With research equipment constructed largely of war surplus materials, Taylor and his assistant W. Vincent Blockley prepare a range of tests in the late 1940s. The chamber was acquired through the War Assets Administration from Ryan Aircraft Company in San Diego, where it was used during the war to test instruments. A harness of nine thermocouples to measure skin and flight suit temperatures is worn by the subject. The test subject is conditioned in a smaller hot box covered by a canvas hood before entering the pre-heated steel vessel. A series of experiments are undertaken in the range of temperatures between 160 and 235 degrees Fahrenheit.
Experimental subjects are volunteer students, faculty, and military reserve aircraft pilots.
Variations in the temperature of air as it is breathed in and out are measured by thermocouples inserted in the nose and mouth using a plastic mouthpiece. As the experiments take place, the volunteer is observed closely through a glass window in the hot box vessel. The special thermometers reveal that the human body acts as a refrigerator, remaining more than 100 degrees cooler than the temperature in the hot box. When graduate student John Lyman joins the project he quickly devises a series of arithmetic tests using pencil and pad, to be administered in three minute cycles, to test the subjects' thinking processes while exposed to high heat environments. Lyman goes on to head a project in which fully functional cockpit controls consisting of instrument panel, stick, rudder, pedals and throttle are installed in the heat chamber.