The manoeuvres of getting off and landing are to me the beginning and the send of flight; they separate the sheep from the goats; the aristocrat of the flying world uses them for the display of his genius, leaving his would-be imitators to find what consolation they can in the amusement with which they innocently provide the onlookers.

In commercial flying the manoeuvres of getting off and landing are still the most obvious calls on the pilot's skill; and who shall deny the splendid response? But a determination to ease the pilot's task is not thereby for an instant to be excused. This, one of the most urgent problems before applied design to-day, lies in the conflicting requirements of ease and safety in getting off and landing and those of economy and usefulness in full flight. To assist in the statement of this problem is the object of my Paper. These are the manoeuvres perhaps about which most has been said, and, from the pilot's point of view, least written. Since first a heavier-than-air machine left the ground, they have never failed as a topic of conversation throughout the whole flying community; and this has tempted me to analyse them on the basis of my own experience and that of the many pilots I have known.