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A Golden Jubilee provides a splendid excuse, if excuse be needed, for reminiscing about the good old days and for congratulations on the even better present times.

In aviation safety circles conversation is liberally sprinkled with the magic words “Ten to the Sixth”. At the risk of insulting the intelligence of the majority of the readers, let me interpret. “Ten to the Sixth”, which is written 106, is simply shorthand for ten multiplied by itself six times, in other words one million. 105 or 107 or 108 or whatever all follow the same rule. Ten to the minus seven, written 10−7, is one divided by ten million, and so forth, solely to avoid writing innumerable zeros.

Academician A. N. Tupoley, designer of the Tu‐144 supersonic transport, has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Aeronautical Society. Honorary Fellowships have also been awarded to Sir Robert Cockburn, Fellow Commoner, Churchill College, Cambridge, and to Dr C. S. Draper, Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Honorary Companionship has been awarded to Sir Anthony Milward, ex‐Chairman of B.E.A. The Society's Gold Medal is awarded to Mr Walter Tye, Chief Executive of the Air Registration Board, and the Society's Silver Medal to Mr E. E. Marshall, Technical Director, B.A.C., Weybridge. Mr N. F. Harpur, Chief Technician at British Aircraft Corporation, Filton was awarded the Society's Bronze Medal, and the Wakefield Gold Medal went to Mr J. H. Briggs, Director/Electronics, Research and Development (Civil Aviation), Ministry of Aviation and Supply. The British Gold Medal for Aeronautics for 1970 has been awarded to Mr P. A. Hufton, Deputy Director of the Royal Aircraft Establishment and the British Silver Medal for Aeronautics for 1970 goes to Mr M. J. Brennan, Executive Director Special Projects, Hawker Siddeley Aviation Ltd.

This is the first of a series of articles which examine the problem of future energy supplies and the likely effects on aircraft design. The energy problem is clearly a major issue which can affect the world in many ways. Aircraft design is but one small segment of the many applications of engineering which will need to respond to the challenge of a fast changing energy situation. To form a picture of the nature of the aircraft design challenge requires some appreciation of the wider issues of the future energy situation. Thus these articles include both the general and the particular.

This is the first of a series of articles about the methods used to achieve high safety standards in civil aircraft which employ complex systems. The topic is a large one, and some of the procedures of safety assessment are elaborate. The basic principles are, however, straightforward, and the purpose of these articles is to present a general picture of what is involved.

The previous articles in this series have concentrated on fatal accidents. This was done for two reasons. First a fatal accident is a more significant consequence of lack of safety than is a non‐fatal one. Second, the data available about fatal accidents are generally more complete and reliable. There are however other measures of risk which can usefully be considered in looking at the picture of safety as a whole.

In these days of soaring fuel prices, it seems almost a paradox to assert that the cost of energy is zero. Yet it is plainly true that energy in its ‘raw state’, for instance crude oil in its subterranean cavities, costs man‐kind precisely nothing. It is equally true of every form of energy, whether it be solar or hydro or nuclear or geothermal, or any of the other fossil fuels, such as coal or gas. All of them in their original form are provided by mother nature entirely without charge.

The first article in this series introduced the topic of air safety with a somewhat parochial review of trends in U.K. air transport. This present article expands the horizons to the international scene. My purpose is to examine trends over the last few years, and then to attempt a forecast of what can be expected in the next decade.

There are several improvements in prospect in the design of aircraft and engines which offer benefits to the amount of fuel used. Most are based on a solid background of research, and therefore the potential gains are fairly predictable. However, it is also true that most of the advances will need considerable development work to bring them to a point of readiness for introduction in design. The advances described below are ones which might reasonably be expected to be introduced into new designs in the mid‐1980s.

THIS article summarizes the activities of the Air Registration Board, and the results of its work, over the past five years. It is therefore in the nature of a progress report. The task of presenting a progress report would be much easier if statistics, such as ‘aircraft investigated per annum’, were a true measureof progress. Whereas such figures indicate the volume of work handled, the true progress of the Board should be measured by other criteria.