Page:Aeronautics and Astronautics Chronology 1915-1960.pdf/21

 who upon their return organized the experimental program of the society.

May 27: First full-scale wind tunnel for testing airplanes was dedicated at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory of the NACA, engineer-in-charge of construction and operation, Smith J. De France, explained details to the annual Aircraft Engineering Research Conference.


 * The NACA tank to provide data on water performance of seaplanes was demonstrated by Starr Truscott. Its channel length was enlarged from 2,020 feet to 2,900 feet in October 1937.


 * Auguste Piccard, Swiss physicist, and Charles Knipfer made first balloon flight into stratosphere, reaching a height of 51,777 feet in a 17-hour flight from Augsburg, Germany, to a glacier near Innsbruck, Austria.

May 28: Lt. W. Lees and Ens. F. A. Brossy established world's endurance flight record without refueling of 84 hours 33 minutes, in diesel-powered Bellanca at Jacksonville, Fla.

May 31: A pilotless airplane was successfully flown by radio control from another plane at Houston, Tex.

June 4: Dornier DO-X, 12-engined German flying boat (which carried 169 passengers on its trial flight), arrived in New York after flying the south Atlantic.

June 23-July 1: Wiley Post and Harold Gatty lowered world circling record to 8 days 15 hours 51 minutes in the Lockheed Winnie Mae.

July 24-31: Graf Zeppelin carried 12 scientists on Arctic flight.

July 28: First nonstop flight across the Pacific, begun by Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon in a single-engined Bellanca, who completed flight around the world in October.

July 29-August 26: Colonel and Mrs. Lindbergh made survey flight to Japan in Sirius seaplane, via Alaska and Siberia.

September 4: Maj. James H. Doolittle established a new transcontinental record from Burbank to Newark of 11 hours and 16 minutes elapsed time including three stops, flying Laird Super-Solution.

September 9: Start of official rocket-mail service between two Austrian towns by Friedrich Schmiedl; test flights began in February 1931, while rocket-mail service continued until March 16, 1933.

October 30: School of Aviation Medicine moved from Brooks Field to Randolph Field, Tex.

During 1931: NACA Report 385 presented results showing that maximum lift coefficient of a wing could be increased as much as 96 percent by use of boundary-layer control.


 * Robert Esnault-Pelterie of France demonstrated liquid-fuel rocket propulsion with a rocket motor operated on gasoline and liquid oxygen.


 * Bureau of Standards made a number of experiments to deterine whether thrust reaction of a jet could be increased, and tested combinations of jets.


 * Alexander Lippisch of Germany first produced and demonstrated a practical delta-wing aircraft.

During 1931-32: Taylor Cub Model A, a two-seat, high-wing light airplane, first produced, and helped popularize sports flying in the United States.

March 26: Navy Consolidated P2Y seaplane made first test flight.

April 19: First flight of Goddard rocket with gyroscopically controlled vanes for automatically stabilized flight, near Roswell, N. Mex.

May 4: Daniel Guggenheim Gold Medal for 1932 awarded to Juan de la Cierva for development of the autogiro. (See Appendix D.)

May 9: First blind solo flight (without a check pilot aboard) solely on instruments was made by Capt. A. F. Hegenberger (AAC) at Dayton, Ohio.

June 30: Los Angeles (ZR-3) decommissioned by the Navy for economy reasons after 8 years of service and over 5,000 hours in the air.

July 28: Navy BuAer initiated research program on physiological effects of high acceleration and deceleration encountered in dive-bombing and other violent maneuvers in allocation to Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Pioneer research pointing to need for anti-g or anti-blackout equipment was subsequently performed at Harvard University School of Public Health under the direction of Dr. C. K. Drinker by Lt. Comdr. John R. Poppen (MC USN).

During July-August: VfR successfully fired Mirak II rocket to height of 200 feet, after which German Army Ordnance Office formalized rocket develoment program by placing Captain-Doctor Walter Dornberger in charge of Research Station West at Kummersdorf.

August 18: Auguste Piccard and Max Cosyns attained an altitude of 53,152 feet on second stratosphere balloon flight, landing on a glacier in the Alps.

August 31: Capt. A. W. Stevens and Lt. C. D. McAllister (AAC) flew 5 miles above earth's surface at Fryeburg, Maine, to photograph eclipse of the sun.

During August: Experimental transmission of weather maps by teletype initiated by Weather Bureau on a special circuit between Cleveland and Washington.

September 3: Maj. James H. Doolittle set a new world speed record for landplanes by averaging 294 mph over 3-km course at Cleveland, Ohio, in Granville Brothers Gee Bee monophane with P&W Wasp engine.

September 16: Altitude record of 43,976 feet for landplanes established by Cyril F. Unwins in Vickers Vespa at Bristol, England.

September 21: Dr. Robert A. Millikan of California Institute of Technology completed series of tests on the intensity of cosmic rays at various altitudes with cooperation of 11th Bombardment Squadron, in a Condor Bomber from March Field, Calif.

October 1: Wernher von Braun joined the German Army Ordnance Office rocket program at Kummersdorf.

October 15: Institute of Aeronautical Sciences was incorporated in New York.

November 12: American Interplanetary Society performed static tests of rocket based on VfR design at Stockton, N.J.

December 1: Teletypewriter Weather Map Service was inaugurated by Aeronautics Branch, Department of Commerce.

During 1932: German engineer, Paul Schmidt, working from design of Lorin 28