The NACA's Airplane Engine Research Laboratory (AERL) Icing Research Tunnel 1944. The Altitude Tunnel is in the center background, the propeller motor drive housing in the right background, and the Air Dryer and Cooling Tower in the left background.
Date
05/04/1944
NASA Center
Headquarters
Hangar Construction
Title
Hangar Construction
Full Description
Hangar construction at Langley in 1922.
Date
08/01/1922
NASA Center
Langley Research Center
NACA Ames 16 Foot High Speed
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Title
NACA Ames 16 Foot High Speed Wind Tunnel
Full Description
View of the 16 Foot High Speed Wind Tunnel at the NACA Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, Moffett Field, California.
Date
04/01/1948
NASA Center
Ames Research Center
Original NACA Hangars
Title
Original NACA Hangars
Full Description
The original NACA hangars, 1931. The aircraft parked to the right is the Fairchild owned by the NACA. Just outside the hangar door is a modified Ford Model A that was used to start aircraft propellers.
Date
01/01/1931
NASA Center
Langley Research Center
5-Foot Vertical Wind Tunnel
Title
5-Foot Vertical Wind Tunnel
Description
Construction of 5-Foot Vertical Wind Tunnel. The 5-Foot Vertical Wind Tunnel was built to study spinning characteristics of aircraft. It was an open throat tunnel capable of a maximum speed of 80 mph. NACA engineer Charles H. Zimmerman designed the tunnel starting in 1928. Construction was completed in December 1929. It was one of two tunnels which replaced the original Atmospheric Wind Tunnel (The other was the 7x10-Foot Wind Tunnel.). In NACA TR 387 (p. 499), Carl Wenzinger and Thomas Harris report that "the tunnel passages are constructed of 1/8-inch sheet iron, stiffened with angle iron and bolted together at the corners. The over-all dimensions are: Height 31 feet 2 inches, length, 20 feet 3 inches, width, 10 feet 3 inches." The tunnel was partially constructed in the Langley hanger as indicated by the aircraft in the background. Published in NACA TR 387, "The Vertical Wind Tunnel of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics," by Carl J. Wenzinger and Thomas A. Harris, 1931.
Date
09.18.1930
NACA Aircraft in hangar 1953
…
Project Description
The Dryden Flight Research Center, NASA's premier installation for aeronautical flight research, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1996. Dryden is the "Center of Excellence" for atmospheric flight operations. The Center's charter is to research, develop, verify, and transfer advanced aeronautics, space, and related technologies. It is located at Edwards, Calif., on the western edge of the Mojave Desert, 80 miles north of Los Angeles. Dryden's history dates back to the early fall of 1946, when a group of five aeronautical engineers arrived at what is now Edwards from the NACA's Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, Hampton, Va. Their goal was to prepare for the X-l supersonic research flights in a joint NACA-U.S. Army Air Forces-Bell Aircraft Corp. program. NACA--the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics--was the predecessor of today's NASA. Since the days of the X-l, the first aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound, the installation has grown in size and significance and is associated with many important developments in aviation -- supersonic and hypersonic flight, wingless lifting bodies, digital fly-by-wire, supercritical and forward-swept wings, and the space shuttles. Its name has changed many times over the years. From 14 November 1949 to 1 July 1954 it bore the name NACA High-Speed Flight Research Station.
Photo Date
April 27, 1953
19 foot Pressure Wind Tunnel
Title
19 foot Pressure Wind Tunnel
Description
Guide vanes in the 19 foot Pressure Wind Tunnel at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, National Advisory committee for Aeronautics, form an ellipse 33 feet high and 47 feet wide. The 23 vanes force the air to turn corners smoothly as it rushes through the giant passages. If vanes were omitted, the air would pile up in dense masses along the outside curves, like water rounding a bend in a fast brook. Turbulent eddies would interfere with the wind tunnel tests, which require a steady flow of fast, smooth air.
Date
03.15.1950
NACA's First Wind Tunnel
Title
NACA's First Wind Tunnel
Description
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)'s first wind tunnel,Located at Langley Field in Hampton,VA,was an open-circuit wind tunnel completed in 1920. Essentially a replica of the ten-year-old tunnel at the British National Physical Laboratory, it was a low-speed facility which involved the one-twentieth-scale models. Because tests showed that the models compared poorly with the actual aircraft by a factor of 20, a suggestion was made to construct a sealed airtight chamber in which air could be compressed to the same extent as the model being tested. The new tunnel, the Variable Density Tunnel was the first of its kind and has become a National Historic Landmark.
