DEVELOPMENT OF AIR TRANSPORT

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26857, 9 October 1952, Page 11

DEVELOPMENT OF AIR TRANSPORT

EFFECT ON SIZE OF COMMUNITIES ADDRESS TO CONGRESS ON MECHANICS (From cl Reuter Correspondent.) ISTANBUL. More and more Americans are going to live in country areas. United States cities will shrink in size. Cities of the future will be served by more airports and the airports themselves will be of different types—some for supersonic craft and jet planes, others for propeller-driven transports, others still for helicopters. That is a summary of one aspect of an authoritative review of the effects on society of aeronautics made here by Professor Jerome C. Hunsaker, chairman of the United States National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Professor Hunsaker was speaking at the eighth International Congress on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, held in Istanbul. The congress was attended by more than 300 men and women of the type which the British Royal Air Force called “Boffins” during the Second World War scientific engineers, engineering scientists, designers, inventors responsible for such air warfare innovations as radar. Because mechanics is the basic science of engineering and engineering enters into very phase of modern civilisation, the nine-day deliberations of the Istanbul congress are sooner or later likely to change the way of life of millions of men and women throughout the world for years to come. One of the most obvious and most significant of all the changes wrought in everyday life by theoretical and applied mechanics is probably the revolution in transport achieved by aeronautics. Planning of Cities Professor Hunsaker’s choice of subject for one of the few non-technical papers read to the congress, was therefore a natural one—“ Social Aspects of Aeronautics.” Here are a few of his comments on the planning of modern cities—comments which he applied to the United States specifically but would be valid anywhere in countries of similarly developed air transport:— (1) Smaller cities: “Short-haul air transport has yet to be developed, but it conceivably would extend the daily commuting distance well beyond 50 miles. While more than half of the United States population is now urban, the next generation should see this figure reduced. There are already signs of serious decay in the central residence area of large cities like Boston and Cleveland. The influence of air transport on business facilitates the central management of widely scattered enterprises. There is already a trend away from giant industrial centres. This should favour the growth of the smaller towns.” (2) Mote, and different, airports: “Research airplanes have recently flown at supersonic speeds at high altitudes. They could not have operated from existing airports. It may be many years before the results of such research are applied in air transport, but at some unpredictable time clever designers backed by bold promoters will try it. Probably they will demand a special airport for a special service. I think it is probable that air transport should develop—with airplanes designed for the specific airports served and airports designed to accommodate the kind of air transport the community desires and can afford.” (3) Helicopter “bus lines”: “Since the helicopter is just now having intensive development because of its military advantages, we may feel hopeful that most of its handicaps will be removed. These handicaps are not fundamental. The future helicopter could have a payload equal to that of an aeroplane designed for the same speed. It is fairly safe to predict that before long we shall see helicopters shuttling between airports and down-town terminals with ‘bus-loads’ of passengers” Military Aspects Professor Hunsaker said he could not, of course, speak of the social aspects of aeronautics without tackling what many people considered to be the most important of all, the military aspects. “Just now,” he said, “the divided world is in a state of strain, and many wish there were no planes with bombs to destroy the illusion of isolation. The times are no doubt dangerous, but that is not a new condition; man has always feared a fiery end. The threat should impel nations to prudence and common sense, just as the last judgment of religion is an incentive to individual virtue.” Professor Hunsaker said that when the first mechanics congress was held just after World War I at Delft, in Holland, “we had no idea of flying across the Atlantic and the Continent of Europe” to attend a congress in Istanbul. Istanbul was thus a “beneficiary of the new mobility given by air transportation.” In addition to the United States and Britain, delegates attending the congress came from the leading universities and technical institutes of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, (Greece, India, Persia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Jugoslavia.