National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ( NACA ) was a US government organization that dealt with basic research in aviation; a direct predecessor of what would later become NASA . It was founded on March 3, 1915. The authority was supposed to coordinate innovations in aircraft and engine construction and put them on a scientific basis. The knowledge thus obtained was made available to the American aviation industry.
The best-known developments that can be traced back to NACA research are optimized airfoil profiles ( NACA profiles ), the introduction of the retractable landing gear , new fuselage shapes for supersonic flights , quiet jet engine technology and, above all, an aerodynamic radial engine cowling ( NACA hood ).
To this end, the NACA maintained three national laboratories in cooperation with the US Air Force and the aircraft industry . The NACA's first wind tunnel went into operation in June 1920. It was a relatively simple system, the results of which were not satisfactory. In March 1923 the VDT (Variable Density Tunnel) went into operation, the world's first wind tunnel to work with different air densities. In the mid-1940s, the first high-speed wind tunnel was put into operation at the Langley Research Center . At the beginning of the 1950s this was expanded to become the first supersonic wind tunnel.
In the postwar years, the NACA watched with interest the experiments with rocket motors on Wallops Iceland , Virginia . However, this only happened with regard to the possibility of installing them in aircraft and combat projectiles to break the sound barrier .
The V2 test starts in White Sands , New Mexico were also accompanied by the “ Paperclip Boys ” led by Wernher von Braun . Their results, for example the heating of the rocket body, were only discussed and evaluated in connection with aircraft construction .
In (emergency) medicine, the NACA scheme , originally developed to assess injured persons after aircraft accidents, is used to assess the severity of injuries or illnesses.
Hugh L. Dryden was director of the NACA from 1947 to 1958 .
With the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, the NACA became NASA .
Web links
- NASA: History of the NACA (English)
- Centennial of Flight: History of the NACA ( Memento from September 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ NASA: NACA Overview
- ↑ NASA: The NACA Centenary: A Symposium on 100 Years of Aerospace Research and Development , July 10, 2014