Ұлттық Эродинамикалық Кеңесі (NACA)

U. S. federal agency; predecessor to NASA

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 (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, 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 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: 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 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, 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 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 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 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. "

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 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 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 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. 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. 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 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 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 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 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.

No. (Number)PortraitNameTermPresident 1 Brig. Gen. George P. Scriven 1915–1916Woodrow Wilson 2 William F. Durand 1916–1918 3 John R. Freeman 1918–1919 4 Charles Doolittle Walcott 1920–1927 Warren G. HardingCalvin Coolidge 5 Joseph Sweetman Ames 1927–1939Herbert HooverFranklin D. Roosevelt 6 Vannevar Bush 1940–1941 7 Capt. Jerome C. Hunsaker 1941–1956Harry S. TrumanDwight D. Eisenhower 8 Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle 1957–1958