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52-511: The White Aircraft Company bought the rights to the AT in 1939. The Sportsman, as it was also known, offered excellent flight characteristics and good stability, due in part to the design of the lower wing. With leather trim, battery with starter, and navigation lights, the Sport Trainer sold for $ 5,250. There were 10 manufactured. The owner of serial number one was Eugene Francis May. One AT

104-528: A 165 hp engine and could produce top speed of 120 mph, which was not faster than other aircraft of that era, but was more than adequate for the flight training purposes of the Army. General characteristics Performance NACA The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ( NACA ) was a United States federal agency that was founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958,

156-648: A considerable amount of time at the Burgess Shale quarry on what became known as Fossil Ridge, he also traveled widely in other areas of the Canadian Rockies . Some of his numerous scientific publications feature spectacular panoramic photographs of the mountains taken from high passes or high on mountain slopes. In 1914 Walcott convened a conference in Washington, D.C. for the purpose of stimulating interest in aeronautic science, and its relation to

208-437: A contract basis. 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 " thin airfoil theory " (1920s), " NACA engine cowl " (1930s), the " NACA airfoil " series (1940s), and the " area rule " for supersonic aircraft (1950s). On

260-464: A feasible front line fighter by European standards, and so North American began development of a new aircraft. The British government chose a NACA-developed airfoil for the fighter, which enabled it to perform dramatically better than previous models. This aircraft became known as the P-51 Mustang . After early experiments by Opel RAK with rocket propulsion leading to the first public flight of

312-606: A much less negative view of Walcott's descriptions and of the theoretical perspective that shaped them. Walcott's work on Ordovician trilobites of New York also tended to be overlooked until, in the early 1990s, Rochester-based amateur paleontologist Thomas Whiteley revived Walcott's research and re-opened the Walcott–Rust quarry near Russia, New York. This localized stratum has some of the best preserved Laurentian trilobites ever found, including enrolled specimens with soft body parts. The Walcott Peak, near where he first discovered

364-433: A nation as well as military necessity that this challenge ( Sputnik ) be met by an energetic program of research and development for the conquest of space. ... It is accordingly proposed that the scientific research be the responsibility of a national civilian agency working in close cooperation with the applied research and development groups required for weapon systems development by the military. The pattern to be followed

416-461: A new generation of paleontologists in the late 1960s. Since then, many of his interpretations have been revised. Walcott would be little known today if he had not been brought to attention by Stephen Jay Gould 's book Wonderful Life (1989). In this book, Gould put forth his opinion that Walcott failed to see the differences among the Burgess Shale species and "shoehorned" most of these fossils into existing phyla. Many paleontologists would now take

468-629: A rocket plane, the Opel RAK.1 , in 1929 and eventual military programs at Heinkel and Messerschmitt by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, the US entered the race to supersonic planes and spaceflight in the 1940s. Although the Bell X-1 was commissioned by the Air Force and flown by Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager , when it exceeded Mach 1 NACA was officially in charge of the testing and development of

520-552: Is now used in designing all transonic and supersonic aircraft. NACA experience provided a model for World War II research, the postwar government laboratories, and NACA's successor, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NACA also participated in development of the first aircraft to fly to the "edge of space", North American's X-15 . NACA airfoils are still used on modern aircraft. On November 21, 1957, Hugh Dryden , NACA's director, established

572-576: Is that already developed by the NACA and the military services. ... The NACA is capable, by rapid extension and expansion of its effort, of providing leadership in space technology. 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

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624-487: Is used on all modern supersonic aircraft , and conducted the key compressibility research that enabled the Bell X-1 to break the sound barrier. NACA was established on March 13, 1915, by the federal government through enabling legislation as an emergency measure during World War I to promote industry, academic, and government coordination on war-related projects. It was modeled on similar national agencies found in Europe:

676-549: The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress to maintain power at high altitude, a team of engineers from NACA solved the problems and created the standards and testing methods used to produce effective superchargers in the future. This enabled the B-17 to be used as a key aircraft in the war effort. The designs and information gained from NACA research on the B-17 were used in nearly every major U.S. military powerplant of

