Beauty In This Beast

Date published: 2/10/2001

WHEN A friend took me to see the Langley Full Scale Wind Tunnel at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton last week, I came away at a loss for words.

But it is vital that I try, so here it is in a sentence: One of the world's premier aeronautical research centers--where things have been learned that saved countless lives and contributing to this nation's winning wars and staying at the forefront of aerospace technology--is going to be torn down as a useless old hulk.

This comes at a time when there is no shortage of business; academic and government researchers want time in the tunnel to make things that go faster, fly safer and, above all, make a major contribution toward American energy independence.

If I had half an hour of the president's time, I'd tell him it's true the giant wind tunnel doesn't look like much anymore, that it is old and needs repairs. But wandering through its hulking darkened interior with Ken Hyde and Robert L. Ash is a full-blown adventure that no one could ever forget.

These two men should know. Hyde is a world authority on the Wright Brothers and has unlocked some of their most tightly held secrets by flying their machines in the tunnel. Ash is a professor of aerospace engineering and director of the Langley tunnel for Old Dominion University, which operates it under contract for NASA, which owns it.

IMPORTANT HERITAGE

For more than 70 years this giant air chamber has seen critical testing on seemingly every kind of machine that moves through the wind. There are other wind tunnels, most of them specialized to learn particular things, but the LFST was and remains the largest commercially available place on planet Earth where clever people can try to find better ways to design all sorts of things that must deal with moving air.

The list of clients that have--and continue to--buy time in the tunnel is startling. Aerospace companies are just the beginning. Trucks, race cars (all kinds), motorcycles, wind generators, buildings, solar arrays, cell phone towers and more have been put to the test here and made better as a result.

Date published: 2/10/2001