Abstract
The wind tunnel has been an essential instrument for the development of the airplane. From the time of the Wright brothers to the present, it has served aeronautical investigators as an indispensable tool for the improvement of aerodynamic performance. With the emergence of practical aviation on the eve of World War I, European and American countries set up their research programs and built laboratories with wind tunnels to conduct their investigations.
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Notes
Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1987). See also his “Give Me a Laboratory and I Will Raise the World,” in Karin D. Knorr-Cetina and Michael Mulkay, eds., Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Studies of Science (London and Beverly Hills: Sage, 1983), pp. 141–70.
See Alfred Gollin, No Longer an Island: Britain and the Wright Brothers, 1902–1909 (London: Heinemann, 1984).
Cited in The Technical Reports of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1(1909), p. 4.
See Edward Pyatt, The National Physical Laboratory: A History (Bristol: A. Hilger, 1983). Stanton had originated his wind tunnel work at the NPL in 1903 to measure the wind force on a bridge.
George H. Bryan, Stability in Aviation: An Introduction to Dynamical Stability as Applied to the Motions of Aeroplanes (London: Macmillan, 1911).
Hugh G. J. Aitken, Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio (New York: Wiley, 1976). Aitken argues that Gustav L. Hertz, Oliver J. Lodge, and Guglielmo M. Marconi served as translators in the development of wireless technology. See also Eda Kranakis, “Hybrid Careers and the Interaction of Science and Technology,” in Peter Kroes and Martijn Bakker, eds., Technological Development and Science in the Industrial Age: New Perspectives on the Science-Technology Relationship (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992), pp. 177–204.
Leonard Bairstow, “Inherent Controllability of Aeroplanes: Notes Arising from Professor Bryan’s Wilbur-Wright Memorial Lecture,” Aeronautical Journal, 20 (1916), pp. 10–17, on p. 11, the editor’s footnote. See my “Theory, Experiment, and Design Practice: The Formation of Aeronautical Research, 1909–1930,” Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1991, p. 45.
G. Temple et al., “Leonard Bairstow,” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 11(1965), pp. 23–40, on p. 23.
Royal Aircraft Factory Staff, “Full Scale Tests,” Reports & Memoranda (the technical reports of the Advisory Committee, hereafter cited as R.&M.) 321.
Minutes of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 3 April 1917, DSIR 22/1, PRO; see also Minutes of“Scale Effect” subcommittee, DSIR 22/16, PRO.
Leonard Bairstow, “Data, Notes, and References on Scale Effect,” Sc.E.4 (April 1917), DSIR 23/10207, PRO. Bairstow gave the following five causes: errors in model tests, insufficiency of model tests to cover actual shapes and combinations of shapes, errors in applying the results of model tests to full-scale, errors in full-scale tests, and scale effect.
Bairstow referred to this point and called attention to the recent report of Henry Tizard which dealt with the variation of engine power at high altitude due to the change in petrol-air mixture. Minutes of “Scale Effect” subcommittee, p. 5 (April 17, 1917); Henry Tizard, “Carburation of Stationary Engines at Great Heights,” LC.E.82 (April 1917), DSIR 23/7971, PRO. Engine tests were organized in the next month. Farren pointed out at the meeting that a variation in petrol-air mixture produced only little effect on speed. Minutes of“Scale Effect” subcommittee, 29 May 1917; “Effect at Different Altitude on Engine Power,” Sc.E.13, DSIR 23/10216, PRO.
Minutes of the “Scale Effect” subcommittee, 8 August 1917, DSIR 22/16, PRO.
Minutes of the “Scale Effect” subcommittee, 14 November 1917. The report circulated at the meeting was Royal Aircraft Factory Staff, “Collection of Data for Prediction of Performance of Aeroplanes,” Sc.E.25 (November 1917), DSIR 23/10228, PRO. Except for certain omissions, it was a reproduction of a Factory technical paper. It had been issued by several aircraft firms since February 1917.
Minutes of the “Scale Effect” subcommittee, 24 October 1917; subcommittee’s final report, Sc.E.30, DSIR 23/10233, PRO.
The Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was replaced by the Aeronautical Research Committee in May 1920.
H.T. Tizard, “Possible Developments of Aircraft Engines for Civil Aviation in the Next Ten Years,” T. 1542, December, 1920, DSIR 23/1556.
B. Melvill Jones, “Subjects Suitable for Research in Aerodynamics,” T. 1543, December 1920, DSIR 23/1557, PRO.
Bairstow stated that the insurance premium went as high as twenty to thirty percent, and that because of the current impossibility of night flight, the average speed of airplanes over a twenty-four hour period reached only forty miles per hour.
