348 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
age, and probably there will be a change of setup in which they will 
spin apart, in order not to retard or interfere with each other. 
There is, then, much left to do to perfect our utilization of the air 
ocean in which we live. Tolerable levels of noise, vibration, and 
acceleration must accompany supersonic flight. And greater safety! 
These are all of utmost importance to our great air-transport develop- 
ment, but have little to do with space astronautics. 
Some clear and not too pleasant lessons are to be learned from a 
questioning and reflective perusal of the more than half a century 
in which we have developed our air travel, air logistics, and air 
road-to-everywhere usage. One of the most outstanding lessons that 
we see clearly in such a review is how often designers and constructors 
have failed to finish what was started. Owing too often to dis- 
couraging initial troubles and “bugs”—often added to by lack of 
foresight and interest on the part of the aircraft customers, military, 
industrial, and civilian—the continuity of effort for success frequently 
has died on the vine, with the result that needed and highly desirable 
developments that had been started were abandoned and lay dormant, 
only to be revived years later. 
Many a novel but highly significant development, idea, or sugges- 
tion has lain on our doorstep for years, unappreciated. Let us look 
ata few examples: 
WING STRUCTURE 
In America, where flying was born, the biplane type of flying 
machine dominated our efforts from the very start for almost 25 
years, despite the obvious success of the monoplane in France and 
the fundamental correctness of its aerodynamics. Today the mono- 
plane, strut braced or cantilever, has completely swept the field in 
all types and sizes, and the only biplanes left are occasionally seen 
towing an advertising sign or doing some crop dusting. 
The Junkers low-wing cantilever stressed-skin all-metal monoplane, 
after its 1920 development in Germany, was brought over to this 
country and promptly ignored. We recognized only vaguely a few 
years later that it was being used very successfully on the first great 
Western-world airline, Scadta (later Avianca), up and down the 
Magdalena River in Colombia. Even in 1923, when the Loening 
amphibian was being developed, we had to abandon the monoplane 
temporarily in order to sell our design to reluctant aviators by making 
them feel at home in a DH-4-type biplane wing. Through the rest 
of its life this airplane was 200 pounds heavier and 15 m.p.h. slower 
than if it had been a monoplane. 
It was not until William Stout developed the Ford planes some 
years later that we moved seriously into the stressed-skin metal mono- 
plane structure. Fokker, during these early twenties, also chose the 
