40 YEARS OF AERONAUTICAL RESEARCH — HUNSAKER 251 



The war was over before the "Committee's field station" at Langley 

 Field could be said to be in useful operation. The xlnnual Report for 

 1919 noted that the Committee's first wind tumiel, with a 5-foot test 

 section, was completed but inoperative for lack of power. The Army's 

 power plant at Langley Field was incomplete, with construction 

 stopped for lack of money. 



With the Army plamiing to keep its experimental work in aeronau- 

 tics at McCook Field, Dayton, and with the Navy's experimental avia- 

 tion work centered at Norfolk, the NACA in 1919 felt it had good 

 reasons for moving its field station activities to Boiling Field, just 

 across the Anacostia River from the Capital. It asked Congress to 

 authorize the move : 



The Committee believes it uneconomical .and unsatisfactory to remain at Lang- 

 ley Field. The same work can be carried on more efficiently, more promptly, and 

 more economically at Boiling Field, where the work can be closely watched by all 

 members of the Committee, and where the members of the engineering staff in 

 charge of work can have ready access to the Committee, to large libraries, and 

 other sources of information, constant communication with the Bureau of Stand- 

 ards, a more satisfactory market for labor and supplies and adequate power 

 supply, and relief from the perplexing question of securing quarters at Langley 

 Field or in Hampton or other nearby towns. 



Congressional approval for the move to Boiling Field did not come. 

 In April 1920, the Committee, perhaps with a collective sigh, took 

 action that accepted as permanent the Langley Field site for the "field 

 station." It sought Presidential approval of the name, "Langley Me- 

 morial Aeronautical Laboratory." President Wilson concurred, and 

 dedicatory exercises were conducted on June 11. Attendance included 

 guests, it was later reported, "of whom a number had flown to the 

 field." 



This date, June 11, 1920, may be considered the real beginning of 

 NACA's own program of aeronautical research, conducted by its own 

 staff in its own facilites. The previous year a start had been made in 

 obtaining full-scale performance data from flight tests, but now the 

 availability of a wind tunnel made possible systematic investigations 

 of critical aerodynamic problems, such as: (1) Comparison between 

 the stability of airplanes as determined from full-flight test and as 

 determined from calculations based on wind-tunnel measurements; 

 (2) comparison between the performance of full-scale airplanes and 

 the calculations based on wind-tunnel experiments, and (3) airfoils, 

 including control surfaces, with special attention to thick sections, 

 plus combinations and modification of such sections. 



THE COMMITTEE'S ADVISORY FUNCTIONS 



This has been essentially a chronological account, first, of events pre- 

 ceding establishment of the NACA, and then its early steps to under- 