Date
04.01.1921
Model of 5-Foot Vertical Win
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Title
Model of 5-Foot Vertical Wind Tunnel
Description
Model of 5-Foot Vertical Wind Tunnel. Carl Wenzinger and Thomas Harris wrote in NACA TR 387: "The vertical open-throat wind tunnel of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ... was built mainly for studying the spinning characteristics of airplane models, but may be used as well for the usual types of wind-tunnel tests. A special spinning balance is being developed to measure the desired forces and moments with the model simulating the actual spin of an airplane. Satisfactory air flow has been attained with a velocity that is uniform over the jet to within 0.5 per cent. The turbulence present in the tunnel has been compared with that of several other tunnels by means of the results of sphere drag tests and was found to average well with the values of those tunnels. Included also in the report are comparisons of results of stable autorotation and of rolling-moment tests obtained both in the vertical tunnel and in the old horizontal 5-foot atmospheric tunnel." The design of a vertical tunnel having a 5-foot diameter jet was accordingly started by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1928. Actual construction of the new tunnel was completed in 1930, and the calibration tests were then made.
Date
01.11.1930
NACA DISPLAYS AT THE AIRCRAF
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Title
NACA DISPLAYS AT THE AIRCRAFT ENGINE RESEARCH LABORATORY AERL - AIRPLANES ON HANGAR APRON
Project Mercury - AWT Gimbal
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Title
Project Mercury - AWT Gimbaling Rig
Full Description
The Gimbal Rig, formally known as the MASTIF of Multiple Axis Space Test Inertia Facility, was engineered to simulate the tumbling and rolling motions of a space capsule and train the Mercury astronauts to control roll, pitch and yaw by activating nitrogen jets, used as brakes and bring the vehicle back into control. This facility was built at the Lewis Research Center, now John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field.
Date
10/29/1957
NASA Center
Glenn Research Center
Full Scale Tunnel (FST) and
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Title
Full Scale Tunnel (FST) and Seaplane Tow Channel
Description
Installation of Careystone covering at the Full-Scale Tunnel (FST) facility. The corrugated concrete and asbestos panels (1/4 inch thick, 42 inches wide, 62 inches long) which were used as siding and roofing for the Full-Scale Tunnel were manufactured by The Philip Carey Company. For the NACA, the choice of Careystone had been based on several factors. First and foremost was its low cost. NACA engineers had observed the very durable, low-maintenance and fireproof qualities of the concrete-asbestos covering of the airship hanger at Langley Field. Further, tests showed the material to be 3.8 times stronger than required (The maximum load the material was expected to withstand was 52 lbs. per square foot, the breaking load was 196 lbs. per sq. ft.). L4695 shows the interior view of construction of the Tow Tank. In the late 1920s, the NACA decided to investigate the aero/hydro dynamics of floats for seaplanes. A Hydrodynamics Branch was established in 1929 and special towing basin was authorized in March of that same year. Starr Truscott (the first head of the new division) described the tank in NACA TR 470: "The N.A.C.A. tank is of the Froude type, that is, the model which is being tested is towed through still water at successive constant speeds from a carriage spanning the tank. At each constant speed the towing pull is measured, the trim and the rise, or change of draft, are recorded and, if the model is being towed at a fixed trim, the moment required to hold it there is measured and recorded.""The reinforced concrete basin containing the water has the following dimensions: (1) Length on water, extreme, 2,020 feet, (2) Normal width of water surface, 24 feet, (3) Normal depth of water, 12 feet, (4) Length of 12 foot depth, 1,980 feet." This picture shows the tank before the coving was added. This brought the rails for the carriage closer together and helped suppress waves produced by the models. The finished tank would be filled with approximately 4 million gallons of salt water pumped in from the Back River. The tank was covered by a shelter which protected the water surface. The tank was dedicated on May 27, 1931. In 1936 the tank was extended to a total length of 2,960 feet. In 1959 the facility was turned over to the U.S. Navy.
