PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



The Problem of Soaring Fliglit. By E. H. Hankin, M.A., Sc.D., 

 late Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, Chemical Examiner 

 to Government, Agra, India. (Communicated by Mr H. H. 

 Brindley.) 



[Read 22 November 1920.] 



With an introduction by 

 F. Handley Page, C.B.E., F.R.Aer.S. 



INTRODUCTION. 

 By F. Handley Page, C.B.E. 



The study of bird flight has always fascinated those who were 

 interested in the early development of aviation, and all the original 

 attempts at heavier-than-air flight were based on imitation of birds, 

 both in constructive and in propelling mechanism. 



Progress from such study was, however, well nigh impossible. 

 The bird represents the finished article of millions of years of slow 

 development to suit the difficult condition of taking the best 

 advantage of the air structure in which it had to fly. Observers 

 therefore had not only to study a complicated mechanism to find 

 its basic principle of operation, but also to do so in a medium 

 whose movements were but imperfectly understood. 



The methods of observation were crude, and the observers not 

 trained for the work of exact measurements and recording of the 

 results. A great many of the early observers, from Leonardo da 

 Vinci down to Weiss and others of the present day, were artists 

 accustomed to observe with the trained eye the picture presented 

 to their mind by bird flight, and from that they endeavoured to 

 reproduce empirically in a mechanical form the design which they 

 deemed the most successful in bird flight. 



Directly engineering and scientific thought was directed to the 

 study of flight problems the component parts were reduced to 



VOL, XX. PART n. 15 



