It is not only a great honour but also a great pleasure to have been asked to deliver this Sixty-Third Wright Brothers Lecture to the Royal Aeronautical Society. My own associations with the Society and its members have almost always been highly edifying, stimulating and productive in both the personal and professional spheres. I believe that the relationships between our two nations which I have had the opportunity to observe from the government, industrial and scientific standpoints have greatly enhanced the qualities of our institutions and the extent of our progress in aeronautics as in many other areas. We have often been competitive, sometimes fiercely so, but almost never in a destructive way. I still remember from my youth the vicarious thrills of the editorial battles of the 1930s between The Aeroplane and Aero Digest over the merits of British and American air transports and the genuine delight I experienced when I actually met C. G. Grey, Editor of The Aeroplane in that era, at a Society garden party years later. The challenge of worthy adversaries, the hard but fair rules of engagement, and the sportsman’s appreciation of the game well played, in victory or defeat, are as potent sources for excellence in science, technology, business and the professions as they are in contests of skill and daring.