The CHAIRMAN, in opening the meeting, said that it was a privilege to introduce Lt -Col MEAD, who tonight would give us a soldier's viewpoint on helicopters It would be agreed that this was rather a red-letter occasion It had been very difficult to get the Army, except in little private corners, to say very much No doubt Colonel Mead would say that the views he expressed were purely personal opinions, as he had to do, but from his antecedents it was obvious that he knew what he was talking about

The Chairman, in opening the meeting, said that the development of rotating wing aircraft in France had been well supported by military contracts ever since Liore et Olivier had taken a licence from Cierva to manufacture Autogiros The French version of the C 30 Autogiro with the Salmson engine, was given extensive military trials, so much so that on one occasion it had been a surprise to him to see as many as fifty of these machines in operation at an Army airfield in France The development of the helicopter had been undertaken with similar intensity and quite a number of successful types—a whole family of helicopters, in fact—had emerged