[99] The years 1926 and 1927 witnessed dramatic changes in both American aviation and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The Air Commerce Act established for the first time official government control and support of civilian aviation. The navy and army aircraft-building programs ensured strong aviation; arms in both services and produced "the only time during [the first half century of American aviation] when the United States had a consistent, planned policy in peacetime for maintaining a healthy level of aircraft production." The American aircraft industry emerged from its postwar slump and enjoyed a period of sustained growth and prosperity.¹

By far the most dramatic catalyst to the advancement of American aviation in the second half of the 1920s was Charles A. Lindbergh. His solo flight from New York to Paris in the summer of 1927 caught the imagination and the hearts of the American people as had no other event in the twentieth century. Overnight, he became a hero and aviation gained a popularity and respectability that the Wright brothers, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Billy Mitchell had been unable to bestow upon it. "More than any other single factor," historian John B. Rae has observed, "his flight sold the American people on commercial aviation." Even the NACA felt the immediate popular impact. Lewis wrote to John J. Ide in September of 1927 that "'since the Lindbergh flight the business of our Intelligence Office has increased practically 100 per cent."² There was a fever in the land to know about aviation, perhaps even to give it a try.

As these events were changing American aviation, the NACA was also changing. At the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, Max Munk was out and Henry J.E. Reid was in. The triumph of engineering over science did not entirely please the Committee, but there seemed [100] no alternative. Reid made things work, Munk made trouble. The only remedy was to replace Munk with someone more congenial to the staff.

At headquarters, Walcott died in 1927 after having reluctantly accepted election the previous fall to an eighth consecutive term as chairman of the Main Committee. In his place the NACA elected Joseph S. Ames, who had been chairman of the Executive Committee (the real locus of power) during the same eight years. With Walcott's passing, the formative years of the NACA came to an end. His genius had been political and organizational, consummating in the give and take of Washington politics the dream of establishing for the United States an aeronautical research organization rivaling those of Europe. He, more than any other individual, had guided the campaign through the frustrating years of failed commissions and stalled legislation, and had ensured for the nascent committee an acceptable status within the government hierarchy and the American aviation scene. Although he never mastered the technology of aviation, as a bureau-builder he was without peer.³

With Ames installed as Walcott's successor, the triumvirate that would rule the NACA until World War II was in place. Ames's eleva....

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[101] ....tion to chairmanship of the Main Committee gave him the title and prestige to match the power he continued to hold as chairman of the Executive Committee. From nearby Baltimore, where he rose from professor to president of Johns Hopkins in 1929, Ames commuted one day a week to Washington to conduct the Committee's business; he held himself available by telephone at other times. George Lewis and John Victory ran the agency day-by-day, Lewis the technical aspects, Victory the administrative. Both were sincere admirers of Ames and did their best to carry out his wishes. In Ames's absence, they enjoyed considerable authority but tried always to conform to what Dr. Ames would want.⁴

The professional training and temperament of these three men determined the public image of the NACA: Ames the scientist, Lewis the engineer, Victory the bureaucrat. Nominally, the arrangement was hierarchical and triangular with science at the top, engineering and administration at the base angles. But very often over the years it was difficult to tell where one left off and the others began, let alone which one was on top. One thing remained clear: the show would be run from Washington. All three men realized that the aeronautical research to which the NACA was dedicated was conducted at Langley, but they also realized that Langley could not survive by itself. The headquarters was needed to secure funds, mend political fences, prevent duplication, and keep the Langley program in line with the needs of the NACA's customers, especially the military services and the aircraft industry. The laboratory that came into the hands of Henry Reid in 1926 was an undeniably versatile and powerful tool for executing the Committee's program, but it was no more than that. Its purposes must always serve those of the Committee, not the other way round. In a Freudian slip of startling clarity, Ames wrote to Lewis in 1924: "I was very glad to get your letters, & to hear of your visit to the Laboratories. We are the real people." Of course he meant to write "They are the real people." This was part of the catechism of the headquarters. But Ames and Lewis knew where the real hope for the NACA lay: it lay with the leaders in Washington and their ability to steer the agency through hazardous political waters into safe harbor.⁵

While Ames, Lewis, and Victory took charge in the late 1920s, other events were influencing the course of the Committee's history. In a move that had been under way since the passage of the Air Commerce Act in 1926, Congress in 1929 increased the membership of the Main Committee from 12 to 15. Originally this idea had been suggested to make room for the assistant secretaries of the army, navy, and Department of Commerce, whose posts had been created by the 1926 legislation. As passed, however, the 1929 bill required only that the three additional members have the same qualifications as the original [102] members from private life: i.e., that they be "acquainted with the needs of aeronautical science, either civil or military, or skilled in aeronautical engineering or its allied sciences." In theory, private members now could outnumber government members eight to seven. However, one of the new positions was reserved exclusively for the assistant secretary of commerce, and the tradition of majority government representation on the NACA was never violated.⁶

In 1927 the "Rules and Regulations for the Conduct of the Work of the Committee" were amended to provide that the members of the Main Committee would elect from their number a vice chairman instead of a secretary. Retired Admiral David W. Taylor, a member of the Committee since 1917 first as a navy representative and then as an at-large member from private life, was elected vice chairman in 1927 and annually thereafter until he retired from the Committee in 1938. He came into the offices every day, serving ably as executive officer to the absent Dr. Ames. John Victory was elevated to the position of appointed secretary, and two years later his chief aide received the title of assistant secretary.⁷

Also in 1927, Congress amended a provision of the Army Five Year Aircraft Program that had assigned to the NACA review responsibilities for aeronautical patents submitted to the government. The new procedure strengthened the Committee's role and led to creation of a Committee on Aeronautical Inventions and Designs, which sat until the beginning of World War II.⁸

Other new committees appeared as well, corresponding to the branches of aeronautics that the NACA considered worthy of special attention. Main technical committees on Aircraft Accidents (1928-1941) and Problems of Air Navigation (1928-1935) reflected increased concern with the problems of aircraft operation and the safety of commercial aviation, as did the new subcommittees on Instruments (1928-1935), Meteorological Problems (1928-1958), and Problems of Communication (1928-1930). Some subcommittees were merely signs of the times, like Aeronautical Research in Universities (1928 1930), which existed while the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics was actively establishing aeronautical laboratories at selected colleges and universities around the country, and the subcommittee on Airships (1927-1940), which sat while these dinosaurs of the air were in their heyday. At least one committee - Aircraft Structures (1927-1958) - marked the beginning of a long-term NACA commitment to a new line of research.⁹

None of these organizational adjustments proved as significant as the solidification of the NACA leadership at headquarters and at Langley Field, for in the absence of a Max Munk or a technically knowledgeable Main Committee it was Ames, Lewis, Victory, and Reid who would [103] determine the Committee's course in aeronautical research. Or rather they would manage the system through which the research program evolved. By 1926, the main function of the NACA had been clearly defined as fundamental research, with heavy emphasis on aerodynamics. The question that remained was: What would be the specifics of the program? How would the NACA determine what project to undertake next, what fields to enter, what subjects to ignore or leave to others? Munk, with his broad knowledge and intuitive grasp of theory, had always seemed to know.¹⁰ Without him, the NACA had to rely on a process of screening and consultation to determine by consensus what seemed best.

As it evolved in the 1920s the process worked like this: The Committee received suggestions for research projects from three primary sources - other government agencies, most often the military services; the NACA staff, especially the staff at Langley; and outside sources, most often aircraft manufacturers. Requests from the services or other government agencies went directly to the Executive Committee and were approved without question, so long as they did not duplicate work already under way at Langley or elsewhere. Proposals from other sources went to an appropriate subcommittee for evaluation on their technical merits and, if approved there, were sent to the Executive Committee. After 1926, George Lewis insisted that all recommendations from the Langley staff be routed to him before going to the technical subcommittee, an attempt on his part to prevent zealous staffers from selling their pet ideas ' to one of the subcommittees and foisting on Lewis a project he did not want. In all these proposals, the NACA looked for investigations that promised to reveal some fundamental aeronautical knowledge applicable to all flight, not just to the prototype or assembly or instrument that was causing a problem or raising a question. For the military services, however, the NACA met all requests, whether for fundamental research or not.¹¹

When a project was approved, a research authorization was signed by Ames and forwarded to the Langley laboratory for execution. All research at LMAL was conducted under a research authorization, at least in the early years, and each RA was expected to lead to the publication of a NACA report. After 1920, the NACA began to publish preliminary results as "technical notes," a less formal typescript document used by the Committee to disseminate information not yet ready for final publication.¹² Minor amendments could be made to research authorizations in the course of the investigation, but large changes usually resulted in a new RA and ultimately a different report. Regular review of active research authorizations led to cancellation or consolidation of those that proved less productive.¹³

[104] One feature of the research authorizations, especially those initiated by the staff at Langley, differentiated Ames and Lewis somewhat. Like Bothezat and Munk and other scientists, Ames believed that the researcher must be granted the maximum amount of freedom in determining how to conduct his research; for Ames, serendipity and inspiration were as important in research as the rational structuring of a program. George Lewis, the engineer, agreed up to a point, or at least paid lip service to the notion. For example, he told the staff at Langley in 1924 that "research authorizations . . . are intended to be rather broad in scope so, as to permit the technical staff to use their own initiative in pursuing the problems."¹⁴

Ames, however, seems to have meant something else when he spoke of initiative. He would have the researcher play an active role in selecting and formulating the investigations he was to conduct. For Ames, asking the right questions was a necessary precondition of getting the right answers. In 1922 he criticized the National Physical Laboratory of England for failing to embrace this principle.