728-598: The Burgess Shale of British Columbia , Canada. Charles Doolittle Walcott was born on March 31, 1850, in New York Mills, New York . His grandfather, Benjamin S. Walcott, moved from Rhode Island in 1822. His father, also Charles Doolittle Walcott, died when Charles Jr. was only two. Walcott was the youngest of four children. He was interested in nature from an early age, collecting minerals and bird eggs and, eventually, fossils. He attended various schools in

780-563: The Burgess shale , Walcott returned to the area accompanied by his sons Stuart and Sidney. Together they examined all the layers on the ridge above the point where the fossil-laden rock had been found, eventually finding the fossiliferous band. Between 1910 and 1924, Walcott returned repeatedly to collect more than 65,000 specimens from what is now known as the Walcott Quarry , named after him. The find includes exceptional preservation of

832-573: The Convair F-102 project and the F11F Tiger . The F-102 was meant to be a supersonic interceptor, but it was unable to exceed the speed of sound, despite the best effort of Convair engineers. The F-102 had actually already begun production when this was discovered, so NACA engineers were sent to quickly solve the problem at hand. The production line had to be modified to allow the modification of F-102s already in production to allow them to use

884-537: The NACA cowling , and several series of NACA airfoils , which are still used in aircraft manufacturing. During World War II, NACA was described as "The Force Behind Our Air Supremacy" due to its key role in producing working superchargers for high altitude bombers, and for producing the laminar wing profiles for the North American P-51 Mustang . NACA also helped in developing the area rule that

936-564: The US Army's Ballistic Missile Agency would have a Jupiter C rocket ready to launch a satellite in 1956, only to have it delayed, and the Soviets would launch Sputnik 1 in October 1957. On January 14, 1958, Dryden published "A National Research Program for Space Technology", which stated: It is of great urgency and importance to our country both from consideration of our prestige as

988-630: The Weather Bureau , and the National Bureau of Standards . Five additional members were chosen "who shall be acquainted with the needs of aeronautical science, either civil or military, or skilled in aeronautical engineering or its allied sciences". Brigadier General George P. Scriven , Chief Signal Officer of the Army, was chairman of the committee; Walcott was elected chairman of the Executive Committee. William F. Durand

1040-643: The Burgess Shale on Mount Burgess in Canada , was named after him. The nearby Walcott Quarry , with the Phyllopod bed of Burgess Shale fossils between Wapta Mountain and Mount Field , is also named for him. The Charles Doolittle Walcott Medal is awarded by the National Academy of Sciences every five years for outstanding work in the field of Precambrian and Cambrian life and history. The World War II Liberty Ship SS  Charles D. Walcott

1092-824: The French L'Etablissement Central de l'Aérostation Militaire in Meudon (now Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatiales ), the German Aerodynamic Laboratory of the University of Göttingen , and the Russian Aerodynamic Institute of Koutchino (replaced in 1918 with the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI) , which is still in existence). The most influential agency upon which

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1144-610: 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,

1196-643: The Naval Appropriations Bill. According to one source, "The enabling legislation for the NACA slipped through almost unnoticed as a rider attached to the Naval Appropriation Bill, on March 3, 1915." 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

1248-693: The P-38 Lightning. The X-1 program was first envisioned in 1944 when a former NACA engineer working for Bell Aircraft approached the Army for funding of a supersonic test aircraft. Neither the Army nor Bell had any experience in this area, so the majority of research came from the NACA Compressibility Research Division, which had been operating for more than a year by the time Bell began conceptual designs. The Compressibility Research Division also had years of additional research and data to pull from, as its head engineer

1300-472: 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". As of their meeting on May 26, 1958, committee members, starting clockwise from

1352-575: The Second World War. Nearly every aircraft used some form of forced induction that relied on information developed by NACA. Because of this, U.S.-produced aircraft had a significant power advantage above 15,000 feet, which was never fully countered by Axis forces. After the war had begun, the British government sent a request to North American Aviation for a new fighter. The offered P-40 Tomahawk fighters were considered too outdated to be

