202 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1954 



SLOWER LANDING SPEED 



"Wliile speed gain is the outstanding evidence of our great progress 

 in these 50 years, the lack of attainment of low speed for landing is 

 our outstanding failure. The very early Wright airplanes had so much 

 parasite drag resistance, so much area with accompanying skin fric- 

 tion, and yet so light a total weight that they could literally be almost 

 dived at a landing spot and then flared out. So it was possible for 

 landings to be made in very restricted areas with high obstacles. One 

 of the outstanding feats in this category was accomplished when Harry 

 Atwood landed his Wright Model B on the south lawn of the White 

 House in 1912. 



Early Wright, Curtiss, and Bleriot exhibition teams flew constantly 

 and with great ease off racetracks and even ball parks throughout those 

 exciting exhibition years (1909 to the beginning of World War I) — 

 when the public was being entertained by aircraft to so great a degree, 

 and when the real business of the industry was chiefly building for 

 exhibition work and racing and only in a minor way for military 

 usage. Of course, the wing loadings of aircraft in those days were 

 around 2 to 4 pounds a square foot for biplanes and 3 to 6 pounds a 

 square foot for monoplanes, and the light loading had much to do with 

 this early small-field landing ability. But we have a great loss in 

 aircraft value as of today in having failed to maintain this ability, and 

 failing to such an alarming extent that 10,000-foot runways are now 

 considered too short. Landing speeds of 200 miles an hour are seri- 

 ously talked of, and the aircraft engineering fraternity, in too large 

 measure, ignores the heavy burden on practical progress and usage 

 that aircraft development is placing on itself by not realizing that we 

 have failed miserably in advancing the technique of slower landing 

 speeds and shorter-field usage. The Wrights showed a way we seem 

 loath to follow. 



To be sure, there has been some development of high-lift devices, 

 a very useful development of wing flaps and air brakes without which 

 even the present fast airplanes would be so hopelessly handicapped 

 that there would not be enough real estate around to take care of them. 

 Also, of course, we have the development of the helicopter of recent 

 years to offset somewhat our failure to extend downward the speed 

 range of fixed-wing aircraft. But the helicopter has the very serious 

 deficiency of being a slow aircraft — very useful to be sure, but by no 

 means the final answer until it can carry loads very much faster. 



The economics of air transport show that the requirements for large 

 landing areas cannot possibly be increased with the growth that air- 

 craft usage should have in the coming years. This would impose too 

 great a burden on the operator who pays a landing fee, or on the tax- 

 payer for fields built with Government funds. We must reverse the 