Their method is this: There are subcommittees of the Advisory Board dealing with the various subjects. They decide what problems are to be investigated. Suggestions are made to these subcommittees by the actual laboratory workers themselves in the shape of research programs. The Advisory Committee passes upon the programs. The N.P.L. is not free to undertake investigations without this approval; they have no initiative in regard to investigations until authorized."¹⁵

What is most remarkable about this comment is that Ames was describing the very process that the NACA would adopt as soon as Munk departed. As late as 1925, Ames was still leveling the same criticism at the British. He told the Morrow Board:

England, in my judgement, has the best men working on it [aeronautics]. I think their men, man for man are better than the men we have. But they lack a workable organization and facilities..... They lack opportunity for initiative. Their men are not allowed to undertake problems that they think of themselves. They undertake problems handed down by the Air Ministry.¹⁶

To the extent that the Air Ministry was a body separate from the N.P.L. and thus not a part of the research process, Ames's argument had some merit. But he either did not know or deliberately ignored the extent to which George Lewis was attempting to funnel all internal initiative through his own office. Lewis did not object to the fact that the ideas surfaced at Langley: in fact, he seems to have agreed with Ames that this was a normal part of the research process. He differed with Ames over the amount of autonomy the researcher should have in [105] pursuing these ideas. Ames would have given the researcher his head, whereas Lewis wanted such initiative pursued only with the approval of headquarters.¹⁷

This difference in perspective is apparent in the different ways they dealt with Max Munk. Ames was genuinely proud of Munk and his contributions to the Committee. He spoke of the Committee's irreparable loss when Munk left. Lewis was not unmindful of Munk's contributions, but he had to deal with the man every day, and when they parted company it was with bitterness and hard words. Ames could contemplate the advance of aeronautics from his study in Baltimore, but Lewis had to make the NACA organization function, and for that he needed discipline, order, and team players. In 1931 Lewis sent to Langley laboratory the following quotation from a recent speech by Herbert Hoover in praise of Thomas Edison:

I may emphasize that both scientific discovery and its practical application are the products of long and arduous research. Discovery and invention do not spring full grown from the brains of men. The labor of a host of men, great laboratories, long, patient, scientific experiment build up the structure of knowledge, not stone by stone, but particle by particle. This adding of fact to fact some day brings forth a revolutionary discovery, an illuminating hypothesis, a great generalization or practical invention.¹⁸

To Lewis, this summary "so aptly cover[ed] the alms and purposes of the Committee" that he directed it be framed at Langley and hung in the office of the engineer-in-charge or the corridor of the administration building.

Lewis and Ames viewed the work of the Committee from different vantage points, Lewis from the engineer's, Ames from the scientist's. In large measure they agreed, but clearly disagreed in subtle ways difficult to document. Understanding these slightly different perspectives makes the following extract from the Annual Report of 1930 more revealing.

Previous summaries of the progress in aerodynamic development called attention to the fact that the main theoretical foundations of this new science have been firmly laid and that the present work is necessarily restricted to extensions of or additions to existing theory. This does not mean that no important theoretical work is being done; it means that practically all of the present work is along lines previously laid out and that no new outstanding general problems are in sight. With this explanation it may be stated with confidence that problems of a basic or fundamental nature are now receiving far more attention than at any time in the past.....¹⁹

[106] In other words, Munk was no longer needed. Nor did the researcher need much guidance in staying on course. The NACA (read George Lewis) knew where it was going, and decisions on how to get there would be more political than theoretical: how to avoid duplication, how to answer the needs of industry and the services, how to stay off the toes of others in the field. There was a hazard in this attitude. It contains a serious logical inconsistency, but it was one that both George Lewis and Joseph Ames could live with. Anyone who approaches scientific research with the assumption that the existing theoretical framework is both correct and adequate is unlikely to discover evidence at odds with that framework. The essence of scientific research is skepticism and unbiased evaluation of evidence. The excerpt from the 1930 Report implies condemnation of Munk's style of research, the pursuit of original ideas that might be brilliant or crazy. Lewis could not tolerate such a pursuit in his day-to-day running of the laboratory; Ames, more inclined by nature and experience to indulge it, had to guard against antagonizing the Committee's clients and supporters. Lewis and Victory drafted the report out of their concern for engineering and administration; Ames signed it presumably out of his concern for politics. If the report fell short of his ideal of a research ethic, it nevertheless addressed itself to fundamental research and claimed as much as was possible for a government agency.²⁰

The research process worked out by Ames and Lewis in the early 1920s and instituted in full after Munk's departure was a compromise of sorts, but one that worked exceedingly well. It allowed for review of all NACA research when first proposed and at various intervals thereafter. Because the technical subcommittees evaluating and monitoring the research contained experts in the various branches of aeronautics, there was some guarantee that the subjects chosen for research were the best and most promising ones. Because the Executive Committee contained representatives of all the parties interested in aeronautical development (except industry), there was some guarantee that duplication was being avoided and that the NACA was not straying into someone else's territory. In practice, Lewis and Ames often gave their approval - individually or jointly - to some research project without consulting either the technical subcommittee or the Executive Committee.²¹ When there was any doubt, however, they fell back on the process, for there lay consensus and caution. The system may have lacked brilliance and inspiration, but it provided a rational and defensible system of research selection.

The Committee did retain some of the daring and originality of Max Munk in its development of research equipment. The success of the variable-density wind tunnel enhanced the reputation of the Committee and emboldened Lewis to propose a new departure. When it [107] was suggested to Lewis that propeller research had reached an impasse because the scaling corrections required for the small tunnels then available yielded unsatisfactory results for the high tip-speeds then of interest, he took the problem to Munk. With the latter's concurrence, Lewis initiated a request for funds to build a propeller-research tunnel with an unprecedented 6-meter throat that would allow full-scale testing of propellers and would obtain results comparable to those achieved in the variable-density tunnel for airfoil and airplane models. The power required to run air through such a tunnel at an acceptable speed was enormous, but that bothered neither Munk nor Lewis. They saw the request through Congress and had construction under way in less than a year.²²

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The propeller-research tunnel, which went into service in 1927, proved as revolutionary and effective as the variable-density tunnel. By the time another dramatically new tunnel was proposed, Munk was no longer with the Committee, but Lewis went ahead on his own. In 1928 he recommended construction of a full scale wind tunnel that could accommodate actual aircraft. At the time, the propeller-research tunnel had the largest throat of any in the world (6 meters) and most tunnels [108] were in the class of the other two at Langley, 1.5 meters at the test section. Lewis was proposing nothing less than a tunnel with a test section 9 by 18 meters. Because the other tunnels had been so successful and so productive, the Bureau of the Budget and Congress approved even this huge request, and the fiscal 1930 budget included $525,000 in construction funds to begin the work. This single tunnel would finally cost almost three times as much as all the other buildings constructed at Langley in the laboratory's first 12 years, including 3 laboratory buildings, the atmospheric tunnel, the variable-density tunnel, hangars, and the propeller-research tunnel.²³

In the same year that this money was appropriated, Congress also allotted to the NACA $208,000 to construct a towing tank to study seaplanes. This project also was recommended by Lewis, this time on the basis of a trip to Europe to examine the laboratories of the competition.²⁴ With the NACA's reputation and boldness growing, the Committee was now trying to secure its newly won position as the best equipped and most productive aeronautical-research establishment in the world.

The building program of the late 1920s was heady stuff, but - like all intoxicants - it had its dangers. In this case the hazard was that the tools of research would become more important than the research itself. The new wind tunnels were magnificent engineering specimens, the kind of machine with which an engineer could easily become enamored. A researcher forced, for lack of equipment, to stand at his blackboard or look out the window is not likely to lose sight of the big picture. Too often, that is all he sees, for he lacks the wherewithal to test or pursue his ideas. On the other hand, if an engineer has a wind tunnel he will use it - and it will use him. The NACA engineers at Langley Field, possessed of the best research equipment in the world, climbed into their tunnels and promptly lost sight of events outside those narrow chambers. They produced magnificent results in applied aerodynamics, but, as time went by, other fields would need - and fail to receive - equal attention.

