The Whitcomb area rule, named after NACA engineer Richard Whitcomb and also called the transonic area rule, is a design procedure used to reduce an aircraft's drag at transonic speeds which occur between about Mach 0.75 and 1.2. For supersonic speeds a different procedure called the supersonic area rule, developed by NACA aerodynamicist Robert Jones, is used.
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.
Richard Travis Whitcomb was an American aeronautical engineer who was noted for his contributions to the science of aerodynamics.
The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California and is considered NASA's premier site for aeronautical research. AFRC operates some of the most advanced aircraft in the world and is known for many aviation firsts, including supporting the first crewed airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight, highest speed by a crewed, powered aircraft, the first pure digital fly-by-wire aircraft, and many others. AFRC operates a second site next to Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, known as Building 703, once the former Rockwell International/North American Aviation production facility. There, AFRC houses and operates several of NASA's Science Mission Directorate aircraft including SOFIA, a DC-8 Flying Laboratory, a Gulfstream C-20A UAVSAR and ER-2 High Altitude Platform. As of 2023, Bradley Flick is the center's director.
Robert Rowe Gilruth was an American aerospace engineer and an aviation/space pioneer who was the first director of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center, later renamed the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
The Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket is a rocket and jet-powered research supersonic aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company for the United States Navy. On 20 November 1953, shortly before the 50th anniversary of powered flight, Scott Crossfield piloted the Skyrocket to Mach 2, or more than 1,290 mph (2076 km/h), the first time an aircraft had exceeded twice the speed of sound.
Robert T. Jones,, was an aerodynamicist and aeronautical engineer for NACA and later NASA. He was known at NASA as "one of the premier aeronautical engineers of the twentieth century". The papers of Robert T. Jones are in the Stanford University Libraries archives.
Abraham "Abe" Silverstein was an American engineer who played an important part in the United States space program. He was a longtime manager at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). He was instrumental in the planning of the Apollo, Ranger, Mariner, Surveyor, and Voyager missions, and named the Apollo program after the Greek and Roman God.
The Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel, located at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Federal Airfield, Mountain View, California, United States, is a research facility used extensively to design and test new generations of aircraft, both commercial and military, as well as NASA space vehicles, including the Space Shuttle. The facility was completed in 1955 and is one of five facilities created after the 1949 Unitary Plan Act supporting aeronautics research.
The Full-Scale Tunnel was a wind tunnel at NASA's Langley Research Center. It was a National Historic Landmark.
The Eight-Foot High Speed Tunnel, also known as Eight-Foot Transonic Tunnel, was a wind tunnel located in Building 641 of NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. It was a National Historic Landmark.
Edgar Maurice Cortright was a scientist and engineer, and senior official at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States. His most prominent positions during his career were Director of NASA's Langley Research Center, and Chairman of the Apollo 13 Review Board which investigated the explosion that occurred during the Apollo 13 spaceflight in 1970.
There are NASA facilities across the United States and around the world. NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC provides overall guidance and political leadership to the agency. There are 10 NASA field centers, which provide leadership for and execution of NASA's work. All other facilities fall under the leadership of at least one of these field centers. Some facilities serve more than one application for historic or administrative reasons. NASA has used or supported various observatories and telescopes, and an example of this is the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility. In 2013 a NASA Office of the Inspector General's (OIG) Report recommended a Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) style organization to consolidate NASA's little used facilities. The OIG determined at least 33 of NASA's 155 facilities were underutilized.
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.
As the coalition of Bay Areas counties predicted when it lobbied for the creation of Moffett Federal Airfield in the late 1920s, the base's research program and facilities catalyzed the development of numerous private technology and aerospace corporations, among them Lockheed Martin and the Hiller Aircraft Corporation.
John Stack (1906–1972) was an aerospace engineer. He won the Collier trophy, in 1947 and 1951.
Norman L. Crabill is a retired NASA engineer. An employee of NASA since its creation in 1958, Crabill was originally employed by its predecessor National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA. Over the course of his nearly 40-year career, he was recognized for numerous achievements. Crabill has written 43 publications. He was inducted into the Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame in 2003.
Kitty O'Brien Joyner was an American electrical engineer with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and then with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) upon its replacement of NACA in 1958. She was the first woman to graduate from the University of Virginia's engineering program in 1939, receiving the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award upon graduation. When she was hired by NACA the same year, she became the first woman engineer at the organization, eventually rising to the title of Branch Head and managing several of its wind tunnels. Her work contributed to research on aeronautics, supersonic flight, airfoils, and aircraft design standards.
Mary Jackson was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for most of her career. She started as a computer at the segregated West Area Computing division in 1951. In 1958, after taking engineering classes, she became NASA's first black female engineer.
The Propeller Research Tunnel (PRT) was the first full-scale wind tunnel at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Langley Research Center, and the third at the facility. It was in use between 1927 and 1950 and was instrumental in the drag reduction research of early American aeronautics. In 1929, NACA was awarded its first Collier Trophy for the NACA cowling which was tested and developed using the Propeller Research Tunnel.
