Flight Research at Ames: Fifty-Seven Years of Development and Validation of Aeronautical Technology

Flight research has been an integral and essential part of the missions of, first, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and, later, its successor, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The NACA's Ames Aeronautical Laboratory was established at Moffett Field, California, in 1939. In its role as an aeronautical research laboratory, Ames, from its inception, made the most of the linkage between exploratory and developmental testing in its wind tunnels and in fl…