CALTECH WIND TUNNEL TAKING ITS FINAL BLOW.Byline: Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Since 1929, designers have been using the 10-foot wind tunnel at the California Institute of Technology California Institute of Technology, at Pasadena, Calif.; originally for men, became coeducational in 1970; founded 1891 as Throop Polytechnic Institute; called Throop College of Technology, 1913–20. to examine the aerodynamics aerodynamics, study of gases in motion. As the principal application of aerodynamics is the design of aircraft, air is the gas with which the science is most concerned. of everything from bombers to bobsleds. Now the storied contraption, a backstage player in some of this century's highest dramas, is having its last blast. It is to be officially unplugged today at Caltech's Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory The Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT), was a research institute created in 1926, at first specializing in aeronautics research. . ``It was the granddaddy of them all,'' said Wilfred McNay, who ran the facility for more than 20 years starting in the 1950s. ``They tested so many airplanes I can't even tell you.'' During World War II, guards kept vigil while technicians worked around the clock completing tests for the B-24 Liberator, B-17 Flying Fortress and P-51 Mustang fighter. The tunnel caught airflow problems with the B-29 Superfortress before it ever flew. The plane later dropped atomic bombs on Japan. |
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