252 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1955 



take its responsibilities as the nation's aeronautical research establish- 

 ment. At this point it is in order to glance briefly at some early activi- 

 ties of the Committee which were consonant with the "Advisory" in 

 its name. 



In 1916 the executive committee invited engine manufacturers to 

 attend a meeting on June 18 in Dr. Walcott's office at the Smithsonian 

 Institution to discuss the problem of obtaining more powerful and 

 more reliable engines and to bring about a better miderstanding be- 

 tween builders and users. Representatives of the military services 

 were in attendance, and although it is to be doubted that many prob- 

 lems were solved, unquestionable good was done by bringing them into 

 sharp focus. Another benefit from the meeting was an arrangement 

 whereby the Society of Automotive Engineers became active in provid- 

 ing assistance in the solution of aircraft powerplant problems. 



Also in 1916 the Committee examined the problem of the carriage 

 of mail by air. The Post Office Department had failed in efforts to 

 establish a contract air-mail service in Alaska and from New Bedford 

 to Nantucket Island. Air mail waf^ then considered to be justified only 

 over almost impossible terrain. "Conditions of both these routes were 

 so severe as to deter responsible bidders from undertaking this service," 

 the Committee decided. It felt, nonetheless, that because of the great 

 progress made in aviation, the Post Office should set up one or more 

 experimental routes, "with a view to determining the accuracy, fre- 

 quency, and rapidity of transportation which may reasonably be 

 expected under normal and favorable conditions, and therefrom to 

 determine the desirability of extending this service wherever the con- 

 ditions are such as to warrant its employment." 



The above-stated opinion was transmitted to Congress in 1916 as 

 a recommendation. In 1918, when $100,000 was appropriated for 

 creation of an experimental air-mail service, the NACA invited the 

 attention of the Secretary of War to the following facts : "Practically 

 all aircraft manufacturing facilities in the United States were being 

 utilized by the War and Navy Departments, and all capable aviators 

 were in the military or naval air services [and] it was exceed- 

 ingly desirable that Army aviators be regularly and systematically 



trained in long-distance flying [and that] it would appear 



to be to the advantage of the War Department and of the Goverimient 

 generally that military airplanes be used to render practical and 

 effective service" in carrying mail between Washington, Philadelphia, 

 and New York. In its 1918 Annual Report the NACA viewed with 

 satisfaction the manner in which the experimental airmail service 

 had been established along the lines recommended, and expressed 

 the opinion it had already "been sufficiently well demonstrated since 

 its inauguration to justify its extension generally." 