The danger was not apparent in the late 1920s, years of growth and promise and excitement. The events of 1926 and 1927 had created a boom in American aviation, and the NACA was riding high on a crest that carried along other elements of the field as well. Not least of these was the aircraft-manufacturing industry, recovering at last from the collapse that followed World War I. Orders for new and improved aircraft were pouring in from the military and from private carriers, [109] and industry turned to the NACA for answers to the problems posed by these requests. The NACA, for its part, took the industry's demands seriously, believing that both civil and military aviation were worthy of experimental research. The Committee went so far as to state in 1927 that "civil aviation must in itself be regarded as one of the most important factors of civilization."²⁵

Industry's need for NACA research and the Committee's determination to help industry raised the question of how the parties should communicate. How should the industry make its needs known to the NACA? How should the Committee report its results to industry? The simplest and most direct solution was membership on the Main Committee and the main technical committees for industry representatives. Suggestions of this sort had been made as early as 1919 but had always been rejected. Industry representation had been limited mostly to the technical subcommittees. In the years between the world wars, industry maintained about the same relative strength in numbers while making some positional gains. The Aerodynamics Committee never had industry representatives. Power Plants for Aircraft did briefly, but these were purged soon after World War I. Materials for Aircraft always had representatives from industry, largely because there was no other source of expertise in fields such as metallurgy for aircraft. Industry representatives also appeared in the 1920s on subcommittees of Materials for Aircraft, such as the subcommittees on Metals and Aircraft Structures. When the Committee on Problems of Air Navigation was formed in 1928, it contained industry representatives, including one who was chairman of the Subcommittee on Problems of Communication.²⁶

From the industry's point of view, however, it seemed that the technical committees proposed and the Main Committee disposed. The Main Committee made the final decisions on the course of NACA research, at least nominally, and it was there that the industry looked for representation. The strongest voice in support of such a move in the 1920s was Edward P. Warner, the former chief scientist at LMAL in 1919 and 1920. Warner spoke with authority, for his remarkable career in aeronautics was already well launched. From LMAL, he had returned to MIT to teach aeronautics. In 1926, at the age of 31, he was appointed the first Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Aeronautics. Three years later, after moving from the navy to the editorship of Aviation, Warner was appointed a member of the NACA.²⁷

Since 1920 Warner had been a member of the Committee on Materials, and with that experience in mind he wrote to Ames in 1927 recommending more "liberal representation to industrial and other non-governmental .... interests" on the main technical committees,.......

......i.e., Aerodynamics and Power Plants. He felt "three or four representatives of the aircraft industry" could broaden the effectiveness of the committee, and his service on the Materials committee revealed no "instance during the last five years when subjects [were] discussed which could not properly have been gone into before, and with, the representatives of the industry or when their presence would have been otherwise than beneficial."²⁸

Ames brought Warner's suggestion to the attention of the Executive Committee, which promptly referred it to the Committee on Personnel, Buildings, and Equipment. There, the objections of George Lewis carried the day. Lewis feared that the committees would become unwieldy if members from industry were added, and he doubted that a satisfactory scheme could be formulated for equalizing representation of the various industry interests. He recommended that industry membership be limited to the technical subcommittees. The Committee on Personnel, Buildings, and Equipment concurred, as did the Executive Committee in its turn. The time for a ma or industry voice in NACA policy was not yet, in spite of the growing power and importance of the industry.²⁹

[111] Although it denied full representation to industry in the late 1920s, the NACA took several lesser steps to promote communication and cooperation. It increased industry membership on technical subcommittees and ad hoc committees. It began systematic visits to factories of major aircraft manufacturers, publicizing the NACA's work and asking about industry's problems. It also paid more attention to civil aviation. As the NACA stated in its Annual Report for 1928:

The development of aviation in America during the past year has been amazing, and emphasizes the necessity for the continued study on a large scale of the basic problems of increase in safety and reduction in cost of construction, maintenance, and operation of aircraft. The research programs of the Committee have been enlarged during the past year to serve increasing needs of a growing Industry.³⁰

 

This interest in civilian aviation reflected the lessening demands of the military services in the halcyon years of the late twenties, the growing influence of the aviation industry (both manufacture and operation), and the Committee's longstanding belief in the importance to the United States of commercial aviation and the Committee's responsibility for helping it develop. Through these years the NACA stressed research in noise reduction, safety, and economy - features of aviation not of primary importance to the military.

The Committee's most important concession to industry in the late 1920s was to institute the annual industry conference at Langley laboratory. Beginning in 1926, the NACA invited the leading figures in the field of aviation from industry, academia, and government to Langley for a one-day tour of the laboratory and a briefing on the Committee's work. These trips soon developed into a ritual as important as the tour itself. Attendees would gather in Washington the day before the conference and board a Chesapeake Bay steamer for an overnight trip to the southern end of the bay. After docking at Old Point Comfort in the morning and having breakfast at the Hotel Chamberlain, the attendees would be driven to the field by Langley employees. The morning was given over to a tour of the laboratory. After lunch at the airbase officers' club, the guests would hear the Langley staff report on its current work in carefully rehearsed and choreographed formal presentations. Questions and suggestions were invited throughout. As evening came, the visitors were returned to Old Point Comfort, where they boarded the steamer for dinner and another overnight trip. They were deposited in Washington the following morning.³¹

These conferences flowed like syrup in a tube - smooth, slow, and controlled. Lewis insisted on clear presentations by the Langley staff, free of jargon and technical details, understandable to even the least informed of the guests. Though not unmindful of the useful information that would be exchanged at the conferences, Lewis viewed them primarily as public relations events, opportunities for the NACA to impress its customers and friends and to keep channels of communication open. Victory, for his part, was the social director. He personally cherished the evenings on board the steamer when great names of aviation met in pleasant surroundings and easy exchange of smalltalk and great ideas. There was opportunity for such as he to rub elbows with the leading lights in the field, who in their turn could hear the NACA story in the most salutary setting. When one distinguished aeronautical engineer at New York University elected to proceed directly to Langley and not waste the time required for the boat trip, Victory waxed indignant. Unable to understand why anyone would pass up the outing he cherished so much, Victory cajoled and badgered relentlessly. Driven to exasperation, the engineer finally asked, "Don't you think that there is a serious danger of your becoming a complete bureaucrat? In one so young this is a dreadful fate!" The warning was [113] lost on Victory. He went on orchestrating these excursions with the zeal and singlemindedness of a true believer.³²

In one respect, the annual conferences were enormously successful, for they brought together the leading figures in American aviation for an exchange of information and at the same time cast the NACA in the best possible light, both as cordial host and as exhibitor of an impressive research establishment.³³ The arrangement was not, however, entirely free of problems. Those companies profited most that could afford to send representatives, a condition that favored the larger concerns and widened the gap, at least in the minds of some, between the establishment companies (with whom the NACA already seemed too cozy) and smaller organizations struggling to make it in what was still an intensely competitive field. In the same vein, a real danger existed that results reported by the NACA at these conferences - results still months from publication - could be exploited by one of the attendees at the expense of his competitors. Finally, the industry used this podium to make requests of the NACA, and the Committee felt some obligation to deal with each of these. Doing so, however, could draw the Committee further into short-term practical research and away from the long-range fundamental research to which it was philosophically committed. Industry, after all, had to worry about selling the next prototype and needed answers to questions about that particular 'plane. The future of aeronautics would matter little to a company angling for a government contract if it were no longer in business when that future arrived.³⁴

This last problem, of course, was not created by the annual conferences, only made more apparent by them. Many problems in the Committee's relationship with the aircraft industry remained to be solved at the end of the 1920s: the conferences only made them more difficult to avoid. Should the NACA do research on industry prototypes? If so, should the results be published, or furnished only to the manufacturer? What proprietary interests did a manufacturer forfeit when he handed the Committee a design or an idea for testing? What fees should the NACA charge industry for research on prototypes, or for other problem-solving? Most of these questions would not be resolved until the 1930s, but they were being asked in the 1920s because the industry by then had a voice strong enough to make itself heard.³⁵

The most instructive example of how the NACA turned its matured research organization to the service of the aircraft industry in the late 1920s is the famous NACA cowling. The story is familiar to aeronautical circles. At one of the annual conferences at Langley, industry [114] representatives asked the NACA to investigate the cowling and cooling of radial engines, then the most popular powerplant for military and civilian aircraft. Within months of beginning work, the Langley staff had developed a new cowling that covered almost the entire engine, greatly reducing aerodynamic drag with no significant decrease in cooling. Dramatic improvement in flight efficiency resulted and the NACA won its first Collier trophy, the prestigious award presented annually "for the greatest achievement in aviation in America, the value of which has been thoroughly demonstrated by use during the preceding year."³⁶

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What is less well known is that the military services had been the first to ask the NACA to investigate cowling of radial engines. At the first industry research conference, both military and civilian representatives had suggested the cowling of air-cooled engines as a project worthy of the NACA's attention, but it was the military that had submitted the first formal request and it was the military for whom the [115] first research authorization on the subject was approved. The chief of the navy's Bureau of Aeronautics wrote to Lewis just a week after the 1926 conference to ask for help with the cowling of one of the navy's fighter planes. He noted that considerable work on cowling had been done abroad but none of the results were available in the United States. Like all requests from the military, this one was assigned a research authorization and work began on the prototype mentioned in the letter.³⁷ But this was not the work that produced the NACA cowling.

