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IT may be remembered that at this time last year, on the occasion of the last S.B.A.C. Display, we published an article by MR A. F. NEWELL, which brought together the history of aircraft design and development since the war. This seemed appropriate because the efforts of these years could then be seen to be culminating in the outstanding aircraft to be seen at the display. Such a survey also serves, we believe, a useful function in enabling one to stand back and see the lines of development which must be obscure to many in the industry at the time because they are too near to certain aspects of current work. Those coming into the industry for the first time may also find it useful to have some means of discovering the stages that led up to current developments.

MUCH has been written about possible developments in the next decade, but any forecasting must of necessity be conjectural. As far as the next generation of military aircraft is concerned the situation is very obscure, except for the fact that it is known that fewer types will be required. Developments in the civil field are rather easier to foresee, these being based on the anticipated travelling habits of the world's population.

AT a time when the glamour of space travel is capturing the imagination of the aeronautical world it seems somewhat mundane to be asked to report on the progress of the past years‘ achievements. The first reaction is to question if there has been any progress, or is this just ’another' year.

THE purpose of this article is to indicate the developments in aircraft that have appeared since the first post‐war S.B.A.C. Display of 1946. Now is perhaps the time to pause and consider progress in British aviation, particularly as the first turbo‐jet air liner, the Comet, has entered service, the first turbo‐propeller aircraft, the Viscount 700, is being manufactured in quantity, and production orders have been placed for the Hawker Hunter swept‐wing fighter and the Gloster G.A.5 Delta. These aircraft represent a few of the British types evolved in the post‐war period and demonstrate aeronautical advancement.

Aircraft Design has been taught at the College of Aeronautics since 1946. The course is at postgraduate level and is of two years' duration. In the first year the students are given three exercises in component design which aim to teach a logical approach and the fundamentals of the subject. During the second year each student works as a member of a team engaged in the design of a complete aircraft, which is chosen to be of a type currently being investigated by industry. The project aircraft invariably incorporates experimental features and the design work is therefore of the nature of research.

A number of participatory research methodologies can be used to assist with developing assistive technologies. These methods vary in the amount that users lead and contribute to the work. Selecting the correct method can be important to ensure the overall success of the project and the engagement of users. The purpose of this paper is to explore factors that can impact on the degree of user participation.

The paper considers whether criteria, that might influence assistive technology (AT) selection made during an assessment of need, review or purchasing process, could also be used to clarify the appropriate strategies for user involvement when developing assistive technologies. It outlines how this approach has been applied to two research and development projects which aimed to improve AT provision within niche markets.

The paper demonstrates that it is possible to apply a decision making process to selecting the best participatory research method, based on factors affecting AT need. It reports on the outcomes of the user participation in the two research and development projects and discusses how this design approach has been applied to a third project.

By examining a possible framework for identifying appropriate user-participation approaches, this paper will aid those designing research and development AT projects, whilst encouraging user participation within similar projects.

The current method of information retrieval used for bibliographic and full‐text databases of journal articles assumes a semantic representation together with stemming, Boolean connectives and so on. This requires searchers to have a well‐defined idea of what it is that they are searching for. This is unhelpful for many categories of searcher, in particular expert browsers and non‐expert searchers. An alternative method is developed in this paper, based on the idea that articles advance an argument and that this argumentation can be represented in a manner which enables flexible and robust searching to be carried out.

Under this heading are published regularly abstracts of all Reports and Memoranda or the Aeronautical Research Council, Reports and Technical Memoranda of the United States National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and publications of other similar Research Bodies as issued