NASA Langley Open House

About 6 weeks ago our daughter told me that she had seen a notice about NASA Langley having an Open House to celebrate their 100th anniversary. She thought that our grandson - her nephew - would probably like to go as he is totally consumed by space and airplanes - and at 9 years old might find it interesting. For last year's science fair he wanted to build a wind tunnel - I convinced him that demonstrating an airfoil might be easier (at least for me). So, after his parents and his teacher approved missing some school time last Friday my wife and I headed to VA with him. He will have to give a report to his 4th grade classmates on what he learned on the trip.

The beltway and Northern VA I-95 traffic reminded me why I like living in upstate NY - but we finally made it. Our grandson had a blast and we saw a lot more than I am going to mention here - the trip was a resounding success.

The facility is a campus contiguous with Langley Air Force Base.

One building had the main machine shop. Our grandson liked the 5 axis Deckel that they had 'machining' a part. My wife accused me of having machine envy while taking the two pictures below. They seem to like Monarchs of a certain type!

I did not get a shot of the milling machine wing. Safe to say they have a very nice facility that can build about anything one can imagine.

Dale

We saw two wind tunnels. The Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel was one. It has a test section 4 feet square by 7 feet long that has a range of Mach 1.5 to 4.6. To cram that much air into that small a space at those velocities takes just a little bit of hardware - about a city block square and five stories or so high. The technician who gave the tour was super. This was built in 1955 and has three motors that can drive a shaft 120 feet long - also on the shaft are five centrifugal compressors. To start it, the first motor (with gear reduction) gets the shaft turning at 1 RPM - this gets the lubrication going and straightens the shaft. I think he said they let it idle for 30 minutes before dropping out this motor and starting the next one - I'm going mostly my memory here, so if one of you catches an error please correct me. The second motor spools it up to 360 RPM. Then when turning properly they can kick in the 63,000 HP main drive - which is good for overload for 30 minutes at 76,000 HP. They duct the output of the first compressor stage to the second, etc. to get the desired flow.

They are taking this unit down for maintenance the first of the year for most of next year. But there is a 5 year backlog of work after that. Looking at programs they have supported it ranges across all the airframers and rocket folks, plus DARPA, etc.

Here are some additional shots of the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel. The one picture has my grandson standing in the 'back' part of the setup, on our way out.

The other wind tunnel we got to look at was the low speed, larger one. I thought I copied some data for it, but guess it went with my grandson. If I remember correctly this has a maximum velocity of 237 MPH with a test section of 14 by 22 feet about 40 feet long or so. 12,000 HP motor drives a six bladed 31 foot diameter fan - wooden blades. I'm sure the data is out on the web to correct me, but it's late and I'm lazy. Only one picture of this one with a typical test subject.

Also a couple pictures of the first wind tunnel at the facility. Looks like a boiler - maybe because it was built in a shipyard! And don't ask me how I got that one picture rotated.


View attachment 211200

I'm not sure who had a better time - my grandson or me. I could have taken lots more pictures - electron beam freeform fabrication, etc. etc.

On the way home we did two more stops. A 20 minute history lesson at The Angle in Gettysburg. Unfortunately the last stop did not go as planned. 45 years ago this month I took a picture of my wife holding our 6 month old son. We were on a wooden ferry boat - the last operating ferry on the Susquehanna River, in Millersburg crossing to Liverpool. Wanted to do a shot 45 years later with my wife and grandson. Unfortunately the water level was too low and the ferry was not running.

So we went from high tech to old tech over two days. A good weekend.

Dale

This is one of the places I have always wanted to visit.

I have rebuilt several of those air compressors. its awesome to see them in action in a wind tunnel. I never thought they would be used for that.

I would have loved a tour of the grand old lady, the full-scale tunnel. Alas, torn down some years ago, that old girl had some real history to her.

Tribute to the Langley Full Scale Tunnel - YouTube

I also took my family. We saw the 14x22, as well as the NTF (which uses tons of liquid nitrogen to raise the density in the chamber to allow smaller models). The line for the latter was pretty long, but it was interesting. We also visited some of the advanced materials and 3-D printing displays, and the hanger. They had some interesting data gathering aircraft there, and an OV-10A, which is one of my favorites. I did not get many pictures, was too busy wrangling kids

allan

I wish I had known you were coming down for the Open House. I live 3 miles away from there and worked as an engineer there for just over 39 years. Fascinating work! You could have taken a side trip to see a few neat old machines. I unfortunately missed the show - but I remember most of what they would show.

Irby

P.S. I almost daily use a probably just earlier than 1920's era Hardinge Cataract toolroom lathe that was supposedly one of the first machines they bought for one of the machine shops.

Motorsports-X said:

I have rebuilt several of those air compressors. its awesome to see them in action in a wind tunnel. I never thought they would be used for that.

Click to expand...

Motorsports-X -

I'm curious - what was the use of the ones you worked on?

Dale

Milland said:

I would have loved a tour of the grand old lady, the full-scale tunnel. Alas, torn down some years ago, that old girl had some real history to her.

Tribute to the Langley Full Scale Tunnel - YouTube

Click to expand...

Milland -

I agree. That would have been something to see. But then the ones we got to see were amazing - at least to this old mechanical engineer.