At the second conference the following year, cowling again attracted considerable attention. In fact, the vice chairman of the Aerodynamics committee judged it to be the "outstanding problem presented to the subcommittees" and recommended on behalf of his committee "a research authorization covering the investigation of cowling and streamlining an aircooled engine, both as a fundamental study and as applied to special types of commercial aircraft." The Committee saw this investigation as an ideal opportunity to serve industry directly and to pursue at the same time a line of research basic to all aviation.³⁸

What the Aerodynamics committee failed to state was that the time was now ripe for this investigation. The industry request was tabled the previous year because the propeller-research tunnel had not yet been completed. This would be the ideal facility for conducting such an investigation. It was large enough to enclose a full-scale engine, precluding the need to correct for scale effects and thus surpassing even the variable-density wind tunnel for verisimilitude. The NACA had gone along with the military request the previous year because it always honored such suggestions, but the real breakthrough on cowling would be made under the industry authorization using the propeller research tunnel. Shortly after the industry, request received a research authorization, Lewis decided to keep the two authorizations for the same investigation entirely separate, on the curious ground that the more recent request applied to commercial planes.³⁹

From the industry investigation came quick and dramatic results. Wind-tunnel tests began in July 1927. By the end of the year the NACA was circulating blueprints and plans for a proposed cowling to industry representatives and soliciting their comments and suggestions. Results were available and ready for publication by the summer of 1928. That November, the Committee published a Technical Note and sponsored an article in Aviation, the latter so that "there may be no question in the minds of aircraft people and the public in general as to the fact that the cowling is a N.A.C.A. development." The following year two separate technical reports made public the detailed results of the investigation.⁴⁰

[116] By then, however, the results were already well known. The 60-percent reduction in drag and 14-percent increase in speed predicted by the NACA were demonstrated in February 1929 when a Lockheed Air Express equipped with the NACA cowling established a new transcontinental speed of 18 hours and 13 minutes. The company wired the NACA: "RECORD IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT NEW COWLING ALL CREDIT DUE NACA FOR PAINSTAKING AND ACCURATE RESEARCH AND GENEROUS POLICY." Industry representatives and other aeronautical experts on the Collier trophy committee echoed that praise later in the same year. And manufacturers around the world gave the ultimate vote of confidence by adopting the NACA cowling almost universally in the 1930s and later, making this one of the most significant aeronautical advances of the 1920s.⁴¹

The NACA began exploiting this success with the Bureau of the Budget and Congress even before its full dimensions were known, and the hyperbole was breathtaking. Describing to the director of the BoB the NACA cowling's part in the record-breaking flight of the Lockheed plane, George Lewis reported that "the Committee feels that this development is the greatest single advance that has been made in commercial aviation." Somewhat less sweeping (though no less calculated) was the Committee's claim in its Annual Report for 1928 that "never before in the committee's history or in the history of the development of aeronautics has the value of a new piece of scientific equipment been so well demonstrated."⁴² The NACA got as much mileage out of the cowling in the halls of Congress as any plane ever got out of it in the air.

Like all successes, the NACA cowling had its share of criticism. Historian of technology John B. Rae has reported Lockheed's claim that the cowling on its Vega aircraft, first marketed in 1927, had been the basis of the NACA design; however, the enthusiastic telegram sent to the NACA by Lockheed after the record breaking flight of 1929 suggests that this was not the official position of the company. More likely, some engineers at Lockheed took exception to the claims made for the NACA cowling and wanted to suggest that the Committee's work was not entirely original. Chance Vought also provided the NACA with blueprints for one of its planes and an aircraft of similar fuselage and landing gear was used in the NACA experiments. But the correspondence on this transaction contains no evidence that the manufacturer saw any duplication of the kind of cowling it had been using before the NACA experiments.⁴³

The most serious criticism of the NACA cowling was the claim that it was preceded by (and inferior to) the Townend ring, another type of cowling for radial engines developed in England's National Physical Laboratory at about the same time. Townend published his results [117] before the NACA and thus claimed precedence. The NACA retorted that its investigation had begun before Townend's and proceeded independently of it and, in any event, the cowling it had developed was categorically different from Townend's; while his provided only a ring about the bank of engine cylinders, the NACA cowling enclosed practically the entire engine and incorporated special ducting to pass cooling air over the cylinders. Both cowlings had their merits and both saw wide use, thus feeding the dispute over which was more important or more original. That dispute ended in court, in a series of patent suits that dragged on into the 1930s.⁴⁴

Many of the disputes over the NACA cowling arose from a misperception of what the Committee had claimed for it. The NACA had professed neither conceptual originality nor revolutionary development. In fact, it had decided against taking out a patent on the cowling, leaving that tactic to its competitors and detractors. The NACA did claim that it had done more comprehensive work - original in its way - that had improved on an existing idea. The NACA cowling, said the Committee, was admittedly an innovation of an idea as old as World War I. What was different about the NACA version was that the Committee's better facilities (i.e., the propeller-research tunnel) had yielded better results and a superior configuration.

The last two claims, better facilities and better results, went hand in hand and helped to intensify the controversy. What the NACA wanted most from the cowling was more appreciation and support in Congress. It wanted to make the case that the research facilities of the Committee had helped determine the quality of the product. As the NACA had the best tunnel, so it got the best cowling. The Committee made the latter claim not so much to blow its own horn as to make a case for more tunnels. Nonetheless, the claims sounded like bragging, especially to those informed about the background of the cowling. Furthermore, singing one's own praises - for whatever good and practical purposes-can become a habit.⁴⁵

If the Committee hardened some of its critics with the public display over the cowling, it achieved important results as well. When it had requested an unprecedented full-scale wind tunnel in 1928 at a projected cost of almost $1 million, Congress demurred. The following year, however, after the success of the NACA cowling became known, Congress authorized the building of not only the 30- by 60-foot wind tunnel but also a new maintenance building and a towing tank for testing seaplane models. These were the first construction authorizations since the propeller-research tunnel had been approved more than four years previously. The message was clear. Demonstrated results from equipment already funded could be parlayed into more new equipment, even to making the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory [118] the best equipped in the world. It became just that with the construction approved in 1929, if it had not been so before.

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[119] Not all the work done with this equipment was for industry. The NACA continued to work during the late 1920s for its principal customer, the military services. All military requests for research were honored with a research authorization. The Committee on Aeronautical Inventions and Designs continued to be primarily a service for the military as its previous incarnations had been since World War I. Some NACA research applied only to military aircraft: development of accelerometers for aircraft being catapulted from a carrier, improvement of the range of pilot vision in pursuit aircraft, or analysis of stresses on pursuit aircraft in combat maneuvers.⁴⁶

However, most of the NACA's research - whether requested by the military or by industry or by the NACA staff - applied to all flight, commercial or military. As early as 1922, when trying to identify research applicable to commercial aviation, George Lewis confessed an inability to draw any line between the various uses to which aircraft could be put. As he had written to the chief physicist at Langley: "I have been thinking for sometime [sic] of problems which we could properly undertake at Langley Field that would apply directly to the development of commercial aviation but so far have not been able to think of a single problem that does not apply to aviation as a whole."⁴⁷ Devoted as it was to the fundamental problems of flight, the NACA by definition directed its efforts toward problems of wide applicability. For an agency continually called upon to answer the question, "Yes, but what have you done for me lately?", this was not only good programming, it was also good politics.

The advance of civil aviation and military aviation carried about equal weight in Washington in the late 1920s, to judge by the claims made by the NACA. Describing for the director of the Bureau of the Budget in 1928 "Some Accomplishments of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics," George Lewis divided his comments almost equally between civil and military aviation. In the military category he cited the development of instruments to measure aerodynamic loads on aircraft and on airships and to measure controllability and maneuverability of high-performance aircraft, determination of airplane-design characteristics that would control spinning, measurement of loads and stresses on seaplane bodies and floats, and improvements in propeller design and construction. For commercial aeronautics, Lewis listed cooling and cowling of aircooled engines (overlooking the fact that this work had first been requested by the military, and was equally applicable to military aircraft), reduction of interference effects created by the junctures of wing and fuselage, and development of standard sets of wing sections and of a diesel engine for aircraft. Lewis [120] also mentioned the Roots supercharger, though he left it unclear whether this was a military or a commercial development. In fact, almost all the work he cited was equally applicable to all kinds of aviation, and Lewis's division into military or commercial categories seems to have been arbitrary. His real message was that the NACA's work had meant rich returns on the dollars invested by the government.⁴⁸

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The NACA clearly intended to please its entire constituency, not only in the substance of its work but also in the style of its operations. Here again the Americans had found in the British copybook another example of what to do and what not to do. The Royal Aircraft Factory - roughly an English counterpart of LMAL - had reportedly "got into very considerable disrepute" within military and manufacturing circles in Britain in World War I, causing a decrease in support of aeronautical research. The British engineer brought in to remedy the situation reported to Joseph Ames in 1919 that he had turned things [121] around by exploiting his "personal acquaintances" with manufacturers and army officers "and inviting everyone I met to come down quite freely and welcoming them in ever), possible way."⁴⁹ The NACA had formalized this type of contact by means of its annual industry conferences, but it kept up an informal liaison as well. After the Committee got its own airplane in the 1920s, Lewis flew to the Langley laboratory once a week and was more than happy to take influential people with him.⁵⁰ Victory was constantly inviting congressmen and important executives from government and industry to tour the laboratory and see the NACA at work.

