NASA Langley Technical Reports on WW-I

[hank jarrett]

Well, that was a LOT easier to find than I expected. The public access to the NASA library is at Public Visitor's Page for NASA Langley Technical Library
There are a LOT of technical reports done after WW-I on Allied and Central Powers aircraft as an effort to discover any useful technologies that were developed by the warring nations.
Have fun and please let the rest of the group see where you find anything useful to us in our replicas!
This has to be one of the more "unusual" spin-off from the space program!
Hank

[hank jarrett]

Many of the reports here have been scanned in and are available to the public. Unfortunately there was no budget to actually CATALOG what was scanned! I made a recommendation that they allow an open web page where people like us could read a report and create a short summary for searching by others. I could never get a response.
Maybe what we need to do is just do it ourselves! They can't say anything if the public makes their own catalog can they?
I would suggest that if anyone finds an interesting report they write a one paragraph executive summary using key words so it can be searched.
Comments?
Hank

[Lufbery]

Excellent!!!

[hank jarrett]

Quick example:
Fabrics for aeronautic construction

Author(s): Walen, E D
Abstract: The Bureau of Standards undertook the investigation of airplane fabrics with the view of finding suitable substitutes for the linen fabrics, and it was decided that the fibers to be considered were cotton, ramie, silk, and ...
NASA Center: NASA (non Center Specific)
Publication Year: 1918
Added to NTRS: 2006-11-06
Accession Number: 93R20339; Document ID: 19930091049; Report Number: NACA-TR-22

Looks like some people have scanned more topics and there are a BUNCH of reports on everything from WW-I props to fuel mix ratios for the Saturn V. Sure would be nice if they had scanned them order! I could spend YEARS reading all this. If you look for the low TR- numbers that might be a good start.
Hank

[drrivah]

Hank:
This is a great, public-spirited idea to help with a little cataloging to render an excellent Langley collection more accessible.

A lot of classic aeronautics books ands reports from the NBS (called NIST since the 1980s) library were discarded for want of space. Good that Langley has a collection of NBS studies-NBS did a lot on aviation technology from 1916-1922 on testing for example, the original Liberty engine, early aviation instruments and all sorts of aviation and av engine construction materials.

There was an NBS Technology Committee that toured European aerodromes in 1916-1917 to collect data on state of the art aviation technology for the US Government. I haven't been able to track the details (who, when and where they went), but I'd be pleased to hear from anyone with some leads.

There is an interesting collection at NIST library called "NBS War Work", a synopsis of all the tech work done at NBS during that period.

-pete