FIFTY YEARS OF FLYING PROGRESS — LOENING 203 



trend and endeavor to reduce landing speeds every time we increase 

 flying speeds. 



Interestingly enough, one of the later activities of Orville Wright 

 around 1923 to 1925, when he had more or less retired, was to spend a 

 good deal of time testing in his wind tunnel the various series of flaps 

 and high-lift devices, which are now exhibited at the Franklin Insti- 

 tute. The ordinary split flap was patented by Orville Wright in 1924, 

 though very few people realize that he was the inventor of this device. 

 The Guggenheim Aircraft Competition came along in 1929 and was 

 designed to be a great stimulus to the progress of more useful and 

 slower-landing aircraft. At least two very advanced aircraft, the Cur- 

 tiss Tanager and the Handley-Page, very convincingly demonstrated 

 their short-field abilities on both landing and takeoff, and yet for almost 

 10 years the aeronautical engineering fraternity took only a slight in- 

 terest in what these demonstrations had shown. The early develop- 

 ment and progress of the Fowler Flap were also delayed and stretched 

 out over many more years than was necessary by this curious blindness 

 in judgment or delay in appreciation by aircraft engineers and their 

 customers of the supreme necessity of doing everything to reduce land- 

 ing speeds. 



VERTICAL FLYING 



At the present time it appears that this need in aircraft development 

 is receiving an increasing amount of serious attention, and there are 

 several areas in which activity may result in quite striking develop- 

 ment. The term "vertical flying" is at last coming into serious use 

 in technical discussions. Designs for vertical takeoff merely on the 

 basis of Jet, rocket, or turboprop thrust being greater than the weight, 

 are actively being worked on. Then, too, there is a field of promise 

 in a configuration using an "induced" high- velocity flow over the wing 

 by a disposition of jet-engine intakes and exhaust to give an artificial 

 flow in the slow-speed regime which would greatly increase the lift, 

 even while standing still, greatly reduce the length of takeoff and 

 the landing speed, and yet be readily converted from "lift flow" to pure 

 "thrust flow" for very-high-speed flying. 



It was Henry Ford, Sr., who, when discussing aircraft design almost 

 30 years ago, criticized aircraft engineering very severely for failing to 

 realize that aircraft would really not attain their full development until 

 their power "was used to land with." 



SPEED RANGE BY BETTER WING SECTIONS 



During this first era of aviation progress, wing sections have been 

 much improved in the range between high lift and low lift and low 

 drag, but there is still much that could be achieved. Speed range (the 



