The United Kingdom's contributions to the development of aeronautics. Part 3. The development of the streamlined monoplane (the 1920s-1 940s)

Abstract

The second part of this survey closed a little after the termination of the First World War. By then the utility of the aeroplane as an instrument of warfare had been amply demonstrated. Moreover, something of its future potential in civil use had been indicated by such British achievements as the first transatlantic flight by Alcock and Brown in 1919, albeit in a Vickers Vimy biplane of otherwise limited performance. It was also at this time that the new aerodynamic ideas of Kutta, Zhukovskii and Prandtl reached Britain. All such thinking pointed inevitably to the greater speed, efficiency and economy to be expected of the streamlined monoplane.