Individual discussions at this two-day meeting are so brief 

 that they iTiay be misleading as well as frustrating. Whereas our 

 presentations may appear to be too general and not definite enough 

 with a specific list of budgeted instruments with formal specifica- 

 tions, please remember you have been invited to this general dis- 

 cussion before all the decisions have been made. This conference 

 may be premature, but it is not too late. 



At special meetings at a later date a whole day can be devoted 

 to a particular instrument, such as a new echo-sounder or a bio- 

 logical sampler. At this time when the number of actively in- 

 terested companies is perhaps twenty instead of five hundred, dis- 

 cussions can be held on specifications and design concepts in 

 lengthy and meaningful detail. The list of oceanographic instru- 

 ments (appendices E, F, G, and H) which you have all received 

 will help you decide the kind of instrument in which your company 

 is seriously interested. 



The use of AIRCRAFT FOR RESEARCH has been mentioned 

 by several previous speakers and there are several important 

 aspects of aircraft in research. Airplanes are cheaper per mile 

 than ships. A large airplane might cost $1 per mile and a large 

 ship might cost $10 per mile. Therefore, continuous measure- 

 ments which can be made fromi an airplane are much cheaper to 

 do from a plane than from a ship which is making only the same 

 measurements. As indicated earlier, such measurements might 

 be of surface waves using a vertical radar system, surface tem- 

 peratures of the water, air turbulence, or color of the water as 

 an indicator of biological activity or different water masses. 



If one considers making discrete oceanographic observations 

 50 miles apart, it costs $500 to inove a ship between stations 

 and only $50 to move an airplane. However, if one is using an 

 expendable instrument which costs more than $450 at each 50- 

 mile interval, the total cost for the plane plus the instrument 

 would be greater than for a ship using non-expendable instru- 

 ments. In considering future problems in oceanography, it may 

 be that you manufacturers can make such expendable instruments 

 considerably cheaper than $450, or perhaps the equipment can 

 be recovered later by ships or aircraft. It inay also be that a 

 special scientific or military requirement justifies the extra 

 cost of expendable equipment. 



164 



