RESEARCH FOR AERONAUTICS—ITS PLANNING AND 
APPLICATION ? 
By W. S. FaRREN 
Director, Royal Aircraft Establishment 
INTRODUCTION 
The exceptional circumstances of the times make it impossible for 
me to observe the letter of what I know is the Institute’s wish in the 
choice of a subject, though I believe I can conform to itin spirit. The 
Institute desires that the lecturer shall deal with some scientific or 
technical subject on which he is, or has been, personally engaged, and 
shall not indulge in broad surveys. There will come a time when the 
lecturer’s chief difficulty will be to choose from the embarrassingly 
rich store of knowledge which has accumulated during this war. But 
for the time being the door of that store cannot be opened in public. 
Moreover, I doubt whether the part that I have played in a large 
number of fascinating and exciting investigations during the last 
4 or 5 years is such that I could fairly deprive those who have done 
the work of the privilege of speaking about it. This is a difficulty 
that has always faced those who hold such positions as mine, and one 
of which your Council were no doubt well aware when they invited me. 
I have long been concerned with the problems that arise in applying 
the advances in knowledge which research for aeronautics has brought 
us and with the problems of planning the course of current research 
and of providing appropriate and timely resources for future research. 
I believe that these are matters that might with advantage be surveyed 
as a whole, in a scientific spirit. Moreover, I believe that the subject 
can usefully be treated in a purely personal way, and I have through- 
out drawn on my own experience. 
From this it follows that any conclusions I draw apply only to the 
circumstances in my own country, or rather to my own interpretation 
of what they have been and may be. It will be for you, not for me, 
to say whether you find them in any way relevant to circumstances 
1The seventh Wright Brothers lecture, presented before the Institute of the Aeronautical 
Sciences in the U. S. Chamber of Commerce Auditorium, Washington, D. C., December 17, 
1943. Reprinted by permission from the Journal of Aeronautical Sciences, vol. 11, 
No. 2, April 1944. 
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