The Committee's courtship of influential friends reached its most blatant and controversial heights at the "N.A.C.A. Shore Camp," known more familiarly as just "the camp." Located on the Back River about two miles from the laboratory, the camp was openly and explicitly created, as John Victory said, "first, to provide an inducement for government officials to visit the laboratories of the Committee and become familiar with the work of the Committee; second, to promote the morale of our own employees at Langley Field." Laboratory members - using time and materials they claimed were their own-built a small lodge on a piece of waterfront property apparently owned by Lewis, Victory, and three laboratory officials. The NACA launch Retriever provided passage to and from the camp. Annual rental came out of the Laboratory Camp and Entertainment Fund.⁵¹

In the humdrum environs of Hampton the camp was a real boon to the morale of the Langley staff, but that was not its chief value to the NACA. The most frequent non NACA visitor to the camp was Congressman Clifton A. Woodrum of Roanoke, Virginia. "Judge" Woodrum championed the interests of his state - and of the Langley laboratory in particular - from his powerful position as chairman of the independent offices subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, where the NACA received annual increases in operating expenses throughout the 1920s. In 1930 for the first time the total NACA budget passed $1 million, a far cry from the $5000 with which the Committee had begun only fifteen years before. True, the 1930 budget was swelled by the first installment of construction funds for the full-scale wind tunnel, but that tunnel was itself a testimony to the ability of the Committee to convince judge Woodrum and the rest of Congress that its work was worth the nation's while.⁵²

If there were any clouds on the NACA's horizon in the late 1920s, they warned of personnel problems. These were of two kinds. First was the problem of obtaining qualified engineers. From the earliest days of recruiting Edward Warner from MIT, the Committee had made it an unwritten policy to bring in promising young engineers and train them to the NACA style. Formal credentials in aeronautics mattered less than [122] a fundamental grasp of engineering and an ability to learn and adjust. Many felt that the NACA offered a better education than graduate school, especially after the Committee began to establish a reputation and acquire its unparalleled research facilities. One bright young MIT graduate who joined the NACA in 1929 turned down a full scholarship for postgraduate work at Göttingen and fifty firm employment offers from industry to take the lowest-paid alternative because of the opportunities he perceived at Langley. "I was going down there," he said, "strictly for what amounted to a post-graduate course in aeronautical research because I figured that was the best place in the world to get it."⁵³

Not everyone was as pure, however; by the end of the 1920s, industry was buying up many of the young engineers who in earlier times would have gone to the NACA. The industry's recovery after 1926, which the NACA had so promoted and desired, now boomeranged on the Committee and created a major problem. As Ames explained to the House Appropriations Subcommittee in 1927:

We used to be able to get young men from the universities, but now they can go to work in commercial aviation as soon as they are out of school. If they were to come to us, they would have to take a civil service exam and there would be quite a delay before they got in. That is one of our difficulties which the prosperity of the aircraft business has brought about.⁵⁴

The Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics eased this problem somewhat, but it also created problems of its own. Formed in 1926, the multimillion dollar fund was intended to promote aeronautical education throughout the United States, to advance aeronautical science, and to further the development of commercial aviation. Universities receiving grants from the fund did in fact institute or expand programs in aeronautical engineering, and these in turn increased the supply of trained aeronautical engineers. However, some of the best of these engineers went on to pursue graduate work and later to teach in these same schools; others were drawn off by the industry that the Guggenheim Fund was also helping to expand. Furthermore, the fund was liquidated in 1930 and its impact attenuated over the years. While the net effect of the fund was surely to help the NACA deal with its personnel shortage, it never sufficed to fill the Committee's continuing needs. George Lewis put the issue clearly and directly in 1927: "..... the industry and the educational institutions are too much for us in the way of offering high salaries."⁵⁵

Nor was the shortage of engineers the only personnel problem faced by the Committee. Max Munk was gone, and the prospect of [123] finding another like him dimmed with each passing year. It was not that Munk was smarter or more creative than others who succeeded him at Langley. Rather, he had brought to the Committee a rare synthesis of theory and experiment, a seemingly intuitive sense of what were the most important problems in aeronautics and how they might be solved in the laboratory. Munk took giant steps, bold and heavy, and if occasionally he leaped to false conclusions, still he made enough right guesses to outweigh the wrong ones.

In his wake came a succession of scientists who may properly be called theorists, but none of them had as much impact on the Committee or on the course of aeronautical research as Munk had had in his five years with the NACA.⁵⁶ What they contributed instead what they had that he lacked - was the ability to work as part of a team, to subordinate their own intuition to the needs of the NACA, to confine serendipity within the limits of a rational program. This made for harmony and teamwork, but it deprived the NACA of the genius and vision that had established the Committee's reputation in the first half of the 1920s. The NACA had to learn to sustain that reputation by other means.

1. John B. Rae, Climb to Greatness: The American Aircraft Industry, 1920-1960 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968), p. 216 et passim. Rae applies the quoted comment to the period 1920-1960.

2. Ibid., p. 35; Lewis to Ide, 24 Sept. 1927 in 57 A 415 (61), 51-6G, 1927-1929.

3. Minutes, NACA meeting, 21 Oct. 1926; AR 1927, pp. 1-4 See also pp. 15-25.

4. In recommending Lewis and Victory for salary increase May 1923, the Committee on Personnel, Buildings, and Equipment, of which Ames was the chairman, made the following endorsement to the secretary of the NACA:

These two men are largely responsible for the success of the Committee. During the past two years there has been a notable increase in the activities of the organization. The efficiency of all sections and the harmonious working of the whole have been brought to a point where the general effectiveness of the Committee's work has become remarkable in view of the small total expenditures made, and is now a source of gratification to the members of the Committee.

 

Mr. Lewis and Mr. Victory work well together and are thoroughly loyal to the Committee, seeking always to advance its best interests. They have carried into effect the Committee's policy of actual cooperation with, and service to, the other activities of the government concerned wit aeronautics, and with the industry, in such a way as to command for the Committee the confidence and respect of all. The Committee has gradually become more and more indispensable [sic] to the Army and Navy. The Bureau of the Budget and the Congress are recognizing the success of the Committee's work....

5. Ames to Lewis, 11 Aug. 1924, handwritten, in NA PG 55, entry 3, box 1, Joseph S. Ames, 1915-1924.

6. The 1926 legislation, S. 4529 and H.R. 13115 (69/1), as predicated on the recommendation of the Morrow board. By 1929 it seemed more important (as Ames put it in a letter to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs) to have "additional persons from private life who, while broadly acquainted with the needs of aeronautical science, can bring to bear in the discussions before the Committee the points of view of the manufacturer of aircraft and the operator of airlines." Ames that "for several years, there has been a growing sentiment that the aircraft manufacturing and operating industries should have direct representation on the Main Committee, as well as on the subcommittees," but there was no effort then to take that bold step, The three new tons were filled by William P. MacCracken, Jr., assistant secretary of commerce for aeronautics; Harry F. Guggenheim, president of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics; and Edward P. Warner, then editor of Aviation. Neither Warner nor Guggenheim was a direct representative of either airplane manufacturers or operators, but their appointments brought the committee closer to the industry than it had ever come. Minutes of NACA meeting, 21 Oct. 1926; Ames to David A. Reed, 29 Jan. 1929; AR 1929, p. 5; appendixes A; and B. See pp. 108-111, 163-169, and 207- 211 for more on industry representation in the NACA.

7. For the exact wording of the new regulations, see appendix A. The changes to the rules and regulations were proposed at the semiannual meeting of the NACA, 21 Apr. 1927, submitted to the president 27 April and approved by him 17 May. Taylor was elected vice chairman of the Executive Committee at its meeting on 22 June 1927 an vice chairman of the NACA by letter ballot circulated under the date of 28 June. Victor was appointed secretary on 22 June 1927. Promotion of E.H. Chamberlain from chief clerk to the new position of assistant secretary was approved by the Main Committee on 24 Oct. 929. Minutes of NACA meeting, 21 Apr. 1927; minutes of Executive Committee meeting, 2 June 1927; AR 1927, p. 6; minutes of NACA meeting, 24 Oct. 1929. On the role of Taylor, see Ames testimony in House Appropriations Committee, Independent Office Appropriation Subcommittee, Independent Offices Appropriation Bill, 1929, hearings, 72/1, 1932, pp. 306-07

Commenting on Victory's functions as envisioned n t e change to the rules and regulations suggested in 1927, an official at the Bureau of the budget wrote: "I see no objection to this change as the Secretary is under the control of the C airman and Vice Chairman, the approval of each being necessary before funds can be obligated. The high sounding title and duties are mainly for purpose of guiding Pers[onnel] Class[ification]. Board in passing on changes in grade." Adams to Mr. Wiseman, 11 May 1917.

