i.e., Aerodynamics and Power Plants. He felt "three or four representatives of the aircraft industry" could broaden the effectiveness of the committee, and his service on the Materials committee revealed no "instance during the last five years when subjects [were] discussed which could not properly have been gone into before, and with, the representatives of the industry or when their presence would have been otherwise than beneficial."28

Ames brought Warner's suggestion to the attention of the Executive Committee, which promptly referred it to the Committee on Personnel, Buildings, and Equipment. There, the objections of George Lewis carried the day. Lewis feared that the committees would become unwieldy if members from industry were added, and he doubted that a satisfactory scheme could be formulated for equalizing representation of the various industry interests. He recommended that industry membership be limited to the technical subcommittees. The Committee on Personnel, Buildings, and Equipment concurred, as did the Executive Committee in its turn. The time for a major industry voice in NACA policy was not yet, in spite of the growing power and importance of the industry. 29

Although it denied full representation to industry in the late 1920s, the NACA took several lesser steps to promote communication and cooperation. It increased industry membership on technical subcommittees and ad hoc committees. It began systematic visits to factories of major aircraft manufacturers, publicizing the NACA's work and asking about industry's problems. It also paid more attention to civil aviation. As the NACA stated in its Annual Report for 1928:

The development of aviation in America during the past year has been amazing, and emphasizes the necessity for the continued study on a large scale of the basic problems of increase in safety and reduction in cost of construction, maintenance, and operation of aircraft. The research programs of the Committee have been enlarged during the past year to serve increasing needs of a growing industry, 30

This interest in civilian aviation reflected the lessening demands of the military services in the halcyon years of the late twenties, the growing influence of the aviation industry (both manufacture and operation), and the Committee's longstanding belief in the importance to the United States of commercial aviation and the Committee's responsibility for helping it develop. Through these years the NACA stressed research in noise reduction, safety, and economy-features of aviation not of primary importance to the military.

The Committee's most important concession to industry in the late 1920s was to institute the annual industry conference at Langley laboratory. Beginning in 1926, the NACA invited the leading figures in the field of aviation from industry, academia, and government to Langley for a one-day tour of the laboratory and a briefing on the Committee's work. These trips soon developed into a ritual as important as the tour itself. Attendees would gather in Washington the day before the conference and board a Chesapeake Bay steamer for an overnight trip to the southern end of the bay. After docking at Old Point Comfort in the morning and having breakfast at the Hotel Chamberlain, the attendees would be driven to the field by Langley employees. The morning was given over to a tour of the laboratory. After lunch at the airbase officers' club, the guests would hear the Langley staff report on its current work in carefully rehearsed and choreographed formal presentations. Questions and suggestions were invited throughout. As evening came, the visitors were returned to Old Point Comfort, where they boarded the steamer for dinner and another overnight trip. They were deposited in Washington the following morning.31

Those attending the fourth annual industry conference at Langley laboratory in 1929 pose behind George Lewis and the members of the Main Committee (seated). (LaRC)

These conferences flowed like syrup in a tube-smooth, slow, and controlled. Lewis insisted on clear presentations by the Langley staff, free of jargon and technical details, understandable to even the least informed of the guests. Though not unmindful of the useful information that would be exchanged at the conferences, Lewis viewed them primarily as public-relations events, opportunities for the NACA to impress its customers and friends and to keep channels of communication open. Victory, for his part, was the social director. He personally cherished the evenings on board the steamer when great names of aviation met in pleasant surroundings and easy exchange of smalltalk and great ideas. There was opportunity for such as he to rub elbows with the leading lights in the field, who in their turn could hear the NACA story in the most salutary setting. When one distinguished aeronautical engineer at New York University elected to proceed directly to Langley and not waste the time required for the boat trip, Victory waxed indignant. Unable to understand why anyone would pass up the outing he cherished so much, Victory cajoled and badgered relentlessly. Driven to exasperation, the engineer finally asked, "Don't you think that there is a serious danger of your becoming a complete bureaucrat? In one so young this is a dreadful fate!" The warning was

lost on Victory. He went on orchestrating these excursions with the zeal and singlemindedness of a true believer. 32

In one respect, the annual conferences were enormously successful, for they brought together the leading figures in American aviation for an exchange of information and at the same time cast the NACA in the best possible light, both as cordial host and as exhibitor of an impressive research establishment.33 The arrangement was not, however, entirely free of problems. Those companies profited most that could afford to send representatives, a condition that favored the larger concerns and widened the gap, at least in the minds of some, between the establishment companies (with whom the NACA already seemed too cozy) and smaller organizations struggling to make it in what was still an intensely competitive field. In the same vein, a real danger existed that results reported by the NACA at these conferencesresults still months from publication-could be exploited by one of the attendees at the expense of his competitors. Finally, the industry used this podium to make requests of the NACA, and the Committee felt some obligation to deal with each of these. Doing so, however, could draw the Committee further into short-term practical research and away from the long-range fundamental research to which it was philosophically committed. Industry, after all, had to worry about selling the next prototype and needed answers to questions about that particular plane. The future of aeronautics would matter little to a company angling for a government contract if it were no longer in business when that future arrived.34

This last problem, of course, was not created by the annual conferences, only made more apparent by them. Many problems in the Committee's relationship with the aircraft industry remained to be solved at the end of the 1920s: the conferences only made them more difficult to avoid. Should the NACA do research on industry prototypes? If so, should the results be published, or furnished only to the manufacturer? What proprietary interests did a manufacturer forfeit when he handed the Committee a design or an idea for testing? What fees should the NACA charge industry for research on prototypes, or for other problem-solving? Most of these questions would not be resolved until the 1930s, but they were being asked in the 1920s because the industry by then had a voice strong enough to make itself heard.35

THE USES OF THE COWLING

The most instructive example of how the NACA turned its matured research organization to the service of the aircraft industry in the late 1920s is the famous NACA cowling. The story is familiar to aeronautical circles. At one of the annual conferences at Langley, industry

representatives asked the NACA to investigate the cowling and cooling of radial engines, then the most popular powerplant for military and civilian aircraft. Within months of beginning work, the Langley staff had developed a new cowling that covered almost the entire engine, greatly reducing aerodynamic drag with no significant decrease in cooling. Dramatic improvement in flight efficiency resulted and the NACA won its first Collier trophy, the prestigious award presented annually "for the greatest achievement in aviation in America, the value of which has been thoroughly demonstrated by use during the preceding year.

"36

What is less well known is that the military services had been the first to ask the NACA to investigate cowling of radial engines. At the first industry research conference, both military and civilian representatives had suggested the cowling of air-cooled engines as a project worthy of the NACA's attention, but it was the military that had submitted the first formal request and it was the military for whom the