Dale

kitno455 said:

I also took my family. We saw the 14x22, as well as the NTF (which uses tons of liquid nitrogen to raise the density in the chamber to allow smaller models). The line for the latter was pretty long, but it was interesting. We also visited some of the advanced materials and 3-D printing displays, and the hanger. They had some interesting data gathering aircraft there, and an OV-10A, which is one of my favorites. I did not get many pictures, was too busy wrangling kids

allan

Click to expand...

Allan -

I understand tracking the kids - with only one 9 year old it was doable most of the time. But it did cut down on pictures.

We got there about 8:30 and were some of the first ones inside. Grandson wanted to start at the flight hangar so we basically did a counter clockwise tour. Hangar was great - like you said the OV-10 was neat and the newer scheme for reentry heat shielding was also something. By the time we got back around to the NTF - I guess the first two stops numbered 1 and 2 - the lines were so long we passed. By that point the 9 year old was pretty tired.

In the administration building were some display - like a moon rock - that were neat. Right next to that was a table manned by a woman who was maybe just a little older than me. I asked my grandson if he could identify the one items - I've shown him my slide rule before. I tapped the IBM cards she had and told her I could speak EBCDIC. She laughed and we talked a bit - first programming I ever did was on a 1401.

This trip caused me to reflect a bit on the technology changes I have seen being one of the last slide rule engineers. But then probably nothing compared to my one old boss - he was what we called the 'box engineer' on the Apollo on board computer - meaning the first line manager responsible for the design. The stories he could tell.

Dale

IrbyJones said:

I wish I had known you were coming down for the Open House. I live 3 miles away from there and worked as an engineer there for just over 39 years. Fascinating work! You could have taken a side trip to see a few neat old machines. I unfortunately missed the show - but I remember most of what they would show.

Irby

P.S. I almost daily use a probably just earlier than 1920's era Hardinge Cataract toolroom lathe that was supposedly one of the first machines they bought for one of the machine shops.

Click to expand...

Irby -

Had to be a fascinating career. And very neat that you have hardware from the place also.

I could have done more tool inspection - as could have my grandson. Not sure about my wife, after that one crack she made about tool envy. She just knows me too well after all these years.

Dale

duckfarmer27 said:

This trip caused me to reflect a bit on the technology changes I have seen being one of the last slide rule engineers. But then probably nothing compared to my one old boss - he was what we called the 'box engineer' on the Apollo on board computer - meaning the first line manager responsible for the design. The stories he could tell.

Dale

Click to expand...

Well, if he's still around you need to call him up and get him to write some of those stories down. We're losing a lot of our 60's spaceflight history every day, these are people who made some of the greatest technical and logistics achievements in history. Lots of lessons to be learned from these folks.

duckfarmer27 said:

Also a couple pictures of the first wind tunnel at the facility. Looks like a boiler - maybe because it was built in a shipyard! And don't ask me how I got that one picture rotated.


View attachment 211198View attachment 211200

Click to expand...

This early wind tunnel is actually tunnel #2, the Variable Density Tunnel. It looks like a boiler because it is one (sort of)! To understand better, if you test a 1/20 scale model, the Reynolds Number is off by a factor of 20. You need to test the model at 20 atmospheres to get data that does not need to be mathematically corrected.The VDT can do that. It is an annual wind tunnel. 15' in diameter with a central passage of only 5 feet, and the air goes back around in the annular area to return. Those walls are 2 1/8" thick. They used 85 tons of the best structural steel available. All of the early NACA airfoil data was done in this tunnel and is so precise it is still in use today.

variable density tunnel - Google Search

In the 1980s I was the operator of NASA's 10x10 wind tunnel at Lewis (now Glenn). That uses two axial flow compressors like giant aircraft engines. Total horsepower was 250,000 HP. In front of me was the meg meter, and I could tweak it up to 400 million watts of power with a flick of my wrist! We were the largest single user of electricity in Ohio when it went online in the early 1950s.

Dennis

Milland said:

Well, if he's still around you need to call him up and get him to write some of those stories down. We're losing a lot of our 60's spaceflight history every day, these are people who made some of the greatest technical and logistics achievements in history. Lots of lessons to be learned from these folks.

Click to expand...

Milland -

Unfortunately he died a few years ago. Went to dinner with two other couples tonight - all 3 of us guys worked for the same company. And his name came up somehow or other as we were talking about old times - along with another. Between the two of them they were responsible for what passed as the on board brain on Apollo and were in the group of engineers who put man on the moon, literally.

The point you make is valid - overall we as a society don't do as good a job on oral histories as we should. I got my grandmother to write some things down for posterity years ago and am glad I did. Born in 1889, came to the US in very early 1907. Married and had 8 children. Lived to the age of 103 and opinionated and active almost to the end. Came here on a ship - her first airplane flight was in her 80s, back to the 'old country' to visit relatives. We have a fair amount of family lore - but nobody famous. Still fascinating to think what people have seen and participated in.

Don't know if you ever read The Economist - Brit news magazine and the one I read as I consider it one of the few actual news sources left. Inside back cover every week has an obituary. Sometimes the famous person who died recently - sometimes a name you do not know. This week it is of Joseph Schmitt. Mr. Schmitt had a fascinating working life - he was the spacesuit technician who took care of people with the names of Yeager, Shepard, Glenn, etc. Fascinating story of a man's life.

Dale