8. The subtle difference in the NACA role can be seen by comparing the 1926 legislation with the 1927 amendment in appendix A. As Ames summarized it in a memorandum read to the Executive Committee on 18 Mar. 1927:

The effect of the act of Congress approved Mar. 3, 1927, amending the act creating the Patents and Design Board, is to limit the jurisdiction of the Board in making awards to those cases in which the NACA shall submit favorable recommendations and to make the Committee a responsible agency in the Government for the final disapproval of applications for awards aeronautical inventions or designs submitted to the Government.

See also the discussion at the Executive Committee meeting, 25 Feb. 1927, in which Ames expressed concern that the pending legislation could burden the NACA with duties that might interfere with the committee's basic job of research and that the Executive Committee might be drawn into hearings with disgruntled inventors. Through the NACA handled many suggestions over the years, they never became as important or as time-consuming as Ames feared.

9. See appendix B.

10. The following excerpt from the minutes of the Executive Committee meeting 18 Mar. 1927 reveals the nature of the problem. The chairman reported that Dr. Max M. Munk, technical assistant at $5000 per annum, had submitted his resignation effective March 31, and added that there was a positive need for:

The employment of exceptional personnel at Langley Field....He stated that the Committee needed a few men with knowledge o he existing state of the science of aerodynamics, experienced in the scientific study of its fundamental problems, and who combine engineering training with profound mathematical knowledge, a good knowledge of physics, the rare gift of originality, and demonstrated ability in the conduct of research. He stated further that, in short, what is essentially needed is at least one or two men who can bring to bear sound mathematical and physical knowledge in the analysis of the results obtained by observers and investigators, and who at the same time can initiate problems of a fundamental character. He added that American educational institutions and methods do not produce the type of men needed by the Committee, and that, after conferring with the Director of Aeronautical Research and other, he was of the opinion that there is no American available with proper qualifications. In this the members concurred.

11. AR 1925, p. 11; Lewis to LMAL, 28 Jan. 1924 and 12 Feb. 1930. In a memorandum to the laboratory dated 11 Nov. 1926, Lewis wrote:

It is requested that all recommendations made by the technical staff at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory with reference to new research projects be forwarded to this office, with or without comment, for the attention of the Director of Aeronautical Research for presentation to the subcommittee concerned.

 

All suggestions by members of the technical staff with reference to new research projects are to be made in writing and transmitted through the Engineer-in-Charge to the Director of Aeronautical Research. No member of the technical staff of the Laboratory who may be present at a meeting of one of the technical subcommittees is to present any new project at the meeting without first having presented the project in writing to the Director of Aeronautical Research in the manner indicated. (57 A 415 (4), 1-16D, 1922-1926)

That is an excellent example of George Lewis's best engineering prose and his methods of maintaining control over the Committee's research program.

12. See appendix G. The first RA was approved 18 July 1918, using a form approved by the Executive Committee at its meeting on the same date. RA 2 was not issued until 28 June 1920; it used a somewhat different form, thereafter changed very little.

Some Work at LMAL was done under job orders. These work authorizations funded such activities as development of instruments and equipment and modification of facilities, work not exclusively associated with a single aeronautical investigation. Work done under job orders generally was not reported in the Committee's publications.

13. On 11 Feb. 1925, Griffith wrote to Lewis:

I am a little uncertain as to just how far you believe it advisable to carry the matter of the proposed separate control of detail researches which involve extension or addition to the work covered by the research authorizations which have been formally approved by the Executive Committee. It seems to me that extra work should be treated in one of two ways. If we handle such items as lettered extensions of the original research, it will be necessary to issue a sort of appendix to the original research authorization in order to have the additional work properly specified and authorized. A copy of this appendix should then be attached to each copy of the research authorization and made a part thereof In this case, it is my idea that we would make no effort to separate the cost of work executed under authority of these appendices, so that the costing unit would still continue to be the research authorization number.

 

The other method would be to treat the supplemental research items as separate researches and have them authorized in the regular manner. In this way, the cost of work on these supplemental items would be automatically separated from the cost of the work done under the original or parent research authorizations, which might in some cases be a distinct advantage.

 

I am inclined to believe that a combination of the two methods would be the best solution of the matter, all supplemental work of less than a certain rather indefinite importance or estimated cost being treated as an appendix to the original research authorization, while all supplemental work of greater cost or importance should be accorded the dignity of a separate research authorization. In order to provide a basis for discussion, I would suggest that any given item of supplemental research should be considered as an appendix to the original authorization, if it is a logical extension of the original research and if its cost does not exceed say $1000 and does not exceed the estimated cost of the original research authorization. This latter provision would tend to prevent the supplemental work in any case from assuming a preponderating importance.

Lewis wrote back on 25 Feb. 1925: "The general recommendation as to extensions of research authorizations contained in your letter of reference has been given careful consideration, and will be followed in future cases in which they [sic] apply." (57 A 415 (74), 54-6, 1920-1925.) See also Lewis to acting chief physicist, LMAL, 13 July 1920. Changes to research authorizations imposed by headquarters could be a real irritant to the staff at Langley: see, for example, Elton W. Miller to engineer-in-charge, 9 Nov. 1933.

14. Lewis to LMAL, 28 Jan. 1924.

15. "Memorandum for Members of the NACA," a summary of Dr. Ames's remarks before the Executive Committee, 31 Aug. 1922, regarding his trip to Europe.

16. Aircraft Hearings before the President's Aircraft Board (4 vols.; Washington, 1925), 1: 145-46.

17. See note 10.

18. Lewis to LMAL, 9 June 1931, in 57 A 415 (43), 25-40, 1925-. Hoover's address was printed in Science 70 (1 Nov. 1929): 411-13. The paragraph quoted here is from the latter source.

19. AR 1930, p. 58. Lewis expanded on this line of thought in a letter to Senator Hiram Bingham, dated I Feb. 1928:

In reviewing the progress in aerodynamics, it is apparent that the time has now arrived when the main theoretical foundation has been laid, and we may expect in the future to find extensions of and additions to existing theory rather than new fundamental conceptions. We are therefore entering into a phase of refined and applied theory, which requires a large amount of experimental research if real progress is to be made.

 

The necessity for experimental research in the progress of any science Is emphasized by the development of the electrical industry....

 

All progress and future developments of the electrical industry are entirely based on the results obtained in the research laboratory, where combined mathematical theory and research on fundamental problems are closely linked, and of the two the experimental research is the most important.

 

Mathematical theory is of little or no practical use without experimental research. The unknown factors which are used in mathematical equations and are affected by the angle of attack, the condition of the surfaces, the interference of one surface with another, the Reynolds Number, and many other factors, make the application of the mathematical theory impossible without results obtained from experimental research.....

 

To insure satisfactory progress in aerodynamics it is necessary that a well-balanced program should include as much fundamental research as possible. The present demands are largely for specific problems, and careful analysis of these problems shows that in addition to the possibility of me immediate practical application as one of the objects, the investigation also was an important bearing on some fundamental problem. Fundamental research and mathematical theory work hand in hand, and it is largely due to the results of research problems in wind tunnels and in free flight that extensions and additions to existing theory are made.

20. Ames wrestled with this compromise in the 11th Wilbur Wright Lecture, delivered 31 May 1923:

What we would like to do would be to give free scope to [competent mathematical physicists familiar with aerodynamics], and to conduct the laboratory tests under their direction, so that theory and knowledge of facts could make progress together. But this is not possible in an establishment whose primary purpose is to give advice to other governmental services, especially advice concerning questions raised by these services. It is true that we can often inspire these questions, and we can always, in the process of obtaining answers, learn more than is required for the specific purpose. It follows, that while we are conducting practical tests we are also doing fundamental scientific work continuously, exactly as a justice of a high court expresses his deepest thoughts as obiter dicta.

21. See appendix F for an example of how the research process worked in practice.

22. On the origins of the propeller-research tunnel, see the transcript of Michael D. Keller's interview with Fred E. Weick, 2 Oct. 1967, pp. 20-24. See also George W. Gray, Frontiers of Flight. The Story of NACA Research (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948), pp. 36-37. The fiscal 1927 budget included $33,000 for the propeller-research tunnel.

23. Gray, Frontiers of Flight, pp. 37-38. Another $375,000 was appropriated the following year to complete the full-scale tunnel.

24. Minutes, Executive Committee meeting of 1 Jan. 1929, at which Lewis reported on his trip to Europe from 9 Sept. through 30 Nov. 1928. See also George Lewis, memorandum on "Need for the construction of a special water channel for the investigation of seaplane boats," 11 Feb. 1929; and Ames to Director, Bureau of the Budget, 11 Feb. 1929. The NACA appropriation for the seaplane tank appeared in the Second Deficiency Act of 1929.