1404-658: The Special Committee on Space Technology. 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. Wernher von Braun , technical director at

1456-578: The U.S. government. The conference led to an act of congress organizing an Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (later named the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ) "to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution." This committee was composed of twelve members, two each from the Army and Navy, one each representing the Smithsonian Institution,

1508-650: The Utica area but left at the age of eighteen without completing high school, the end of his formal education. His interest in fossils solidified as he became a commercial fossil collector. On January 9, 1872, Walcott married Lura Ann Rust, daughter of the owner of a farm in New York where Walcott made one of his most important trilobite discoveries ( Walcott-Rust quarry ). She died on January 23, 1876. Walcott's interest in fossils led to his acquaintance with Louis Agassiz of Harvard University, who encouraged him to work in

1560-449: The agency was dissolved and its assets and personnel were transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NACA is an initialism, i.e., pronounced as individual letters, rather than as a whole word (as was NASA during the early years after being established). Among other advancements, NACA research and development produced the NACA duct , a type of air intake used in modern automotive applications,

1612-406: The aircraft. NACA ran the experiments and data collection, and the bulk of the research used to develop the aircraft came from NACA engineer John Stack , the head of NACA's compressibility division. Compressibility is a major issue as aircraft approach Mach 1, and research into solving the problem drew heavily on information collected during previous NACA wind tunnel testing to assist Lockheed with

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1664-617: The area rule. (Aircraft so altered were known as "area ruled" aircraft.) The design changes allowed the aircraft to exceed Mach 1, but only by a small margin, as the rest of the Convair design was not optimized for this. As the F-11F was the first design to incorporate this during initial design, it was able to break the sound barrier without having to use afterburner. Because the area rule was initially classified, it took several years for Whitcomb to be recognized for his accomplishment. In 1955 he

1716-934: The assistant to James Hall , State Geologist of New York. Walcott also became a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . In 1879, Walcott joined the US Geological Survey and rose to become chief paleologist in 1893 and then director in 1894. His work focused on Cambrian strata in locations throughout the United States and Canada; his numerous field trips and fossil discoveries made important contributions to stratigraphy . He married Helena Breese Stevens in 1888. They had four children between 1889 and 1896: Charles Doolittle Walcott, Sydney Stevens Walcott, Helena Breese Walcott, and Benjamin Stuart Walcott. Walcott

1768-690: The death of Samuel Pierpont Langley , holding the post until his own death. He was succeeded by Charles Greeley Abbot . Because of Walcott's responsibilities at the Smithsonian, he resigned as director of the United States Geological Survey. As part of the centennial celebration of Darwin's birth, Walcott was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Cambridge in 1909. In 1910, the year after his discovery of 508 million year old ( middle Cambrian ) fossils in

1820-530: The deception before it was put on display. It took until 1928 for the Smithsonian Board of Regents to pass a resolution acknowledging that the Wright brothers deserved the credit for "the first successful flight with a power-propelled heavier-than-air machine carrying a man." After Walcott's death in Washington, D.C., his samples, photographs, and notes remained in storage until their rediscovery by

1872-399: 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

1924-675: The field of paleontology ; later that year, he began work as the assistant to the state paleontologist, James Hall . He lost this job after two years but was soon recruited to the newly formed US Geological Survey as a geological assistant. Walcott began his professional paleontology career by discovering new localities, such as the Walcott-Rust quarry in upstate New York and the Georgia Plane trilobite beds in Vermont, and by selling specimens to Yale University. In 1876, he became

1976-581: The left of the above picture: Charles D. Walcott Charles Doolittle Walcott (March 31, 1850 – February 9, 1927) was an American paleontologist , administrator of the Smithsonian Institution from 1907 to 1927, and director of the United States Geological Survey . He is famous for his discovery in 1909 of well-preserved fossils , including some of the oldest soft-part imprints, in

2028-416: 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 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