Harald Penrose, British Aviation: The Great War and Armistice, 1915–1919 (London: Putnam, 1969), pp. 517–19.
Bruno Latour, Pasteurization of France, trans. by Alan Sheridan, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988).
G. Temple et al., “Leonard Bairstow,” op.cit., pp. 32–33.
Brooke-Popham also provided the idea of the “Discussion of the Aeroplane of 1930.” He was a military officer who served as Director of Research for only a year. See The Dictionary of National Biography (1951–60), pp. 144–46, on p. 145. On the structure of the Air Ministry around this time, see Charles G. Grey, A History of the Air Ministry (London: G. Allen, 1940), appendix.
Minutes of the Aerodynamics subcommittee, 2 March 1920, DSIR 23/39, PRO.
Minutes of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 9 March 1920, DSIR 22/1, PRO.
Minutes of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 13 April 1920, DSIR 22/1, PRO; Minutes of the Aerodynamics subcommittee, 1 June 1920, DSIR 22/39, PRO.
Minutes of the Aeronautical Research Committee, 11 October and 9 November 1920, DSIR 22/2, PRO.
Ibid., 11 October 1921 (for the Canadian Committee) and 8 November 1921 (for the Japanese Navy).
On the history of research activities at the Gö ttingen Aerodynamics Institute, see Paul Hanle, Bringing Aerodynamics to America (Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 1982); and Julius C. Rotta, Die Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt in Göttingen, ein Werk Ludwig Prandtls: Ihre Geschichte von den Anfängen bis 1925 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1990).
The Royal Aircraft Factory changed its name to RAE simply to avoid the confusion with the acronym for the newly established Royal Air Force.
Minutes of the Aeronautical Research Committee, 11 January 1921, DSIR 22/2, PRO. During the discussion, mention was also made of the aerodynamic research of the Zeppelin Company, but doubt was expressed as to whether research conducted at the private company would be available to the public.
Wood, “The Aerodynamics Laboratory at Göttingen,” T.1566, p. 10. On the basis of the data in the German confidential reports, Technische Berichte, German and British testing of airfoils had been compared. The results had been discussed in E.D. Lang, “German Aerofoil Tests,” R.& M. 695 (May 1920).
Minutes of the Aeronautical Research Committee, 12 April 1921, DSIR 22/2, PRO. The report mentioned by Glazebrook was R. McKinnon Wood, “The Aerodynamic Laboratory at Göttingen with an Appendix on the Wind Tunnel of the Zeppelin Works at Friedrichshavensic],” T. 1566 (February 1921), DSIR 23/1580.
Minutes of Aeronautical Research Committee, 12 December 1922, DSIR 22/3, PRO.
Minutes of the Aerodynamics subcommittee, 6 July 1920, DSIR 22/39, PRO. “Interim Report of the International Trials,” T.1698, pp. 1–2.
“International Trials: Interim Report on Aerofoil Tests at National Physical Laboratory and Royal Aircraft Establishment,” T. 1698 (March 1922), DSIR 23/1712, PRO.
Ibid., pp. 7–17.
“International Trials: Interim Report on Aerofoil Tests Carried out in France,” T. 1794 (March 1923), DSIR 23/1808, PRO. Minutes of the Aerodynamics subcommittee, 6 March 1923, DSIR 22/40, PRO.
On Prandtl’s aerodynamic theory and its historical significance, see Hanle, op. cit., and R. Giacomelli and E. Pistolesi, “Historical Sketch” in William F. Durand, ed. Aerodynamic Theory: A General Review of Progress, vol. 1 (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1934), pp. 305–94.
Of several reports on Prandtl’s theory, the first and most comprehensive was Hermann Glauert, “Aerofoil Theory,” R.& M. 723 (February 1921).
Ibid.
J.L. Nayler, “Report on Paris Visit, Concerning International Trials on R.A.F. 15 Aerofoil,” Ae. Techl.145 (March 1923), DSIR 23/8895, PRO. Minutes of the Aerodynamics subcommittee, 1 May 1923, DSIR 22/40, PRO.
R.J. Goodman Crouch, “Notes on a Visit to French Aerodynamic Establishments at Issy-Les-Moulineaux (Service Techniques), Auteuil (Eiffel) and St. Cyr (Service Technique),” Ae. Pechl.146 (March 1923), DSIR 23/8896, PRO.
