SECRETARY'S REPORT 143 



or of foreign make with little or no printed data available to govern 

 procedure. Twenty-five aircraft were boxed during the year, each 

 one presenting its own problems of handling, placing, bracing, and 

 enclosing ; 30 boxes were required for the total, some planes needing 

 extra containers for wings and components. Many of the boxes in 

 which aircraft had originally been received required repair during the 

 year, and all those that were placed outdoors had to be roofed with 

 waterproof covering and sprayed with heavy Abesto liquid. This 

 exterior protection supplemented the careful coating of the aircraft 

 and engines inside with Parelketone, Cosmolene, and other applica- 

 tions, each best suited to the surface being protected. Nine engines 

 were boxed during the year, but at the close of June all 151 engines 

 were due for another inspection, preservative coating, and dehydra- 

 tion treatment. In many instances the handling, disassembly, and 

 preservation of specimens required special study and care by the staff 

 to determine best procedures. 



Because of the precarious status of the storage housing, few items 

 of new material were brought to Park Ridge. Enforced concentra- 

 tion on other aspects of the work left no opportunity for inventory- 

 ing, but guarding was maintained on a 24-hour schedule, even through 

 severe winter nights. During one particularly bad blizzard all hands 

 had to drop other assignments and make a powered snow shovel to clear 

 paths to the outdoor boxes and aircraft. With it all some time was 

 found to assist research workers using the collection for study purposes 

 and to prepare some educational displays requested by the Air Force 

 for recruiting purposes. 



ASSISTANCE TO OTHER AGENCIES 



The tangible evidence of aeronautical progress and history em- 

 bodied in the collection, the extensive files maintained as auxiliary data 

 for the material on display and in storage, and the expert knowledge 

 of the staff are frequently called upon to be of service to government 

 and industry and to students, engineers, authors, historians, and 

 others. This is one of the most interesting phases of the work and 

 pays a direct return to the nation for the maintenance of the collection. 



It is particularly gratifying when the possibility of accident can 

 be forestalled. The Bell Supersonic airplane X-l became a source 

 for such service during the year. The National Advisory Committee 

 for Aeronautics, the Navy, and Air Force are continuing to use similar 

 aircraft for high-speed and extreme-altitude research. In July the 

 National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was faced with the 

 problem of determining the safety factor and life expectancy of the 

 high-pressure nitrogen spheres in supersonic aircraft that were flying 

 •at Edwards Air Force Base on regular test hops. When NACA 



