National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
NACA
The official seal of NACA, depicting the Wright brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
Logo
Agency overview
Formed	March 3, 1915
Dissolved	October 1, 1958
Superseding agency	NASA
Jurisdiction	Federal government of the United States

The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a U.S. federal agency founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved, and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NACA was pronounced as individual letters, rather than as an acronym.^[1]

Among other advancements, NACA research and development produced the NACA duct, a type of air intake used in modern automotive applications, the NACA cowling and several series of NACA airfoils which are still used in aircraft manufacturing.

Origins[link]

The inscription on the wall is NACA's mission statement: ...It shall be the duty of the advisory committee for aeronautics to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution... By an Act of Congress Approved March 3, 1915

The first meeting of the NACA on 1915.

NACA began as an emergency measure during World War I to promote industry/academic/government coordination on war-related projects. It was modeled on similar national agencies found in Europe. Such agencies were the French “L’Etablissement Central de l’Aérostation Militaire” in Meudon (now Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatiales), the German “Aerodynamical Laboratory of the University of Göttingen” and the Russian “Aerodynamic Institute of Koutchino”. However, the most influential agency upon which the NACA was based was the British “Advisory Committee for Aeronautics”.

In December 1912, President William Howard Taft had appointed a National Aerodynamical Laboratory Commission chaired by Robert S. Woodward, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Legislation was introduced in both houses of Congress early in January 1913 to approve the commission, but when it came to a vote, the legislation was defeated.

Charles D. Walcott – secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1907 to 1927 – took up the effort, and in January 1915, Senator Benjamin R. Tillman, and House Representative Ernest W. Roberts, introduced identical resolutions recommending the creation of an advisory committee as outlined by Walcott. The purpose of the committee was "to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution, and to determine the problems which should be experimentally attacked and to discuss their solution and their application to practical questions." Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote that he "heartily [endorsed] the principle" on which the legislation was based. Walcott then suggested the tactic of adding the resolution to the Naval Appropriations Bill.^[2]

According to one source, "The enabling legislation for the NACA slipped through almost unnoticed as a rider attached to the Naval Appropriation Bill, on 3 March 1915."^[3] The committee of 12 people, all unpaid, were allocated a budget of $5,000 per year.

President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law the same day, thus formally creating the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, as it was called in the legislation, on the last day of the 63rd Congress.

The act of Congress creating NACA, approved March 3, 1915, reads, "...It shall be the duty of the advisory committee for aeronautics to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution...."^[4]

Research at NACA[link]

The NACA Test Force at the High-Speed Flight Station in Edwards, California. The white aircraft in the foreground is a Douglas Skyrocket.

The NACA XS-1 (Bell X-1)

On January 29, 1920, President Wilson appointed pioneering flier and aviation engineer Orville Wright to NACA's board. By the early 1920s, it had adopted a new and more ambitious mission: to promote military and civilian aviation through applied research that looked beyond current needs. NACA researchers pursued this mission through the agency's impressive collection of in-house wind tunnels, engine test stands, and flight test facilities. Commercial and military clients were also permitted to use NACA facilities on a contract basis.

Facilities

• Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory (Hampton, Virginia)
• Ames Aeronautical Laboratory (Moffett Field)
• Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory (Lewis Research Center)
• Muroc Flight Test Unit (Edwards Air Force Base)

In 1922, NACA had 100 employees. By 1938, it had 426. In addition to formal assignments, staff were encouraged to pursue unauthorized "bootleg" research, provided that it was not too exotic. The result was a long string of fundamental breakthroughs, including "NACA engine cowl" (1930s), the "NACA airfoil" series (1940s), and the "area rule" for supersonic aircraft (1950s). On the other hand, NACA's 1941 refusal to increase airspeed in their wind tunnels set Lockheed back a year in their quest to solve the problem of compressibility in the P-38.

An engineer makes final calibrations to a model mounted in the 6x6 foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel at the laboratory.

The full-size 30-by-60-foot (9.1 × 18 m) Langley wind tunnel operated at no more than 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) and the recent 7-by-10-foot (2.1 × 3.0 m) tunnels at Moffett could only reach 250 mph (400 km/h). These were speeds Lockheed engineers considered useless for their purposes. Gen. 'Hap' Arnold took up the matter and overruled NACA objections to higher air speeds. NACA built a handful of new high-speed wind tunnels, and Mach 0.75 (570 mph, 920 km/h) was reached at Moffett's 16-foot (4.9 m) wind tunnel late in 1942.^[5][6]

NACA claims credit for having the first aircraft to break the sound barrier (although the aircraft, the Bell X-1, was controlled by the Air Force and flew with an Air Force pilot when it broke the sound barrier). They also claim credit for the first aircraft (X-15) that eventually flew to the "edge of space". NACA airfoils are still used on modern aircraft, up to the state of the art F-22 Raptor jet fighter.

