COMMISSION INFORMED.

On December 23, 1912, the gentlemen named in the accompanying list (marked A) were duly informed by letters similar to the copy addressed to me.

MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION ALREADY AT WORK ON THE PROBLEM.

The information thus conveyed to the members of the commission enables them to study the subjects from the groundwork of the plan proposed in my report and enables them to be prepared for definite work at the first meeting. It is probable that all of the members would be willing to travel at their own expense (a few only living at a distance), but it occurs to me as undignified to suggest this resort, and that means should be provided to cover the small expenses incident to travel and paper work.

AUTHORITY TO COVER EXPENSES.

In looking up authority to cover the expenses I discovered that an act, approved March 4, 1909, prohibited the use of public moneys for payment of the expenses of such a commission unless "the same shall be authorized by law."

BILL PROPOSED.

It is now hoped that the authority for the expenditure of not exceeding $5,000 may be authorized without delay in order that an authoritative report and recommendation may be placed before Congress during the present session.

WORK PROGRESSING.

In the meantime the work to be disposed of at the first meeting, the collection of all available information by the recorder and the consideration of committee work, is being laid out in order that the proceedings may advance systematically at the earliest practicable date.

It is thus hoped that after three, or at most four, meetings the whole business will be disposed of and the committee released by the end of January, 1913.

COMMISSION NOT PERMANENT.

This commission is temporary only, and the idea is that its work ceases with the submission of the report. W. IRVING CHAMBERS,

Very respectfully,

B.

Captain, United States Navy.

From: Acting Secretary of the Navy.

NAVY DEPARTMENT, Washington, December 23, 1912.

To: Capt. W. I. Chambers, United States Navy. Subject: Appointment as member of Commission on Aerodynamical Laboratory. The President of the United States, on December 19, created a commission to consider, for recommendation to Congress, the necessity or desirability of the establishment of a national aerodynamical laboratory, its scope, its organization, the most suitable location for it, and the cost of its installation.

He has appointed as members of the commission the persons named in the accompanying list, and has requested me to advise you thereof.

I inclose a copy of a report to the department in which such a laboratory is discussed. It will be necessary to obtain authority from Congress to defray the expenses of the commission, and you are advised thus early in order that there may be no delay in calling a meeting as soon as authority is obtained.

The chairman, Dr. R. S. Woodward, has kindly placed at the disposition of the commission the assembly room of the Carnegie Institution of Washington for the meetings.

A.

The President on December 19 created a Commission on Aerodynamical Laboratory and appointed the following-named persons as members thereof:

Chairman: Dr. R. S. Woodward, president Carnegie Institution of Washington. A representative of National Academy of Sciences.

Members: Charles D. Walcott, Secretary Smithsonian Institution; Dr. S. W. Stratton, Director United States Bureau of Standards; Prof. Wm. J. Humphreys, consulting physicist, United States Weather Bureau, Mount Weather Observatory; Brig. Gen. James Allen, United States Army, Chief Signal Officer; Maj. Samuel Reber, Chief Signal Officer, Eastern District; Capt. W. I. Chambers, United States Navy, in charge of aviation, United States Navy; Naval Constructor David W. Taylor, United States Navy, in charge of naval model basin; Mr. M. B. Sellers, technical committee, Aeronautical Society, New York; Mr. Henry A. Wise Wood, scientific engineer, vice president Aero Club of America; Mr. Bion J. Arnold, scientific engineer, Aero Club, Chicago; Prof. W. F. Durand, scientific engineer, Leland Stanford University of California; Prof. Richard MacLaurens, president Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston; Mr. Charles M. Manley, New York, formerly with Langley; Mr. Harold H. Sewall, Bath, Me.; Hon. Herbert Parsons, New York; Col. Frederick H. Smith, Peoria, Ill.; Hon. Frank West Rollins, New Hampshire.

Member and recorder: Dr. A. F. Zahm, formerly with Langley, secretary Aero Club of Washington.

For the information of the House, the following excerpts are quoted from the Annual Report on Aviation for the fiscal year 1912 (Appendix No. 1 to the Annual Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, 1912):

WHAT IS BEING DONE ELSEWHERE.

France leads the world in aviation, and all that she does is worth noting. A short time ago, in response to an inquiry by the minister of war, over 3,000 officers signified their desire to learn aerial navigation. Germany leads in aerostation, but is making great progress in aviation also. France has 8 dirigibles, Germany 30. The number of aeroplanes actually possessed by each is a rapidly increasing quantity, but France will probably possess about 350 before the end of the year, the ultimate aim being to possess 1,000 as soon as the requisite number of pilots can be taught to use them. It is significant of German foresight that one of the first steps undertaken, when it was decided to construct a large aeroplane fleet, was to found an aerodynamic laboratory. This is at Gottingen, where the best known course of instruction in aeronautics is ably conducted by Prof. Prandtl.

