosives is not looked on as a happy abode, 

 so there is always a fear that in highly armed international life a trig- 

 ger in some remote spot may be pulled by accident, or by mischief, 

 with irreparable harm to the whole world.^ 



When some years ago an effort was made to come to an international 

 understanding about air armaments, success was not attained. This 



»Thls trigger was pulled a few days after this was written. 