On September 30, 1946, five NACA engineers, headed by Walter C. Williams,^[7] arrived at Muroc Army Airfield (now Edwards AFB) from Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, VA, to prepare for X-1 supersonic research flights in joint NACA-Army Air Forces program.^[8]

In 1951, Richard Whitcomb determined the transonic area rule that explained the physical rationale for transonic flow over an aircraft. This concept is now used in designing all transonic and supersonic aircraft.

The NACA experience provided a powerful model for World War II research, the postwar government laboratories, and NACA's successor: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Special Committee on Space Technology[link]

Foreground: Wernher von Braun; fourth from the left: Hendrik Wade Bode. See also list below

On 21 November 1957, Hugh Dryden, NACA’s director, established the Special Committee on Space Technology.^[9] The committee, also called the Stever Committee after its chairman, Guyford Stever, was a special steering committee that was formed with the mandate to coordinate various branches of the federal government, private companies as well as universities within the United States with NACA's objectives and also harness their expertise in order to develop a space program.^[10]

Remarkably, Hendrik Wade Bode, the man who helped develop automatic radar-controlled artillery that brought down the German V-1 flying bombs over London during World War II, was actually serving in the same committee and sitting at the same table as Wernher von Braun who was head of the team which developed the V-2, the other weapon that terrorized London.^[11][12]

Transformation into NASA[link]

On January 14, 1958, Dryden published "A National Research Program for Space Technology," which stated:^[9]

On March 5, 1958, James Killian, who chaired the President's Science Advisory Committee, wrote a memorandum to the President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Titled, "Organization for Civil Space Programs," it encouraged the President to sanction the creation of NASA. He wrote that a civil space program should be based on a "strengthened and redesignated" NACA, indicating that NACA was a "going Federal research agency" with 7,500 employees and $300 million worth of facilities, which could expand its research program "with a minimum of delay."^[9]

NASA Advisory Council[link]

With the creation of NASA in 1958, the NACA was abolished, and its research centers – Ames Research Center, Lewis Research Center, and Langley Aeronautical Laboratory – were incorporated within the new space and aeronautics agency along with some elements of the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. In 1967, Congress directed NASA to form an Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) to advise the NASA Administrator on safety issues and hazards in NASA's aerospace programs. In addition, there were the Space Program Advisory Council and the Research and Technology Advisory Council.

In 1977, these were all combined to form the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) which is the successor to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.^[13]

NACA wind tunnels[link]

NACA's first Wind tunnel was formally dedicated at Langley on June 11, 1920. It was the first of many now-famous NACA and NASA wind tunnels. Although this specific wind tunnel was not unique or advanced, it enabled NACA engineers and scientists to develop and test new and advanced concepts in aerodynamics and to improve future wind tunnel design.

1. 5ft Atmospheric wind tunnel (1920)
2. Variable Density Tunnel (1922)
3. Propeller research tunnel (1927)
4. 11in high speed wind tunnel (1928)
5. 5ft vertical wind tunnel (1929)
6. 7x10ft atmospheric wind tunnel (1930)
7. Full Scale 30- by 60-Foot Tunnel (1931)

NACA chairmen[link]

1. George P. Scriven (United States Army) (1915–1916)
2. William F. Durand (Stanford University) (1916–1918)
3. John R. Freeman (consultant) (1918–1919)
4. Charles Doolittle Walcott (Smithsonian Institution) (1920–1927)
5. Joseph Sweetman Ames (Johns Hopkins University) (1927–1939)
6. Vannevar Bush (Carnegie Institution) (1940–1941)
7. Jerome C. Hunsaker (Navy, MIT) (1941–1956)
8. James H. Doolittle (Shell Oil) (1957–1958)

Members of Special Committee on Space Technology[link]

As of their meeting on 26 May 1958, committee members, starting clockwise from the left of the above picture:^[10]

Footnotes and references[link]

Further reading[link]

• John Henry, et al. Orders of Magnitude: A History of the NACA and NASA, 1915-1990.
• Alex Roland. Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1915-1958.
• James Hansen. Engineer in Charge: A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, 1917-1958.
• Michael H. Gorn, Expanding the envelope – Flight Research at NACA and NASA.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: NACA

• The NASA Technical Reports Server provides access to a collection of 14,469 NACA documents dating from 1917.
• U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission – The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)
• More information on NACA airfoil series
• From Engineering Science to Big Science – The NACA and NASA Collier Trophy Research Project Winners, Edited by Pamela E. Mack

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Agency overview
Formed	April 30, 1909
Dissolved	1979
Jurisdiction	Government of the United Kingdom
Footnotes
later "Aeronautical Research Committee" then "Aeronautical Research Council", disbanded 1979

The Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (ACA) was a United Kingdom agency founded on April 30, 1909 to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. In 1919 it was renamed the Aeronautical Research Committee, later becoming the Aeronautical Research Council.

