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The equipment described in the following article was installed in a German Messerschmidt 109 shot down over the Thames estuary. The aeroplane was shipped to the United States through arrangements made by Mrs. Winston Churchill, honorary sponsor of “Bundles for Britain.” Upon its arrival Lear engineers removed the radio apparatus, and the equipment was thoroughly tested by Mr. Lear in his laboratories at Lear Avia, Inc., Piqua, Ohio. A covering note accompanying the article says: “Mr. Lear's report on the German radio equipment stressed four points: (1) The Germans have apparently ‘frozen’ their military radio design since 1933, and standardized their tubes and components for ease of mass production and servicing. (2) Shortages of war materials are indicated by the use of ceramics instead of plastics, fibre instead of rubber and special alloys instead of aluminium. (3) The extremely limited range of the transmitter (around 5 miles) and the provision for higher power output, indicate that most German warplancs in a given squadron can talk only to one another, while only the leader can communicate with his base. (4) German aircraft radio apparatus found in the Messerschmidt cannot pass U.S. Government lest for even commercial radio equipment, and weighs more than comparable American apparatus.”

EACH September the eyes of the aeronautical World turn towards the S.B.A.C. Air Display and Exhibition with interest unequalled by any other event. It is fitting that the Display is now held each year at the airfield of the Royal Aircraft Establishment, one of the world's most prominent aeronautical research centres. This interest becomes increasingly keen too, as the preview day comes closer, because new prototypes of unorthodox designs often appear a short time before the Show to illustrate the results of years of careful planning, development and research of the particular company. These designs often mould the path of progress for smaller countries without the economic resources to forge the way ahead alone. Most British citizens are very proud of their country's place in aviation today, both in the military and civil fields. This is understood by most foreigners because it is clear that Britain has won a place in aeronautical development second to none.

A brief comparison of tooling techniques in the automotive and aircraft industries. One problem arising where the same tooling shop is used lies in the difference between the types of engineering drawings. The aircraft drawings are complicated by the fact that engineering changes are not included in the up‐to‐date working drawings.

THE second Combustion Colloquium organized by the A.G.A.R.D. (Advisory Group on Aeronautical Research and Development to the N.A.T.O. Countries) was held at the University of Liege, in Belgium, on December 5–9 last, and was attended by about 200 delegates. The seventeen papers which were presented and discussed were grouped under the following headings, although their subject matter sometimes overlapped these boundaries:

This book contains the subject matter taught by the author at the École Nationale Supérieure de l'Aéronautique and at the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines in Paris. It is thus not primarily intended for professional mathematicians, but a rigour worthy of them is maintained throughout. In particular, the ideas of mathematical analysis are freely used and the small quantity ∈ is frequently mentioned. The production of such a comprehensive work in the 916 pages is in itself a remarkable achievement, but in the reviewer's opinion very few British engineers, unless they have an unusually strong mathematical bent, will find that they can derive much profit from it.

In more than 100 years of aviation, significant progress has been made in flight control systems. The aircrafts that have entered service for the past ten years tend towards power-by-wire flight control with electrical actuators. The purpose of this study is to analyse the effects of electrical actuation on power consumption, weight and fuel consumption on a commercial transport aircraft.

The Airbus A321-200 aircraft was chosen as a case study for analysing the effects of electrical actuation on the flight control actuation system (FCAS) architecture, and Pacelab SysArc software was used for design, modelling and analysis. As alternatives to the existing system, hybrid and all-electric models are built to a set of design guidelines with certain limitations.

Compared to the existing FCAS architecture model, 80 kg weight savings in the hybrid FCAS architecture model and 171 kg weight savings in the all-electric FCAS architecture model were observed. In terms of fuel consumption, it has been observed that there is 0.25% fuel savings in the hybrid FCAS architecture model, and 0.48% fuel savings in the all-electric FCAS architecture model compared to the existing FCAS architecture model at 3200 NM.

In line with the data obtained from this study, it is predicted that electrical actuation is more preferable in aircraft, considering its positive effects on weight and fuel consumption.

In this study, three different models were created: the existing FCAS architecture of a commercial transport aircraft, the hybrid FCAS architecture and the all-electric FCAS architecture. Hybrid and all-electric models are built according to a set of design guidelines, with certain limitations. Then, similar flight missions consisting of the same flight conditions are defined to analyse the effects of power consumption, weight, and fuel consumption comparatively.

This paper deals with the organizing of interactive product development. Developing products in interaction between firms may provide benefits in terms of specialization, increased innovation, and possibilities to perform development activities in parallel. However, the differentiation of product development among a number of firms also implies that various dependencies need to be dealt with across firm boundaries. How dependencies may be dealt with across firms is related to how product development is organized. The purpose of the paper is to explore dependencies and how interactive product development may be organized with regard to these dependencies.

The analytical framework is based on the industrial network approach, and deals with the development of products in terms of adaptation and combination of heterogeneous resources. There are dependencies between resources, that is, they are embedded, implying that no resource can be developed in isolation. The characteristics of and dependencies related to four main categories of resources (products, production facilities, business units and business relationships) provide a basis for analyzing the organizing of interactive product development.

Three in-depth case studies are used to explore the organizing of interactive product development with regard to dependencies. The first two cases are based on the development of the electrical system and the seats for Volvo’s large car platform (P2), performed in interaction with Delphi and Lear respectively. The third case is based on the interaction between Scania and Dayco/DFC Tech for the development of various pipes and hoses for a new truck model.

The analysis is focused on what different dependencies the firms considered and dealt with, and how product development was organized with regard to these dependencies. It is concluded that there is a complex and dynamic pattern of dependencies that reaches far beyond the developed product as well as beyond individual business units. To deal with these dependencies, development may be organized in teams where several business units are represented. This enables interaction between different business units’ resource collections, which is important for resource adaptation as well as for innovation. The delimiting and relating functions of the team boundary are elaborated upon and it is argued that also teams may be regarded as actors. It is also concluded that a modular product structure may entail a modular organization with regard to the teams, though, interaction between business units and teams is needed. A strong connection between the technical structure and the organizational structure is identified and it is concluded that policies regarding the technical structure (e.g. concerning “carry-over”) cannot be separated from the management of the organizational structure (e.g. the supplier structure). The organizing of product development is in itself a complex and dynamic task that needs to be subject to interaction between business units.

This paper explores the emergence and coordination of synchrony in networked groups like those that develop integrated product platforms in collaborative ecosystems. While synchronized actions are an important objective for many groups, interorganizational network theory has yet to explore synchrony in depth perhaps because it does not fit the typical diffusion models this research relies upon. By adding organizationally realistic features – sparse network structure and intentional coordination – to the firefly model from theoretical biology, I take some first steps in understanding synchrony in organizational groups. Like diffusion, synchrony is more effective in denser networks, but unlike diffusion clustering decelerates synchrony’s emergence. Coordination by a few group members accelerates group-wide synchrony, and benefits the coordinating organizations with a higher likelihood that it converges to the coordinating organization’s preferred rhythm. This likelihood of convergence to an organization’s preferred rhythm – what I term synchrony performance – increases in denser networks, but is not dependent on tie strength and clustering.