Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
About twenty years ago I was invited by the Council to read a paper before the Society, the title suggested being "The Use of Steel in Aircraft Structures." At that time steel, as the material for important parts of main structural members, was giving place to the then new and stronger aluminium alloys, and I decided that the lecture should be on something of growing, and not diminishing, importance; therefore in a paper entitled “ Some Developments in Aircraft Construction ” (March 1934) stiffened sheeted structure in aluminium alloy was chosen as the theme of the subject. The paper was as up-to-date as possible, but it contained no pictures or descriptions of British aeroplane structure of that type because in this country no aeroplanes (except the odd one in which fabric had simply been replaced by aluminium alloy) designed basically in that way had been built.