2080-463: 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 (495 kn; 917 km/h)) was reached at Moffett's 16-foot (4.9 m) wind tunnel late in 1942. NACA's first wind tunnel was formally dedicated at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory on June 11, 1920. It was the first of many now-famous NACA and NASA wind tunnels. Although this specific wind tunnel

2132-710: 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 encountered in high speed dives made by the Lockheed P-38 Lightning . The full-size 30-by-60-foot (9.1 m × 18.3 m) Langley wind tunnel operated at no more than 100 mph (87 kn; 160 km/h) and the then-recent 7-by-10-foot (2.1 m × 3.0 m) tunnels at Moffett could only reach 250 mph (220 kn; 400 km/h). These were speeds Lockheed engineers considered useless for their purposes. General Henry H. Arnold took up

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2184-474: 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 suggested the tactic of adding the resolution to

2236-554: The soft parts of its fossils, one of the oldest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints. Walcott's wife Helena died in a train crash in Connecticut in 1911. In 1914, Walcott married his third wife, Mary Morris Vaux , an amateur artist and avid naturalist. She accompanied him on his expeditions, enjoying the study of nature. She made watercolor illustrations of wildflowers as she traveled with him in Canada. Although Walcott spent

2288-697: Was awarded the Collier Trophy for his work on both the Tiger and the F-102. The most important design resulting from the area rule was the B-58 Hustler , which was already in development at the time. It was redesigned to take the area rule into effect, allowing greatly improved performance. This was the first US supersonic bomber, and was capable of Mach 2 at a time when Soviet fighters had only just attained that speed months earlier. The area rule concept

2340-510: Was awarded the inaugural Mary Clark Thompson Medal from the National Academy of Sciences . He served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1923. He previously spearheaded the U.S. Geological Survey under President Theodore Roosevelt . Walcott had an interest in the conservation movement and assisted its efforts. Walcott became Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1907 after

2392-566: Was built for NACA testing in 1930, and was designated the AT-4. It had modified wide landing gear with added fittings for pontoons, which may or may not have been used. The colors were a blue fuselage, silver wings, yellow stripe. Special equipment included: EDO pontoon fittings with structural bearing, steel interplane struts. On 31 January 1931, test pilot Lou Meister bailed out of this plane after entering an unrecoverable spin. He died when his parachute did not fully deploy after bailing out. One AT

2444-450: 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. ... " On January 29, 1920, President Wilson appointed pioneering flier and aviation engineer Orville Wright to NACA's board. By

2496-808: Was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1896, the American Philosophical Society in 1897, and the American Academy of Art and Sciences in 1899. In 1901, he served both as president of the Geological Society of America and the Philosophical Society of Washington . In 1902, he met with Andrew Carnegie and became one of the founders and incorporators of the Carnegie Institution of Washington . He served in various administrative and research positions in that organization. In 1921 Walcott

2548-519: Was modified in 1931 for Lycoming Manufacturing Company of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was designated the LT Sportsman. It was fitted with a 210 hp Lycoming R-680 . Kenneth Parker, the son of George Safford Parker , founder of Parker Pen Company owned an AT. The USAAC purchased 4 YPT-10's and tested with 5 different engine versions resulting in YPT-10 thru YPT-10D designations. It had

2600-430: 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. In the years immediately preceding World War II, NACA was involved in the development of several designs that served key roles in the war effort. When engineers at a major engine manufacturer were having issues producing superchargers that would allow

2652-584: Was one of the civilian members of the Committee. In light of the Wright brothers patent war and to discredit the Wright brothers, Glenn Curtiss in 1914 helped Walcott secretly make major modifications to a failed aerodrome built in 1903 by Professor Samuel Langley to make it appear able to fly. After the flight demonstrations, Walcott ordered the Langley machine be restored to its 1903 condition to cover up

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2704-514: Was previously head of the high speed wind tunnel division, which itself had nearly a decade of high speed test data by that time. Due to the importance of NACA involvement, Stack was personally awarded the Collier Trophy along with the owner of Bell Aircraft and test pilot Chuck Yeager. In 1951, NACA Engineer Richard Whitcomb determined the area rule that explained transonic flow over an aircraft. The first uses of this theory were on

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