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L A iN U & VV A T E R 
May iS, 1916 
the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics on which both 
Services are represented is in itself a guarantee tliat tiierc 
is no unnecessary duplication or " overlappiuf,' " ; the 
work is carried on as decided by the Committee at the 
National Physical Laboratory or elsewhere , and whenever 
the requirements of the ijcr\'iccs permit they arc co- 
ordinated. 
Trade Jealousies 
But it is not only the press, as voicing views which may, 
or may not be inspired by members of the trade, we have 
more direct examples of the pernicious influence and 
working of trade rivalries and jealousies. It is only a 
couple of days since the Chairman of one of the leading 
manufacturing concerns in the country was amazed to 
find that a well-known politician (supposed to be some 
authority on the subject) had actually been crammed 
" to the muzzle " with the cock-and-bull stories of a dis- 
contented aeroplane motor designer, and had believed 
every word ! When such credulity is rampant it must 
not be considered surprising that so many of our daily 
papers which have, at least so far as one can tell, no axe 
to grind at all, should be printing and reprinting stories 
and articles of a detrimental character which have no 
foundation in fact whatever. That it should be possible 
for such articles to be pubhshed in good faith I am 
reluctantly willing to admit. 
When in some instances I have criticised adversely the 
part played by the trade in the i>resent agitation it miist be 
understood that I am not attacking every member of the 
trade or even a majority of those in this "country engaged 
in aeronautical construction ; I am attacking a certain 
clique, or certain members of the trade, who have made 
themselves unduly conspicuous both directly and in- 
directly in connection with slanders of individuals and 
bodies connected with our aeronautical administration 
which stand in the way of their indi\idual and personal 
ambitions. Admittedly this is a small minority, but it 
is a noisy minority, and as unscrupulous as it is noisy. 
The greater number of our aircraft constructors are 
fully occupied in carrying out the work which has been 
assigned to them by the Director of Military Aeronautics 
and by the Naval Contracts Department, and have the 
good sense not to mix themselves up in politics. They 
would be the first to discountenance the unpatriotic 
. behaviour of their less enlightened brethren, but they 
may be'pardoned for declining to mix themselves up in a 
controversy when their duties clearly lie in the direction 
of attention to business and the efficient execution of 
the work which has been entrusted to their care. We 
may hopie, now that an association has been formed of 
aeronautical constructors, something will be done to 
prevent a mischief-making minority from behaving in a 
manner which is inimical to the national interest, and 
liable to bring discredit on the trade as a whole. 
So far as the attack centres on the Royal Aircraft 
Factory it is quite certain that nothing can appease these 
self-appointed critics. It is not really a question -of 
Mhether or no the Royal Aircraft Factory manufactures 
a quantity of machines which form an appreciable 
proportion of the total output of the country. It is not 
a question of whether the Royal Aircraft Factory is 
managed well or badly. To these people the existence 
of the factory is the offence. If they can say that it is badly 
managed it is a good enough basis for "attack, but it is 
quite certain that the better and the more efficient the 
management and the bigger the output of machines, etc., 
the more violent will the opposition become ; for it is not 
the inefficiency that is really the complaint, it is the very 
efficiency of the factory which is unwelcome. If we go 
deeper in search of the fundamental objection, it is not 
only that the factory manufactures aeroplanes, it is that 
it supplies the wherewithal to firms who have never 
previously built an aeroplane to enter at once into com- 
petition with the old-estabhshed makers of proprietary 
machines. Again the complaint is that this work is not 
done efficiently, and that the designs in process of manu- 
facture are subjected to numerous and unnecessary 
alterations (House of Commons May nth, ic)i6). 
The facts would be no more welcome if this ground of 
complaint were removed. That which matters to the 
firm having a proprietary machine to push, and an 
imaginary goodwill to sustain, is that the construction of 
aircraft has been reduced to a matter of science and 
engineering, instead of remaining in the realm of priest- 
craft. 
It is a favourite device of those wishing to show how 
obtuse the authorities are, to quote the performance of 
their latest (say) aero engine, and point out how superior 
it is to the R.A.F. engine which has been manufactured 
in (juantity for the last eighteen months. They omit 
to mention how long it will be before their own engine 
can be produced in quantity at all ; they omit the fact 
that the engine which they are putting up for comparison 
has all the advantage of two years development, and that 
if it were not better than the R.A.F. engine it would be a 
conculsive proof of its designer's incompetence ! Yet 
statements of this character arc commonly swallowed 
by the press and public as if they were proof of the in- 
capacity of the men who designed the R.A.F. engine 
(with such defects as it may possess) some two years ago. 
The Advisory Committee 
The plea that the Advisory Committee should include 
a certain contingent of trade members sounds plausible 
enough. It is to be remembered, however, that the 
scientific work done by the Advisory Committee includes 
many matters besides that relating to aeroplane or airship 
construction. The Advisory Committee is not an engi- 
neering committee, it is a scientific committee ; the 
questions which come before the Committee are at times 
closely concerned with engineering problems, but it is 
almost invariably the scientific aspect of those pro- 
blems which it is the duty of the Advisory Committee to 
investigate or to report upon. But these scientific 
questions concern many matters besides aeroplane con- 
struction. They include amongst a multitude of other 
matters such questions as navigation of aircraft, compass 
deviation from various causes, bomb sighting, meteoro- 
logical questions, etc. A full realisation of the breadth 
of the ground covered can only be obtained from a perusal 
of the Committee's published reports. 
The Committee have the power, if occasion arises, of 
taking the evidence of aeroplane builders or others, and 
when it has been thought desirable this power has been 
exercised. There is no more reason or useful purpose to 
be served by any one trade being represented on the com- 
mittee than by any other of the many trades affected. 
To have members of the aeronautical industry perma- 
nently sitting on the Committee would result not only 
in a waste of time for the Committee, but of a great waste 
of time on the part of aeronautical constructors whose own 
work would be proportionally neglected. The suggestion 
that the Advisory Committee should be largely recruited 
from amongst aeroplane constructors arises from a total 
misconception of its functions. Even were members of 
the trade added to the Committee, the difficulty and 
criticism would be in no wise overcome. The offence 
against those who were not invited to sit on the Com- 
mittee would be increased a hundredfold, and we should 
have repeated the very difficulty which arose in con- 
nection with the French Advisory or Consulting Com- 
mittee—namely, that as soon as certain members of the 
trade were appointed, the members who were not ap- 
pointed became the most violent critics of the French 
Air Ministry. 
The Wittenburg Heroes 
To the Editor of I-and & \V.\ter. 
vSir, — Many of us must feel deeply that some mejnorial 
should be put to tlie nieniory of the tliree brave doctors who 
died of typhus at Wittenburg Camp while doing tiieir utmost 
to alleviate the terrible sufferings and misery of which we 
have all read with a thrill of honor from the reports of Major 
Priestly and Captains Vidal and Lauder. 
The King has voiced all our wishes by the honours he has 
graciously bestowed on these gallant men who mercifully 
survived, and we now feel that the names of those who died — 
Major W. B. Fry and Captains A. A. SutcHffe and S. Field.— 
should be remembered in the years to come. All will agree 
that the memorial should take the form of helping to alleviate 
suffering and do some permanent goocf, but that must neces- 
sarily depend on the amount received. I will gladly receive 
and acknowledge small sums as well as large. 
CoNST.wcE Parker of Waddington, 
Aldworth, Haslemere, Surreyr 
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