25. Minutes of NACA meeting, 21 Apr. 1927, p. 15.

26. See appendix B and the annual reports for 1926-1930.

27. T.P. Wright, "Edward Pearson Warner, 1894-1958: An Appreciation," The Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Oct. 1958, pp. 31-43. Hugh Dryden said of Warner at the time of his death that "among his friends he was known as America's aeronautical encyclopedia, for his memory of things aeronautical was phenomenal....His influence on the development of aeronautics in all aspects was profound." Dryden to T.P. Wright, 8 Aug. 1958.

28. Warner to Ames, 2 June 1927.

29. Ames to the Committee on Personnel, Buildings and Equipment, 28 June 1927; Lewis, "Memorandum for the Chairman, Committee on Personnel, Buildings, and Equipment," 2 Sept. 1927; Ames to Warner, 15 Sept. 1927, in NA RG 255, entry 4, box 1, file 100; AR 1927, p. 8. Lewis may have had another objection to die scheme. In 1940, George Mead wrote to Vannevar Bush that Lewis "doubts whether representatives of the industry can work together." Mead to Bush, 20 May 1940, in NA G 255, entry 1, box 3, "Executive Committee."

30. On visits to aircraft manufacturers, see for example Victory's memorandum to the chairman of the NACA reporting on his trip to the west coast, I Sept. to 13 Oct. 1927. The quotation is from AR 1928, p. 80.

31. The purpose of these conferences was stated clearly in AR 1925, p. 57: "The Committee is of the opinion that with the advent of commercial aviation, a new series of problems peculiar to commercial aircraft will be presented. The committee has therefore decided to hold one or more meetings annually with the engineering representatives of aircraft manufacturing and operating industries, with a view to ascertaining definitely the problems deemed of most vital importance and to incorporating the same, as far as practicable, into the general research programs prepared by the committee. "On the conferences themselves, see Michael David Keller, From Kitty Hawk to Muroc: A History of the NACA Langley Laboratory, 1917-1947," NASA History Office HHM-15, 1969., pp.-24-v-27.

32. See the exchange of correspondence in 55 A 312 (6), 110.1, Klemin, Alexander (2). The quote is from Klemin to Victory, 7 May 1928. The day after receiving this warning, Victory wrote to another attendee:

It is agreeable to the Committee for you t travel via the Cape Charles route if you feel that you cannot spare he time t accompany the party on the steamer leaving Washington at 6:30 p.m., Monday May 14. There are certain ad vantages in spending an evening or two on the steamer in company with the executives and engineers of the aircraft industry and Government officials. I have with reluctance canceled your steamer reservation but will be glad to take care of you if you should ultimately decide to travel via Washington.

 

Victory to Harvey N. Davis in 56 A 635 (10), 15-1, Davis, Harvey N.

33. One senses from reading the files that the Langley staff felt isolated and unappreciated in its remote laboratory, remote at least from Washington a d the aircraft industry. Perhaps the staff members put on such a good show at these conferences, especially in the early years, because it was their chance to escape anonymity and seclusion and to hear the applause of their peers from the outside world. See especially 57 A 15 (20), 21-2, 1922-1931. One appreciative guest wrote to Lewis after the 1934 conference:

I greatly admired the perfect way in which you exhibited the work you have been doing. On much of the work itself I am not competent to comment, but the way in which you dramatized some of your results and methods was superb. (Charles H. Colvin to Lewis, 26 June 1934, in 57 A 415 (14), 13-9A.)

34. J.H. Kindleberger, a successful aviation-industry executive reported to have said of the late 1920s, "There were three hundred aircraft factories, including those where you had to shove the cow aside to see the airplane." Only 38 invitations went out to the first NACA industry conference, mostly to larger concerns. Kindleberger is quoted in John B. Rae, Climb to Greatness: The American Aircraft Industry, 1920-1960 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968), p. 40; invitations to the first conference are in 57 A 415 (53), 1-80).

In 1931, Lewis told Ames that Edward Warner, t en editor of Aviation, was interested in the slotted Clark Y wing and intended to bring assistants to the annual conference that year to gather as much information as possible on the subject for publication in the magazine. "Unfortunately," concluded Lewis, "I do not see any way of preventing this." Lewis to Ames, 28 Apr. 1931, in 57 A 415 (10), 11-1, 1931.

After the 1929 conference, Ames reported to the annual meeting of the NACA that industry had suggested 24 problems, many of which were already under investigation. Two had been incorporated into the Committee's program and others were being considered for investigation later. Minutes of annual meeting of the N CA, 24 Oct. 1929.

35. See for example, Lewis to NJ. Medeveff, 21 Jan. 1927, and Lewis to T.P. Wright, 18 Dec. 1929, both in 57 A 415 (11), 13-6, general, 1927-1933. For a fuller discussion of this problem, see pp. 126 130.

36. In 1944 Orville Wright voiced his objection to the pattern into which the awarding of the Collier trophy had fallen. Wright maintained, first, that Robert J. Collier had specifically titled the award the "Aero Club of America Trophy," and that the term Collier trophy was a misnomer, even though the Aero Club of America had since been disbanded and succeeded by the National Aeronautic Association (N.A.A,). More important, he took exception to the politics of the award:

The trophy was founded primarily to encourage and reward invention, as the language of the Deed of Gift indicates. I do not think, however, that [Collier] intended it to be confined strictly to that. The early awards of the trophy were to individuals, as Mr. Collier had intended, and continued so until the formation of the N.A.A. But an examination of the list of recipients since that time will reveal that after the N.A.A. came into possession of it [1922) the awards have been mostly to U.S. Government bureaus and to manufacturing companies, instead of to individuals. This, no doubt, is due to the fact that individuals have more modestly [sic] than bureaus and corporations, and that individuals do not have the "brass" to seek the award, while bureaus and companies have no lack in that respect. I think it may be taken as generally true that what a government, department lacks in accomplishment it makes up by its activity in propaganda for its own aggrandizement.

Wright went on to recommend that for 1944 the trophy be awarded:

To the men, women and children; the animals, wild and domesticated; the trees and other plants, with particular credit to spinach for its great gift to manpower; the mines and other objects animate or [inanimate]; living or existing in any part of America except Argentina or Chile; who and which have contributed work, woods, hides, furs, fibers, wools, minerals or anything else to the building and use of the aeroplane, which have been the greatest achievement in aviation in the past year.

Wright was 72 when he wrote that letter, just four years from death, but he was not senile and he was not a bitter old man. He was simply the patriarch aviation, free to call a spade a spade. Here he was really upbraiding the aviation establishment that had grown up by the mid-twentieth century, for he saw in it a corporate monopoly on the individuality and initiative that had been so much a part of his work and his brother's. Though Wright remained a member of the NACA until his death, there is no doubt that he viewed the Committee as part of that establishment.

37. Chief of BuAer to the NACA/Langley Field, I June 1926, in 61 A 195 (24), 54-6B, 172. The letter read in part:

The cowling of the Pratt & Whitney "Wasp" dictated at present by the vision factor rather than by engine characteristics. 1 appears that considerably more of the engine could be cowled without impairing the cooling of the engine. Considerable work has been done abroad on the cooling of air-cooled engines but to date there is no information available as to a result of investigation in this country. This factor will materially affect future development of air-cooled high performance airplanes and it is felt that the whole field should be investigated. It would seem that the proper course of procedure would be to analyze the possibilities of cowling and shuttering from the standpoint: of mechanical operation, to choose those methods which appear to be reasonably sound, mechanically and aerodynamically; to build models using the "Apache" as the basis, and check the results in the wind tunnel; and finally to install the equipment which appears the best mechanically and aerodynamically in the airplane, and make actual flights, measuring the performance and noting engine operation.

Research authorization 172, covering this work, was issue 30 June 1926. Work was suspended in 1927 when the navy withdrew the Apache aircraft it had loaned the NACA. The Apache was never returned, and the RA was canceled in 1932.

On the interest of both the military and the industry in cooling at the 1926 conference, See the transcript of interview of Fred E. Weick conduct d by Michael D. Keller, 2 Oct. 1967.

38. Holden C. Richardson to Ames, 21 June 1927 research authorization 215, approved 22 June 1927. The purpose of the investigation was given as:

To investigate the cooling characteristics and the drag on a fuselage fitted with the Wright Whirlwind engine as affected by the spinner cowling of the cylinders and engine, and the shape of the fuselage. Modifications will be made in the fuselage so as to simulate closed type fuselage designs, such as the Fairchild, the Buhl Verville, the Detroit Stinson, and other commercial types.

39. Weick interview, p. 4; Lewis to LMAL, 30 Aug. 1927 in 61 A 195 (24) 54-6B, 172. See also "Report of Proceedings of Second General Conference between Representatives of Aircraft Manufacturers and Operators and National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics," held 24 May 1927, p. 14.