The following statement, while it does not include all large sums that are being spent, will suffice to compare our own activity with that of some of the principal powers:

Exact details are lacking of the progress in many other countries, but all progressive powers are bent on keeping abreast of the times, especially the British colonies, Russia, Japan, and Austria. The latter country has produced one of the very best aeroplanes in existence, the Etrich, and is also developing the hydroaeroplane.

*

INFLUENCE OF FOREIGN LABORATORIES.

Little more than a year ago our knowledge of the effect of air currents upon aeroplane surfaces was almost entirely a matter of theory. The exact information available was so meager that aeroplanes were built either as copies, slightly modified, of other machines, or else by way of haphazard experiment. This state of affairs obtains in some extent in the United States to-day, although in Europe aeroplane construction is now largely based on scientific data obtained at notable aerodynamic laboratories. The intuitive, hasty, and crude methods of the pioneer can not succeed in competition with the accurate and systematic methods of the scientific engineer, and it is beginning to dawn upon our perceptions that through lack of preparation for the work of the scientific engineer, i. e., through delay in establishing an aerodynamic laboratory, a waste of time and money, a decline of prestige, and an unnecessary sacrifice of human life have already resulted.

Students of aviation do not need to be informed of the practical necessity for aerodynamic laboratories. They have repeatedly pointed out, in aeronautical publications, the immense commercial advantages to be anticipated from the establishment of at least one in this country, and they have naturally expected that some philanthropic patriot of wealth and scientific interest would come to the rescue with a suitable endowment fund that would enable such work to be started in short order without Government aid. The fact that no patriot has responded is disappointing, in view of the large private donations that have done so much for aviation in France, but, in my opinion, it simply indicates something lacking in the manner of disseminating information concerning the importance of the subject. I am not willing to believe that our people will refuse to establish one when they are fully acquainted with the advantages to humanity and to sane industrial progress, and when a reasonable concrete proposition is advanced for their consideration. It is now my purpose to submit such a proposition, and in doing so I will follow briefly, in general outline, the ideas advanced in an address to the Fifth International Aeronautic Congress by one of the greatest authorities in the world, the Commandant Paul Renard, president of the International Aeronautic Commission.

A NATIONAL AERODYNAMIC LABORATORY.

Before considering the character of the work to be done and some details of the needed plant, it will facilitate matters to show what should not be done at such a laboratory.

There are those who dream of supplying the laboratory with all the instruments known to mechanics, to physics, and even to chemistry, in order to have a creditable and complete national institution. They would concentrate in one locality all the scientific instruments and acumen available, with the false idea that economy would result. This would be a grave error.

The financial resources, however great, are sure to be limited, and a too ambitious or a superfluous installation would squander the sources of power and indirectly menace the initiative of other industries. The character of the new work to be done demands that everything should be rejected that can be dispensed with readily in order that appliances specially needed in the new work may be provided and that these appliances be of the latest and most efficient types.

For the sake of economy, not only of money but of time and intellectual energy, tests and experiments that can be executed as well or better elsewhere by existing establishments should be avoided. For example, it is unnecessary to install a complete set of instruments and implements for testing the tensile strength of materials or their bending and crushing strength. Many other establishments permit of such work. If the laboratory be located in Washington, where certain advantages exist, such work could be readily done at the navy yard, where other facilities exist, such, for instance, as the testing of models for hydroaeroplanes and flying boats. The Bureau of Standards and other Government branches in Washington also offer facilities which it would not be wise to duplicate in such a laboratory.

I do not think that such an institution should be burdened with measuring the power of motors or preoccupied with the details of their performances. This may be done at various other Government establishments, and it is understood that the Automobile Club of America is also equipped for this work.

Nor is it necessary to have a complete chemical laboratory under the pretext of studying questions relating to the chemistry of fuel or the permeability of balloon envelopes.

I do not wish to convey the idea that an aerodynamic laboratory should be deprived entirely of such facilities, and that it should be obliged to seek minor information from

other establishments when that information may be more economically obtained by a duplicate plant on a small scale. Such duplicate conveniences, however, should be regarded as strictly accessory; but it should be well understood that whenever important researches can be prosecuted as well or better elsewhere, dependence should be placed on those other establishments where such work is a specialty.

TWO DISTINCT CLASSES OF WORK.

An aerodynamic laboratory should be devoted to (1) experimental verification, (2) experimental research. The first is concerned with testing the qualities of existing appliances, propellers, sustaining surfaces, control mechanism, etc. Usually these tests are made at the request of interested parties (as is now the case with water models at the navy-yard model basin). A constructor or a designer will bring, for example, a propeller and will wish to know its power or thrust at a given speed on the block or on a moving appliance under the conditions of flight, or he may bring several propellers to compare their performances and to ascertain what power they absorb at different speeds.

One of the very successful appliances devoted to this work at St. Cyr is a movable car, in which an aeroplane may be mounted and tested at speeds in perfect safety as to its strength, its efficiency, and the suitability of its control mechanism. This device is specially adapted to make actual service tests of sustaining surfaces; in other words, to try out in perfect safety the relative efficiencies of finished aeroplanes. It is a most important adjunct, as it supplements and rounds out the important research work on models in the closed laboratory.

