Humanity with all its fearsWith all the hopes of future years,Is hanging breathless on thy Fate.Longfellow.12th January 1966, is the one hundredth birthday of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain.The story of the first hundred years of the Aeronautical Society began with long data-less periods of unfulfilled hopes. Like the paradoxical supersonic aeroplanes which arrive at their destinations before they are timed to take off, the story of the Society was started fifty years before it began, by Sir George Cayley, who wrote a famous paper on Aerial Navigation, laying down the fundamental principles of heavier-than-air flight.
