page_title: National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: The first meeting of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA.) in the Office of The Secretary Of War April 23, 1915. Brig. Gen. George P. Scriven was elected as the temporary Chairman of the NACA and Dr. Charles D. Walcott (not pictured), Secretary of the Smithsonian, was elected Chairman of the NACA Executive Committee. After the Wright Brothers historic first flight in 1903, the United States began to fall behind in aeronautical research. With the beginning of World War I the nation realized it needed a center for aeronautical research as a means of catching up technologically with Europe. On March 3, 1915 the legislation creating the NACA passed and the NACA was born. For 43 years the NACA worked to advance aviation research until it was eventually absorbed into the new space agency, NASA, in 1958. Seated from Left to Right:Dr. William Durand, Stanford University, California.Dr. S.W. Stratton, Director, Bureau of Standards.Brig.Gen. George P. Scriven, Chief Signal Officer, War Dept.Dr. C.F. Marvin, Chief, United States Weather Bureau Dr. Michael I Pupin, Columbia University, New York. Standing:Holden C. Richardson, Naval Instructor.Dr. John F. Hayford, Northwestern University, Illinois.Capt. Mark L. Bristol, Director of Naval Aeronautics.Lt. Col. Samuel Reber, Signal Corps. Charge, Aviation Section Also present at the First Meeting:Dr. Joseph S. Ames, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.Hon. B. R. Newton, Asst. Secretary of Treasury.
context_page_description: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was a U.S. federal agency founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved, and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NACA was an initialism, i.e. it was pronounced as individual letters, rather than as a whole word.
  Among other advancements, NACA research and development produced the NACA duct, a type of air intake used in modern automotive applications, the NACA cowling, and several series of NACA airfoils which are still used in aircraft manufacturing.
  During World War II, NACA was described as "The Force Behind Our Air Supremacy" due to its key role in producing working superchargers for high altitude bombers, and for producing the laminar wing profiles for the North American P-51 Mustang. NACA was also key in developing the area rule that is used on all modern supersonic aircraft, and conducted the key compressibility research that enabled the Bell X-1 to break the sound barrier.
context_section_description: NACA was established by the federal government through enabling legislation as an emergency measure during World War I to promote industry, academic, and government coordination on war-related projects. It was modeled on similar national agencies found in Europe: the French L'Etablissement Central de l'Aérostation Militaire in Meudon (now Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatiales), the German Aerodynamic Laboratory of the University of Göttingen, and the Russian Aerodynamic Institute of Koutchino (replaced in 1918 with the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI), which is still in existence). The most influential agency upon which the NACA was based was the British Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
  In December 1912, President William Howard Taft had appointed a National Aerodynamical Laboratory Commission chaired by Robert S. Woodward, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Legislation was introduced in both houses of Congress early in January 1913 to approve the commission, but when it came to a vote, the legislation was defeated.
  Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1907 to 1927, took up the effort, and in January 1915, Senator Benjamin R. Tillman, and Representative Ernest W. Roberts introduced identical resolutions recommending the creation of an advisory committee as outlined by Walcott. The purpose of the committee was "to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution, and to determine the problems which should be experimentally attacked and to discuss their solution and their application to practical questions." Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote that he "heartily [endorsed] the principle" on which the legislation was based. Walcott suggested the tactic of adding the resolution to the Naval Appropriations Bill.
  According to one source, "The enabling legislation for the NACA slipped through almost unnoticed as a rider attached to the Naval Appropriation Bill, on March 3, 1915." The committee of 12 people, all unpaid, were allocated a budget of $5,000 per year.
  President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law the same day, thus formally creating the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, as it was called in the legislation, on the last day of the 63rd Congress.
  The act of Congress creating NACA, approved March 3, 1915, reads, "...It shall be the duty of the advisory committee for aeronautics to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution. ... "
caption: The first meeting of the NACA in 1915
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