Minutes of Design Panel, 15 October 1920, DSIR 22/53, PRO.
Ibid., 19 November 1920.
“Scale Effect Research at the R.A.E.,” Ae. Techl. 71 (Dec. 1920). Minutes of the Design Panel, 28 January 1921.
Minutes of the Design Panel, 3 February 1923, DSIR 22/53, PRO. Aerodynamics Staff of RAE, “Lift and Drag of the Bristol Fighter with Wings of Three Aspect Ratio,” T. 1789 (February 1923), DSIR 23/1803. This report was also published as R.& M. 859.
Minutes of the Design Panel, 3 February 1923, DSIR 22/53, PRO. Farren did not mention the names of the two Main Committee members he had consulted on this matter.
Ibid.
Minutes of the Aerodynamics Subcommittee, 6 March 1923, DSIR 22/40, PRO.
Minutes of the Aerodynamics Subcommittee, 3 July 1923, DSIR 22/40, PRO.
It is not certain what Southwell meant in his suggestion of the “visualization” of the air flow behind airfoils. In a report he had written a few months before, Southwell suggested the use of a soap-film instrument to visualize theoretical stream lines around an airfoil inside a wind tunnel. In this instrument, the frame of soap film was shaped as the section of the wind tunnel in which an airfoil was placed. The major objection to this instrument raised by Glauert was that this method could only deal with the two dimensional case, and that it could not be a test of Prandtl’s three-dimensional theory of air flow. However, Taylor counter-argued that Southwell’s soap-film experiment could test an important assumption of Prandtl’s theory that the air flow around an airfoil was laminar flow. See R.V. Southwell, “On the Use of Soap-Films for Determining Theoretical Stream Lines round an Aerofoil in a Wind Tunnel,” T.1696; G.I. Taylor, “Note on T.1696,” T.1696a; H. Glauert, “Notes on the Flow Pattern round an Aerofoil,” T.I696b; G.I. Taylor, “Remarks on T.1696b,” T.1696c. DSIR 23/1710, PRO.
H. Glauert, “Experimental Tests of the Vortex Theory of Aerofoils,” R.& M. 889 (Nov 1923).
Minutes of the Aerodynamics Subcommittee, 4 December 1923, DSIR 22/40. PRO.
G.I. Taylor, “Note on the Prandtl Theory,” T. 1875 (January 1924), DSIR 23/1889, PRO. This paper was not published in the R.& M. series. Instead, it was modified and published in the Philosophical Transactions as an appendix of the paper by the NPL staff on the test of the assumption of Prandtl’s theory. L.W. Bryant and D.H. Williams, “An Investigation of the Flow of Air Around an Aerofoil of Infinite Span,” and G.I. Taylor, “Note on the Connection between the Lift on an Aerofoil in a Wind and the Circulation round It,” in Phil.Trans. Ser.A 225(1925).
Taylor, “Note on the Prandtl Theory,” T.1875, p. 1. This remark was omitted from the paper published in Philosophical Transactions.
Minutes of the Aerodynamics subcommittee, 4 December 1923, DSIR 22/40, PRO.
Ibid.
Minutes of the Design Panel, 21 December 1923, DSIR 22/53, PRO.
“Report of the Design Panel on the Scale Effect on Lift, Drag, and Centre of Pressure of Complete Aeroplanes,” R.& M. 900 (March 1924).
Minutes of the Scale Effect Panel, 19 March 1926, DSIR 22/55, PRO.
The variable-density wind tunnel was indeed designed and constructed by the initiative of Max Munk, a former student of Prandtl, who had been working at the NACA after World War I. See Alex Roland, Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1915–1958 (Washington, D.C., 1985), pp. 92–94; and James R. Hansen, Engineers in Charge: A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory,1917–1958(Washington, D.C.:NASA, 1987), chapter 3.
Minutes of the Scale Effect Panel, 25 May 1926 and 16 May 1927, DSIR 22/55, PRO.
Perhaps we can add the fact that Glauert’s family was of German origin and he had mixed feelings about the war against Germany. See William S. Farren and H.T. Tizard, “Hermann Glauert, 1892–1934,” Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, 1(1932–35), pp. 607–10. When Glauert visited Prandtl in postwar Germany, their meeting gave him much deeper meaning than the simple acquisition of information.
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Hashimoto, T. (2000). The Wind Tunnel and the Emergence of Aeronautical Research in Britain. In: Galison, P., Roland, A. (eds) Atmospheric Flight in the Twentieth Century. Archimedes, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4379-0_8
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