Conference 7.286::space

600.0. "NACA" by WRKSYS::KLAES (N = R*fgfpneflfifaL) Fri Mar 02 1990 09:25

Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: NASA's first 'A' marks 75 years of achievement (Forwarded)
Date: 1 Mar 90 22:59:51 GMT
Reply-To: [email protected] (Peter E. Yee)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
 
Mary Sandy
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                      March 1, 1990
 
Cam Martin
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.
  
    RELEASE:  90-35
 
    NASA'S FIRST 'A' MARKS 75 YEARS OF ACHIEVEMENT
  
     With just a $5,000 initial outlay 75 years ago on March 3, 
1915, Congress established the National Advisory Committee for 
Aeronautics (NACA), which would in 1958 form the foundation for 
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  Even 
today that first small investment -- made only a dozen years 
after Orville Wright's famous flight -- is still paying enormous 
dividends. 
 
     Although the United States could claim the first heavier-
than-air flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, American aviation 
had been surpassed by European technology at the outbreak of 
World War I, and no American-designed aircraft flew in combat.  
The NACA was created to help regain the nation's position of 
aeronautical preeminence.
 
     From its beginnings as a simple government entity, NACA grew 
into the world's premier aeronautical research organization, 
pushing back the frontiers of flight for more than 4 decades.  
Aviation pioneers such as Wright, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles 
Lindbergh and Eddie Rickenbacker were among the early NACA 
members.
 
     The 1915 law directed NACA to "supervise and direct the 
study of the problems of flight, with a view to their practical 
solution."  The committee also was to facilitate the exchange of 
information within the aeronautical community.
 
     At that time, the United States had virtually no 
aeronautical engineers.  NACA focused American scientific, 
technological and industrial talent on the potential of aircraft, 
and in effect, created the academic discipline of aeronautical 
engineering and its related fields.  
 
     Though NACA was begun later than similar European efforts, 
it eventually put the United States in the lead in aviation.  
Today, three-quarters of a century later, NASA scientists and 
engineers continue to solve the problems of flight, both in and 
beyond Earth's atmosphere.  But it was NACA that first built key 
facilities and devised organizational methods for advancing what 
is now called aerospace technology. 
 
     The practical-minded engineers and scientists of NACA 
incubated the ideas and hatched the technology that first allowed 
American aviation to take off and fly.  The returns on the 
nation's investment in NACA remain clearly visible today in 
numerous ways.
 
     By recognizing the needs of manufacturers and the military, 
NACA contributed extensively to every generation of commercial, 
civilian and military aircraft and developed the foundations for 
the modern aviation and space industries.  The economic benefits 
of this long-term American competitiveness are a particularly 
clear part of the NACA legacy.  In 1989, for instance, the U.S. 
aerospace industry saw a trade surplus of some $18 billion.
 
              Facilities for Aeronautical Research
 
     The inception and subsequent major periods of growth for the 
NACA were spurred by some of the century's major historical 
events.  World War I demonstrated the military value of 
aircraft.  Charles A. Lindbergh's 1927 solo Atlantic crossing 
caught the world's imagination.  World War II required massive 
research and development in aviation, as did the events of the 
decades that followed.
 
     The growth spurred by these events was evident in another 
visible aspect of the NACA legacy:  research facilities.
 
     By the early 1920s, aeronautical research had begun in 
earnest at NACA's Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, 
Hampton, Va., Hampton, Va., whose personnel formed the nucleus 
for two newer laboratories.  On the eve of World War II, Ames 
Aeronautical Laboratory was begun in Mountain View, Calif., and 
the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory began operations in 
Cleveland.  These three NACA laboratories are now known as NASA 
Langley, Ames, and Lewis Research Centers, respectively.
 
     The challenge for NACA researchers in the 1920s was to 
improve virtually every characteristic of aircraft.  The struts 
and wire braces of biplanes caused severe, speed-reducing drag.  
The planes had poor lift-to-drag ratios, bad propellers and 
underpowered, unreliable engines.  Basic understanding of the 
principles of flight was limited.
 
     The primary research tool for overcoming these problems was 
the wind tunnel.  NACA's first wind tunnel was dedicated at 
Langley in 1920. 
 
     Since that time, aerospace researchers have used wind 
tunnels to test their ideas.  By moving an airstream across an 
aircraft, component or model, they can gather test data reliably, 
inexpensively and safely.
 
     NACA's first Full-Scale Tunnel was built after NACA had 
risen to international aviation research preeminence during the 
1920s.  By the end of that decade, NACA's work had pointed the 
way for aircraft to evolve toward the basic aerodynamic shapes 
still seen today.
 