Tests of this character, i. e., verification tests, constitute, so to speak, standard work. They are performed at the request of manufacturers, clubs, independent investigators, and other interested parties on condition of payment for the actual cost of the work. They therefore contribute to the support of the establishment.

The tests of verification, however, notwithstanding their great utility, do not constitute either the most important or the most interesting work of the laboratory. The research work, which prosecutes continuously and patiently systematic, thorough, and precise investigation of new ideas, or of old ideas with new applications, with the specific intention of discovering laws and formulas for advancing the progress of aerial navigation, is of greater importance, because it is the short cut to substantial efficiency, economy, improvement, and prestige.

This work is concerned with developing adequate methods of research in all branches of aerial navigation and in furnishing reliable information to all students, engineers, inventors, manufacturers, pilots, navigators, strategists, and statesmen. The knowledge thus gained should be disseminated regularly through publications, lectures, open-air demonstrations, and by exhibitions of apparatus, instruments, materials, and models-in fact, by all the facilities of the aerodrome, the showroom, the library, and the lecture room.

An exact knowledge of aerodynamics can best be acquired in such a laboratory by experimentation with standard-scale models in air tunnels such as those used by M. Eiffel and others. In this way reliable data is obtained of the air resistance to be encountered, and the efficiency at various velocities, the amount of lift, the effect of varying impact at different angles of attack on the stability-in fact, all the exact data which, reduced to curves and diagrams, enables the engineer to design a machine in a scientific manner. From such data the performance of a new machine can be closely predicated. The performance of the finished product can be verified later, as before described. Much of the research work will be prosecuted at the request of technical men outside of the institution, to whom the laboratory should offer, gratuitously as far as possible, its material and personal resources.

Aviation within the last three years has made remarkable progress. In 1909, flights were made in comparatively calm weather only and over smooth aerodromes. Now they are made in half a gale, and ascents as well as landings are made in plowed fields and rough water. The United States has been crossed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and a flight is being arranged to extend from Paris to Peking.

The number of licensed aviators in France, Germany, England, and America alone has increased from 26 at the end of 1909 to 1,980 at the end of 1912; the number now existing in all countries is about

The altitude record has increased in the last three years from 500 feet to 19,032 feet; the speed record from 33 miles per hour to 109 miles per hour; the endurance record from 2 hours 20 minutes to 13 hours 17 minutes; and the continuous-distance record from 77 miles to 628 miles. The altitude, speed, endurance, and distance records were made abroad and by foreigners.

There are two world records, however, that were held by American at the end of 1912, the endurance record of Lieut. J. H. Towers, United States Navy, for flight in a hydroaeroplane, 6 hours 10 minutes 35 seconds, and the quick-start record of Lieut. T. G. Ellyson, United States Navy, which was made from the navy launching device in less than 1 seconds.

The records will doubtless continue to be broken, but the progress of the future will be marked by greater safety, greater usefulness, and vastly greater numbers. Aerial navigation is already less dependent upon strength and physical endurance of the aviator. Instruments and improved mechanism now on the market will make flying comparatively safe at all times. The airman will be able to navigate without strenuous effort while attending to the important problems of aerial navigation in an intelligent and useful manner.

In hydroaviation the United States has maintained her lead from the beginning. France, Germany, Russia, and Japan have purchased our hydroaeroplanes, and they probably will improve them as we will continue to do.

There is a strong and growing sentiment, particularly among scientific engineers, in the United States to-day that we are handicapped, in our endeavor to advance the science of aeronautics by the lead which foreign powers have gained through their fully established aerodynamical laboratories.

The inventors and builders of aircraft in this country and the officers of the Army and Navy engaged in efforts to keep informed and to progress feel keenly the want of experimental data to form a rational basis for their efforts and their recommendations. Much wealth has been squandered here for investors by the blind efforts of enterprising but ill-informed aeronautical enthusiasts. The users and students of aircraft experience, equally, a lack of facilities for investigating systematically and safely, at small expense, the new ideas that eminate from the prolific brains of our inventors almost daily. There is, therefore, a rapidly increasing demand for an aerodynamical laboratory to treat these wants in a sure and thorough manner.

What our people need is a representative institution in which a staff of trained specialists, provided with adequate apparatus, shall furnish physical constants, laws, formulæ, and empirical data of substantial and permanent value to the engineer, the inventor, the manufacturer, and the Government investigator, upon whom rests the responsibility of keeping Congress advised. A laboratory where complete and reliable tests and reports shall be made, also, upon all classes of aircraft that may be evolved, as the result of investigation, and of existing aircraft that may be worthy of study and improvement; an institution contiguous to ample maneuvering space of land and water suitable for a Government flying ground and accessible to all civilians worthy of assistance; a center of practical scientific activity where at all times may be witnessed the most accurate researches and most exhaustive tests, where the knowledge so gained

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