Origins
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 H. H. Asquith.
Asquith announced the committee's appointment in a statement to the House of Commons on 5 May 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 to obtain adequate guidance in construction.
"For the superintendence of the investigations at the National Physical Laboratory and 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
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. He formed the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence. 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 is maintained online by Cranfield University, [5] which also maintain 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
From the time of its appointment on 30 April 1909 until the publication of its first report, the committee's members were as follows:
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a United States 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 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.
Charles Doolittle Walcott 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 the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, Canada.
Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane, was a British lawyer and philosopher and an influential Liberal and later Labour politician. He was Secretary of State for War between 1905 and 1912 during which time the "Haldane Reforms" of the British Army were implemented. As an intellectual he was fascinated with German thought. That led to his role in seeking detente with Germany in 1912 in the Haldane Mission. The mission was a failure and tensions with Berlin forced London to work more closely with Paris.
Sir Henry Thomas Tizard was an English chemist, inventor and Rector of Imperial College, who developed the modern "octane rating" used to classify petrol, helped develop radar in World War II, and led the first serious studies of UFOs.
A traffic collision avoidance system, also known as a traffic alert and collision avoidance system, is an aircraft collision avoidance system designed to reduce the incidence of mid-air collision (MAC) between aircraft. It monitors the airspace around an aircraft for other aircraft equipped with a corresponding active transponder, independent of air traffic control, and warns pilots of the presence of other transponder-equipped aircraft which may present a threat of MAC. It is a type of airborne collision avoidance system mandated by the International Civil Aviation Organization to be fitted to all aircraft with a maximum take-off mass (MTOM) of over 5,700 kg (12,600 lb) or authorized to carry more than 19 passengers. CFR 14, Ch I, part 135 requires that TCAS I be installed for aircraft with 10-30 passengers and TCAS II for aircraft with more than 30 passengers. ACAS/TCAS is based on secondary surveillance radar (SSR) transponder signals, but operates independently of ground-based equipment to provide advice to the pilot on potentially conflicting aircraft.
The Defense Science Board (DSB) is a committee of civilian experts appointed to advise the U.S. Department of Defense on scientific and technical matters. It was established in 1956 on the second Hoover Commission's recommendation.
A technical report is a document that describes the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or scientific research problem. It might also include recommendations and conclusions of the research. Unlike other scientific literature, such as scientific journals and the proceedings of some academic conferences, technical reports rarely undergo comprehensive independent peer review before publication. They may be considered as grey literature. Where there is a review process, it is often limited to within the originating organization. Similarly, there are no formal publishing procedures for such reports, except where established locally.
William Frederick Durand was a United States naval officer and pioneer mechanical engineer. He contributed significantly to the development of aircraft propellers. He was the first civilian chair of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the forerunner of NASA.
Robert George Jahn was an American plasma physicist, Professor of Aerospace Science, and Dean of Engineering at Princeton University. Jahn was also a founder of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR), a parapsychology research program which ran from 1979 to 2007.
Harold Roxbee Cox, Baron Kings Norton was a British aeronautical engineer. He was notable for his contributions to British industry, particularly aeronautical engineering, and for his part in the establishment of Cranfield University.
The Liberal government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that began in 1905 and ended in 1915 consisted of two ministries: the first led by Henry Campbell-Bannerman and the final three by H. H. Asquith.
John Michael Riebe was an American aeronautical engineer and inventor who contributed to the early designs of flight surfaces. Other significant contributions included being project engineer in the development of the Grumman F8F Bearcat fighter, involvement with short takeoff and landing projects for airline terminals, and work on control systems for rockets, flying boats, delta wings and powered lift systems. He performed tests in the numerous wind tunnels of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics' Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Langley Field, Virginia, where he was employed.
The Variable Density Tunnel (VDT) was the second wind tunnel at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Langley Research Center. Proposed by German aerospace engineer, Max Munk in May, 1921, it was the world's first variable density wind tunnel and allowed for more accurate testing of small-scale models than could be obtained with atmospheric wind tunnels. It was actively used as a wind tunnel from 1923 until its retirement in the 1940s. Langley Research Center historian, James R. Hansen, wrote that the VDT provided results superior to the atmospheric wind tunnels used at the time and was responsible for making NACA, the precursor to NASA, "a world leader in aerodynamic research". It is now on display on the Langley grounds, near the old Reid Conference Center and is a National Historic Landmark.
Christopher W. Johnson, FRSE, FRAeS, FBCS, is a British computer scientist and Pro Vice Chancellor for Engineering and Physical Sciences at Queen's University, Belfast. Previously he was Professor and Head of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow, UK.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in 1958 from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and other related organizations, as the result of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s.
Paul Richard Hill (1909–1990) was a mid–twentieth-century American aerodynamicist. He was a leading research and development engineer and manager for NASA and its predecessor, NACA between 1939 and 1970, retiring as Associate Chief, Applied Materials and Physics Division at the NASA Langley Research Center. He is arguably most widely known today as the author of Unconventional Flying Objects: a Scientific Analysis.
Terence Nonweiler held a Chair of Aeronautical Engineering at Glasgow University and later became Dean of the Faculty of Engineering. He has been credited with being the pioneer of wave-riding technology.
George Percival Scriven was the seventh Chief Signal Officer of the United States Army (1913–1917). In this position he commanded the Aeronautical Division (1913–1914),and later the Aviation Section (1914–1917) of U.S. Signal Corps, the forerunner of the United States Air Force.
Pearl I. Young became the first female technical employee of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which evolved to become today's NASA. She became Chief Technical Editor at NACA's Langley Instrument Research Laboratory, and an engineering professor.
The Munitions Inventions Department (MID) of the British Ministry of Munitions was created during the First World War in 1915. Its administrative structure encompassed university and industrial laboratories, private workshops, and military experimental grounds. The department made us of the experimental facilities of other government agencies, including the National Physical Laboratory at Bushy House and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). Two sister organisations were formed: The Board of Invention and Research (BIR) which was established in July 1915 to support the Admiralty, and the Air Inventions Committee (AIC), which supported the Air Board once it became become fully operational in the summer of 1917.