40. Victory to Reginald M. Cleveland, 7 Feb. 1933 in 57 A 4 5 (73), 53 3, 1933-1934; 61 A 195 (25), 54-6B, June 1927-Dec. 1928; and Reid to NACA, 17 Oct. 1928, ibid. The article appeared in Aviation, 17 Nov. 1928, pp. 1556-57, 1586-90 Fred E. Weick, "Drag and Cooling with Various Forms of Cowling for a 'Whirlwind' Engine in a Cabin Fuselage," TN 301, Nov. 1928, and "Drag and Cooling with Various Forms f Cowling for a 'Whirlwind' Radial Air-Cooled Engine," Part 1, TR-313, 1929 and Part II, 314, 1929.

41. Telegram, Jerry Vultee to the NACA, 5 Feb. 1929; John D. Anderson, Jr., Introduction to Flight Its Engineering and History (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1978), pp. 256-57.

42 Lewis to Herbert M. Lord, 6 Feb. 1929. In 57 A 415 (17) 19-5, FY 30; AR 1928, p. 80.

An internal BoB memo from Wiseman to Director Lord, dated 18 Sept. 1928, stated:

Referring to paper by Dr. Lewis of National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics which I sent you yesterday [Lewis, "Some Accomplishments of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics," 13 Sept. 1928], I am advised that while the Committee did not want to put it in writing, it estimates hat the improvement made at Langley Laboratory in the cowling of the air cooled engine will save $800,000 per year in cost of fuel of about 4000 air cooled engines 'in operation. As the number in operation increases this savings will increase proportionately. This is a big step toward reducing operating costs and should aid materially in more planes being purchased and operated by private interests.

43. Rae, Climb to Greatness, pp. 31, 240; 61 A 195 (25), 54-6B , 215, June 1927 Dec. 1928; "Cowling and Cooling of Radial Air-Cooled Engines," transcript of a speech by Lewis before the Society of Automotive Engineers, Detroit, 10 Apr. 1929, ibid., Apr.-July 1929; Cj. McCarthy to Lewis, 5 June 1928, in 55 A 291 (5), RA 215 (1).

44. Victory to Reginald M. Cleveland, 7 Feb. 1933 in 57 A 15 (73), 53-3, 1933-1934; 61 A 195 (25), 54-6B, 215, "Cowling Patents." See also Charles Helms, "Memorandum on Aircraft Engine Cowling," 12 Dec. 1930, rev. 24 Sept. 1931;"Report of Meeting Between Representatives of National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and of the Army and Navy to Discuss the Cowling Patent Situation," 21 June 1932; V.E. Clerk to Joseph S. Ames, 2 July, and Ames to Clark, 7 July 1931; Lewis to LMAL, "Critics of Committee's attitude with reference to Townend ring cowling," 14 Feb. 1931; W. Miller to [LMAL] engineer-in-charge, "Criticism of Committee's attitude with reference to Townend ring cowling," 3 Mar. 1931; Melvin N. Gough to [LMAL] engineer in charge, 'Comments on Mr. Sayers' article in Aviation Engineering for January, 1931, 4 Mar. 1931; Tom Carroll to Lewis, 20 Feb. 193 1; Lewis to LMAL, "Article on Townsend ring, prepare by Mr. Thomas Carroll," 24 Feb. 1931; Lewis to Carroll, 24 Feb. 1931; Elton W Mill r 0 [LMAL] engineer-in-charge, "Article on Townend ring prepared by Mr. Thomas Carroll" 3 Mar. 1931; Lewis to Carroll, 7 Mar., and Carroll to Lewis. 13 Mar. 193 wrote to headquarters on 6 Mar.1931: "It is regretted that the Laboratory, in its report on cowlings, did not mention the work of Townend and give him credit."

Those with conflicting claims were not the only ones to misunderstand the NACA cowling. After viewing some of the aircraft about to take part in the Gardner Trophy Races in 1929, Lewis sent the following report to Langley:

The airplane which won the race, a Laird equipped with a Wright Whirlwind engine, had a type of N.A.C.A. cowling. The original cowling on the airplane had not been modified, and an N.A.C.A. type of cowling in very crude form had been slipped over the nose. The fuselage had not been aired in any way, and the space between the rear of the cowling and the fuselage varied from 4 to 7 inches. From an examination of the installation, it is difficult see how the speed could be increased more than 3 or 4 miles per hour. I saw one other airplane equipped with the cowling, and the installation was just as poor. There was also a Lockheed belonging to the Texaco people, which was equipped with the cowling. Here again the inner cowling had not been disturbed and the outer cowling was very much the same as that used by Hawks on his transcontinental flight.

 

From the commercial type airplanes that I have seen it is remarkable that the cowling has been as favorably received as it has, for the haphazard installations have been anything but what the Committee recommended. It is also apparent that if the cowling is to be properly applied some manufacturer must build an airplane around the cowling, or, better still, some engine manufacturer furnish an engine with the cowling. (Lewis to LMAL, 1 June 1929, in 55 A 291 (5), RA 215 (1))

45. In its Annual Report for 1928, the NACA said of the cowling: "This single contribution will repay the cost of the propeller research tunnel many times and fully justifies the committee, not only in having built such a tunnel, but also in recommending as it does that additional funds be provided next year for construction of a full-scale Wind Tunnel" (p. 80).

46. During the 1920s, the NACA was careful to list every year in its annual report the research projects it was performing for the military services.

47. Lewis to chief physicist, LMAL, 4 May 1922, in 57 A 415 (4), 1-16C, 1921-1922.

48. Lewis memorandum for General Lord, "Some Accomplishments of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics," 13 Sept. 1928.

49. Hy Fowler to Ames, 22 Dec. 1919.

50. In 1924 Lewis could make the trip to the laboratory in an hour and a quarter in the Vickers amphibian available to the Committee. Lewis to Redmond D. Stephens, 16 Apr. 1924, in 64 A 518 (8), 1925.

51. Quote is from Victory to the Committee on Personnel, Buildings, and Equipment, 28 July 1923, In 57 A 415 (29), 21-21A. This file contains the most complete information available on the camp, including Victory's letter to Walter H. Reiser of 26 Aug. 1931, stating that the expenses of Woodrum's last visit were to be covered by the Camp and Entertainment Fund. (How the NACA came by the Retriever is unclear, though it seems to have been a gift of the navy perhaps surplus salvaged by the Committee.)

An otherwise unidentified typescript marked 21-21a and dated Oct. 1936 contains the following information on the camp:

The camp is financed by the N.A.C.A Exchange funds, and when equipment has been needed special collections of money and equipment have been taken up from the employees, both at Langley Field and in the Washington office. Surplus Government equipment has been loaned to the camp. Scrap material salvaged from the dump has been used, and at times immediately needed items of supplies have been furnished. The camp is used by employees and their guests. Charges are made for the use of the camp and for all supplied consumed by parties using the camp. Payments are made to the N.A.C.A. Exchange by the parties using the camp. The accounts of the N.A.C.A. Exchange are audited monthly.

 

The camp is principally used by groups of employees in the same section, and frequently by assemblies of section and division chiefs. It has on occasion been used for large assemblies of the employees on picnics, and also for large gatherings of the Army personnel at Langley Field, on several occasions as many as two hundred people being present, although the number staying overnight usually runs from four to ten. The camp was first conceived in 1922 as a necessary attraction for members of Congress to visit the, laboratory. The camp has been visited by many members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, and other high Government officials.

An unlabeled folder in NA RG 255, entry 9, contains bylaws of the "Oak Point Club, Inc.,which seems to have been a forerunner of the camp.

52. See appendix C.

53. Interview of Ira H. Abbott by Walter T. Bonney, 28 Oct. 1971, p. 3. Lewis agreed with Abbott. He wrote to Alexander Klemin:

Personally, I feel that an engineering graduate ho obtains a position with this Committee has an excellent opportunity to extend his theoretical knowledge, and in particular prepare himself as a research engineer. The opportunities for advancement are good, as evidenced by the fact that all of the activities at Langley Field are in charge of engineers who are recent graduates. All of the men who have left the Committee and who were in charge of major activities at our laboratory are now in charge of research laboratories. (Lewis to Klemin, 24 Mar. 1926, in 55 A 312 (6), 110.1, Klemin, Alexander (2).)

54. House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Independent Offices, Independent Offices Appropriation Bill, 1929, hearings, 70/1, 1928, p.305.

55. Richard P. Hallion, Legacy of Flight: The Guggenheim Contribution to American Aviation.(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977); The Final Report of the D.G. Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, 1929, Sept. 1930; Lewis to Griffith, 11 Oct. 1927, in 57 A 415 (34), 24-20, 1923- . Lewis wrote to William F. Durand on 5 Mar. 1927: "The personnel question is the most serious problem that now confronts the committee."

56. R.T. Jones, "Recollections from an Earlier Period in American Aeronautics," Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 9 (1977): 1-11.

 

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