THE HELICOPTER PRIZE.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 2742, 7 September 1923, Page 9

THE HELICOPTER PRIZE.

CRITICISM OF EXPERT, COURTING DEATH. » LONDON, August 20. Mr Leonard Balrstow, professor of aerodynamics at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, and adviser to the Air Ministry, in the course of an article in "Nature," referring to the Air Ministry's offer of £50,000 in prizes for a helicopter capable of rising 2,000 ft. and descending vertically from 500 ft. without using a.n engine, declares that almost every other desirable quality of a flying machine is sacrificed in the Ministry's conditions. He adds that the con dition regarding vertical descent would involve certain dea.th to the pilot attempting it. "The Ministry's policy," he says, is not one of subsidising research on scientific lines, but is based on the hope that a practical helicopter ma, accidentally be evolved. The total value of the prizes exceeds double the annual cost of aeronautical research work at the National Physical Laboratory. Between £OO,OOO and £IOO,OOO already had been expended on the Ministry's factory at Farnborough on the Brcnnan helicopter. Men of science and aeronautical engineers are disturbed by the Ministry's policy. They fear that in following a will o* the wisp insufficient attention is given to scientific research."