Following the establishment of this committee, other countries created similar agencies, notably the French L’Etablissement Central de l’Aérostation Militaire in Meudon (now Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatiales), the Russian "Aerodynamic Institute of Koutchino" and the U.S.A.'s National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, founded in 1915.

The Aeronautical Research Council was disbanded in 1979.

Origins[link]

The idea for the creation of the ACA originated with the then Secretary of State for War, R.B.Haldane (later First Viscount Haldane), who was supported in his efforts by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Herbert Asquith.

Asquith announced the committee's appointment in a statement to the House of Commons on May 5, 1909, in which he stated:

"With a view to securing that the highest scientific talent shall he brought to hear on the problems which will have to be solved in the course of the work of the two departments, the National Physical Laboratory has been requested to organize at its establishment at Teddington a special department for continuous investigation, experimental and otherwise,of questions which must from time to time be solved in order to obtain adequate guidance in construction.
"For the superintendence of the investigations at the National Physical Laboratory and for general advice on the scientific problems arising in connection with the work of the Admiralty and War Office in aerial construction and navigation, I have appointed a special Committee...."

Haldane was criticised for what some considered the undue preponderance of academics on the committee (7 of the original 10 members were Fellows of the premier British learned society for science, the Royal Society, founded in 1660). To these criticisms Asquith replied in the House of Commons:

"It is no part of the general duty of the Advisory Committee For Aeronautics either to construct or invent. Its function is not to initiate, but to consider what is initiated elsewhere, and is referred to it by the executive officers of the Navy and Army Construction Departments. The problems which are likely to arise ... for solutions are numerous, and it will be the work of the Committee to advise on these problems, and to seek their solution by the application of both theoretical and experimental methods of research".^[1]

History[link]

The Advisory Committee For Aeronautics proceeded to coordinate research in the following years and produced a series of annual reports, the first of which summarised the purpose of the committee as "the scientific study of the problems of flight, with a view to their practical solution".^[2] It was kept out of the political ambit of any one ministry, reporting directly to the Prime Minister and receiving its funds from the "Civil Service Estimate". This arrangement changed with the creation of the Royal Air Force, after which it reported to the Secretary of State for Air.

"Annual Technical Reports" were produced by the committee from 1910 until 1919,^[3] at which time its name was changed to the "Aeronautical Research Committee". From 1920 reports were made to the Air Ministry. In addition, technical papers known as "Reports & Memoranda" (R&M) were produced.

The Aeronautical Research Committee's scope was both military and civil applications.

During the deteriorating international situation of the 1930s (see Events preceding World War II in Europe), the committee was given fresh impetus with the appointment of Sir Henry Tizard. One of the committee's most important decisions was to speed the development of a national system of air defence based on radar.

In 1945 after the Second World War the Committee's name was changed to "Aeronautical Research Council"^[3]) and the Council reported directly to the Ministry of Supply. Annual reports were replaced by collections of R&Ms, the last issue appearing in 1972.^[4]

The Aeronautical Research Council was disbanded in 1979.

A brief history of the committee during its seventy years of existence can be found here; Cranfied University also maintains an archive of the R&M series, which shows the many aspects of aviation which were the subject of research during the period.

Initial members of the Committee[link]

From the time of its appointment on 30 April 1909 until the publication of its first report, the committee's members were as follows:^[2]

Publications[link]

The Committee and its successor agencies published several series of reports which could be purchased from HMSO:

• Annual Reports (the first covering the year from 1909 to 1910)
• Technical Reports (as mentioned in No. 1452, Vol. XXX of Flight Magazine in October 1936).
• Reports and Memoranda (referred to as R&Ms). An early example, from 1917, is R&M 351
• Current Papers (starting in 1950 with CP No. 1)

An index to R&Ms was issued periodically e.g. R&M 2750 published in 1956, covering papers from the late 1940s onwards (Index issues' R&M numbers were generally assigned with the last two digits being '50': this system was also adopted for Current Papers, starting with CP No. 50).

Footnotes and references[link]

Further reading[link]

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External links[link]