Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

182 THE WAR YEARS (1917-19)
Except for the pioneer work of the Wright brothers, Langley, Chanute
and a few others, serious study of the scientific fundamentals of flight began
in this country only after the NACA requested the Bureau in 1915 to under-
take an investigation of aviation aerodynamics. The Bureau was to play an
important part in this research before the NACA acquired facilities of its
own.
In January 1918 the Bureau transferred its aerodynamic studies from
the library and laboratory to a new wind tunnel building recently constructed
under the direction of Dr. Lyman J. Briggs. Dr. Briggs, a Department of
Agriculture physicist lent to the Bureau several months earlier, recalled that
soon after he arrived Dr. Stratton asked him to design and build a wind
tunnel balance. Asked whether he knew what that was, Briggs answered
that he presumed it was "to measure forces on an airfoil." "Right," said
Stratton, "and while you're about it, you'd better design a wind tunnel to put
it in."
The wind tunnel that Briggs designed housed a 9.foot propeller that
produced air speeds of 90 miles an hour. In it he installed recording ap-
paratus and began his measurements on airfoils and on airplane and dirigible
models. in almost continuous operation, the wind tunnel was also used
to make studies of wind stresses, to test airspeed indicators and similar in.
struments, and to determine the flight characteristics of aerial bombs.
While the aircraft program as a whole lagged for lack of time, knowl-
edge, and experience, aviation engine production, utilizing the Nation's
automotive industry, quickly went into high gear. Both as a matter of
national prestige and practicality, an American.designed engine was con-
sidered crucial from the start. Although an aircraft commission sent to
Europe in the spring of 1917 examined more than 80 different engines in
use or under development by the Allies, none was deemed sufficiently power-
ful to meet future requirements or, what was more important, lend itself to
mass production methods or materials.58
Design work on both 8.cylinder and 12.cylinder engines was started
that June by a group of Packard Motor Car engineers quartered at the
Bureau. They had begun the preliminary paperwork in the Washington
hotel where they were staying and were ready to start on the detailed manu-
facturing drawings when they phoned Dr. Stratton one midnight and told him
they needed more space. He promptly made available the whole of the new
Chemistry building and the use of any other facilities at the Bureau they
might need. The engineers moved in the following morning.59
"Interview with Dr. Briggs, Nov. 1, 1961; NBS Annual Report 1918, Pp. 127—128.
Redfield, With Congress and Cabinet, p. 227; Paxson, American Democracy and the
World War, II, 112.
Crowell, America's Munitions, 1917—18, p. 270.