     The first Full-Scale Tunnel began as one of a trio of 
innovative tunnels.  Later, it was the center of the World War II 
effort to speed up military planes by finding ways to reduce 
their aerodynamic drag -- an effort that contributed 
substantially to Allied air power.
 
     In 1990, this same tunnel is about to enter its 7th decade 
of churning out valuable aerodynamic data.  As one of scores of 
American tunnels conducting research into every kind of flight, 
including flight through and out of Earth's atmosphere, tunnels  
are used in studies of military, general aviation and commuter 
aircraft.  In fact, this circa-1930 facility has a backlog of 
demand and is staffed for double shifts.
 
     Another example of the NACA legacy in research tools -- and 
therefore also of continuing returns on original investments in 
the organization -- is the world's largest wind tunnel located at 
Ames Research Center.  The tunnel's largest test section was 40 
feet by 80 feet.
 
     This facility was built during World War II and could test a 
complete fighter plane with its engine running.  The tunnel was 
still the world's largest in 1987 when its size was increased to 
80 by 120 feet and the power of its huge fans was nearly 
quadrupled.  It now can accommodate even larger aircraft.
 
     A supersonic tunnel at Lewis, built in the early 1950's , 
tackled the special problems of testing full-scale jet and rocket 
engines.  The tunnel, which is still in use, has been used for a 
wide range of aircraft, airbreathing missiles and manned 
spacecraft tests.
 
     Wind tunnels today still constitute a large part of the 
American investment in aeronautical research tools.  In 1988, a 
special committee of the National Research Council valued the 
combined replacement cost of American tunnels in the billions of 
dollars and wrote that the health of these facilities is 
integrally linked with the health of the entire national 
aeronautical development effort.  The research heritage of wind 
tunnels -- and many of the tunnels themselves -- come from the 
NACA era. 
 
                        NACA Achievements
 
     NACA/NASA innovations won six Collier trophies, America's 
most prestigious aviation award, for outstanding contributions to 
aeronautics technology.  In innumerable other instances, NACA 
contributions paved the way for other immediate or longer-term 
improvements in aircraft.  By the post-World War II era, the work 
of NACA even began paving the way toward the Space Age.
 
     The first Collier Trophy was given in 1929 for the 
innovative NACA cowling, which was placed around the radial air-
cooled engine of the day to reduce drag while allowing the needed 
cooling.  In 1946, NACA won the Collier Trophy for developing a 
thermal ice-prevention system for aircraft.
 
     After World War II, NACA began extensive work in jet engine 
research, and led advances in high-speed aerodynamics with 
programs like the X-1, in which Chuck Yeager surpassed the speed 
of sound in 1947, and the X-15, the first winged vehicle to fly 
into space.  The 1947 X-1 flight led to NACA's third Collier 
Trophy in 1948.
 
     NACA's fourth and fifth Collier trophies came in 1951 and 
1955.  One was for a wind-tunnel technology innovation called the 
slotted throat, which enabled tunnels to simulate the conditions 
of transonic flight or flight near and exceeding the speed of 
sound.  The other was for the transonic "area rule," a principle 
of aerodynamic shaping that greatly enhanced the designs of 
supersonic aircraft.  
 
     Building on NACA's proud heritage, NASA was awarded a sixth 
Collier trophy in 1987 for developing the technology for and 
testing of advanced turboprop propulsion systems that offer 
dramatic reduction in fuel usage for future subsonic transport 
aircraft.
 
     The NACA research tradition lent itself well to work on 
concepts for aerospace craft that would need to return to Earth 
from orbit or from spaceflight.  Many NACA researchers worked 
years ahead of existing technology in the post-World War II era, 
much as NASA researchers often do today.  They established the 
fundamental atmospheric re-entry during these pre-NASA years.
 
                75 Years of Returns on Investment
 
     As the world's premier organization for aeronautical 
research, NACA provided the foundation -- the people, the 
institutions, the research tools -- on which NASA and the 
American aerospace industry have been built.  The extent of the 
NACA-era legacy to NASA and to the nation shines through in a 
recent celebration of engineering achievements by the National 
Academy of Engineering.
 
     The academy cited NASA's Apollo moon landing as one of the 
greatest engineering achievements of all time and listed nine 
other achievements as the greatest of the past quarter-century.  
In addition to Apollo, three of these nine involve some large 
degree of NASA contribution:  unmanned satellites, advanced 
composite materials and the jumbo jet.  Four other cited 
achievements fall within the sphere of daily activity throughout 
NASA:  micro-processors, computer-aided design, lasers and fiber-
optic communication.  
 
     Even after 75 years, that first $5,000 appropriated by 
Congress in 1915 is still paying off throughout the American 
economy and in NASA -- a scientific and technological 
organization that spurs American competitiveness, spans the 
continent and reaches for the heavens.
 
                             - end -
 
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