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(Music)

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(Propeller starts and runs)

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Walter Vincente: The N-A-C-A was formed by

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an act of Congress in mid-1915.

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The acronym stood for National Advisory

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Committee for Aeronautics.

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Its original purpose was to advise

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the U.S. government on matters pertaining to

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the development of aeronautics.

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The N-A-C-A went on to do a number

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of notable things.

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The most prominent were the development of

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the world's first pressurized wind tunnel

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at Langley Field in the mid-1920s.

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They went then, in the 1930s, on to develop

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the famous N-A-C-A cowling and also, they went on

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to conceive of the idea and work out the details

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of the laminar flow airfoil.

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Those all became highly used in the aircraft industry.

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During the Depression, the Great Depression,

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money was hard to come by.

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The load on the Langley laboratory

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was becoming considerable.

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Glenn Bugos: The N-A-C-A Laboratory at

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Langley Field in Virginia was overbuilt.

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There was no room on the tarmac

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for flight research aircraft.

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There was no room for wind tunnels.

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Most importantly, there was no electricity

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available to drive any new wind tunnels

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that could be constructed there.

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(Music)

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Charles Lindbergh: We are on the verge of war,

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for which we are still unprepared.

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The American Army has only a few hundred

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thoroughly modern bombers and fighters.

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Less, in fact, than Germany is able to produce

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in a single month.

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Walter Vincente: Trips were made to Germany

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by George Lewis, the director of N-A-C-A

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and Charles Lindbergh to see

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what was going on in Germany.

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What they did see really opened their eyes.

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Germany was far ahead of the United States

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in aeronautical research.

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It seems to have been a growing consensus,

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among the military in particular, also the N-A-C-A,

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and some growing feeling in the Congress

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that something needed to be done.

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Russ Robinson: A) Our only laboratory

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is on the East Coast.

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B) The aircraft industry is moving to the West Coast.

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We ought to establish a second laboratory.

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A site selection committee was formed under Colonel Lindbergh.

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Walter Vincente: The N-A-C-A itself finally came up

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with a proposal to put a laboratory

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near Sunnyvale, California.

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The final act of Congress to fund the new laboratory

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here at Sunnyvale was in June of 1939.

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Glenn Bugos:  Why Moffett Field?

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It was located on the West Coast,

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close to the West Coast aircraft manufacturers

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in Los Angeles and Seattle.

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But probably, most importantly, there was a

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craft tradition in the Bay Area.

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This came in very handy when Ames had to build

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huge wind tunnel hulls or very tiny electrodes

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that served for very sensitive instrumentation.

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Joseph Sweetman Ames was a professor of physics

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and later, president of the Johns Hopkins

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University in Baltimore.

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He was also a founding member of the N-A-C-A in 1915

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and served as the chairman of its main committee

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from 1927 until 1937.

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And because of the integrity and the trust

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that people in Congress and in the Executive Branch

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of the government had placed in Joseph Sweetman Ames,

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the laboratory here was established and in 1944,