NACA Welcomes Visitors to Langley: 1949 and 1953

[acmespaceship]

The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was founded just after WWI and dissolved in 1958 when some upstart organization called NASA took over.  Among my father's papers, I found booklets that were distributed at "biennial inspection" meetings hosted by NACA in 1949 and 1953.  Clearly, NACA did not take the term "biennial" too literally.  (Or Dad was busy in '51.)
The booklets contain little text.  They seem to be the equivalent of Powerpoint slides to accompany the briefings.  Not being an aeronautical engineer myself, I was mostly taken with the vintage graphic design.  A few more photos of graphs and drawings follow the cut.  If anyone is interested in the actual technical content, let me know and I can provide more images.

Comments

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

I'm not seeing a cut, nor any pictures beyond the first one.

I like the heroic stance of the aerodynamicist with the pointer.

[acmespaceship.livejournal.com]

Having trouble with making LJ and Picasa work together. Getting there.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Wait-- they just showed up! Those are indeed some slick-looking graphics.

[acmespaceship.livejournal.com]

I like the M.C. Escher deal in the last photo. And I like how the emerging wing design looks like an orca swimming just under the page.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

The thing about that era that grabbed me were the rocket-propelled free-flight aerodynamic models that NACA tested at Wallops Island, Virginia. They make really excellent scale model rocket subjects, just because they are so zoomy looking, yet real historical rockets. One of my "Rockets of the World" supplements has nearly a dozen variations of them.

Yeah, that's when flight was flight