Date
08.15.1930
Full Scale Tunnel (FST) and
…
Title
Full Scale Tunnel (FST) and Seaplane Tow Channel
Description
Installation of Careystone covering at the Full-Scale Tunnel (FST) facility. The corrugated concrete and asbestos panels (1/4 inch thick, 42 inches wide, 62 inches long) which were used as siding and roofing for the Full-Scale Tunnel were manufactured by The Philip Carey Company. For the NACA, the choice of Careystone had been based on several factors. First and foremost was its low cost. NACA engineers had observed the very durable, low-maintenance and fireproof qualities of the concrete-asbestos covering of the airship hanger at Langley Field. Further, tests showed the material to be 3.8 times stronger than required (The maximum load the material was expected to withstand was 52 lbs. per square foot, the breaking load was 196 lbs. per sq. ft.). L4695 shows the interior view of construction of the Tow Tank. In the late 1920s, the NACA decided to investigate the aero/hydro dynamics of floats for seaplanes. A Hydrodynamics Branch was established in 1929 and special towing basin was authorized in March of that same year. Starr Truscott (the first head of the new division) described the tank in NACA TR 470: "The N.A.C.A. tank is of the Froude type, that is, the model which is being tested is towed through still water at successive constant speeds from a carriage spanning the tank. At each constant speed the towing pull is measured, the trim and the rise, or change of draft, are recorded and, if the model is being towed at a fixed trim, the moment required to hold it there is measured and recorded.""The reinforced concrete basin containing the water has the following dimensions: (1) Length on water, extreme, 2,020 feet, (2) Normal width of water surface, 24 feet, (3) Normal depth of water, 12 feet, (4) Length of 12 foot depth, 1,980 feet." This picture shows the tank before the coving was added. This brought the rails for the carriage closer together and helped suppress waves produced by the models. The finished tank would be filled with approximately 4 million gallons of salt water pumped in from the Back River. The tank was covered by a shelter which protected the water surface. The tank was dedicated on May 27, 1931. In 1936 the tank was extended to a total length of 2,960 feet. In 1959 the facility was turned over to the U.S. Navy.
Date
08.15.1930
The 80 x 40 Foot Wind Tunnel
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Title
The 80 x 40 Foot Wind Tunnel at Ames
Full Description
Looking down the throat of the world's larget tunnel. The scene is NACA's 40 x 80 foot wind tunnel at Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, Moffett Field, California. The camera is stationed in the tunnel's largest section, 173 feet wide by 132 feet high. Here at top speed the air, driven by six 40 foot fans, is moving about 35 to 40 miles per hour. The rapid contraction of the throat (or nozzle) speeds up this air flow to more than 250 miles per hour in the oval test section, which is 80 feet wide and 40 feet high. The tunnel encloses 900 tons of air, 40 tons of which rush through the throat per second at maxium speed. Dwarfed by the immensity of the tunnel structure, the experimental model seen here is actually almost 50 feet long. Embodying a sharply swept-back wing suitable for supersonic flight, it is undergoing tests designed to improve the landing characteristics of this type of airfoil. Mounted on struts connected to scales under the test section, it is "flown standing still" while each element such as lift and drag is measured and air pressures occuring across the wing are recorded. Information gathered from such tests were made available to the nation's aircraft manufacturers by the NACA, an independent agency of the U.S. Government.
Date
01/01/1947
NASA Center
Ames Research Center
Swinging Valve for Supersoni
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Title
Swinging Valve for Supersonic Wind Tunnel
Full Description
24 foot diameter swinging valve at various stages of opening and closing in the 10ft x 10ft Supersonic Wind Tunnel.
Date
05/17/1956
NASA Center
Glenn Research Center
New Rocket Lab Facility at S
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Title
New Rocket Lab Facility at South 40
Full Description
New Rocket Lab Facility at South 40 Rocket Facility. Rocket Engine Test Facility (RETF) Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory Lewis Research Center, now known as the Glenn Research Center.
Date
07/31/1957
NASA Center
Glenn Research Center
16 Foot High Speed Tunnel
Title
16 Foot High Speed Tunnel
Full Description
Photograph of the 16 Foot High Speed Tunnel at Langley with Building 1146 in foreground.
Date
3/15/1949
NASA Center
Langley Research Center
AAL-1854
NACA Photographer - 16ft Hig
…
2/8/42
Description
NACA Photographer - 16ft High Speed Wind Tunnel downstream view through cooling tower section
Date
2/8/42
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