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100 so u R c e s o f we a p o n sy s T e m s In n o v a T Io n In T h e depaR TmenT o f defense
individual laboratories, its introduction marked the beginning of a protracted
transformation that culminated in the merger in 1992 of all Air Force R&D,
procurement, and logistical functions into one large organization—the Air Force
Materiel Command. This outcome resembled a similar transformation that had
occurred in 1946, when the same functions were combined for the first time into
a single organization, the Air Materiel Command in the Army Air Forces.
By 1960, one year before the establishment of the Air Force Systems
Command, the Wright Air Development Division had already institutionalized
the weapon system concept. Wright split into three new divisions. The systems
management division incorporated the weapon system project offices (now
called system program offices [responsible for aeronautics technologies])
formerly attached to ARDC headquarters. Technical support—essentially
hardware development—for the system management division was provided by
the system engineering division, staffed by the engineers and scientists who had
worked in the commodities laboratories previously assigned to the now-defunct
laboratories directorate. The largest of the three divisions was the advanced
systems technology division. Each of its four divisions managed four separate
laboratories responsible for advancing the state of the art in weapon system
technology. The avionics division, for example, operated navigation and guidance,
reconnaissance, electronics technology, and communications laboratories, all
of which focused on space-based applications. Scientists and engineers in the
navigation and guidance laboratory adapted conventional air defense technologies
to handle similar functions on satellites and manned space vehicles. 92
In 1963, WADD reorganized the avionics division (through the merger of
several smaller laboratories) into a new avionics laboratory. 93 Within a decade,
the Wright Air Development Division’s entire in-house R&D operation had
been restructured and split into six laboratories: avionics, aeromedical, aerospace,
aero-propulsion, materials, and flight dynamics. All of these laboratories maintained
in-house and contract research programs, although the extent to which
one type dominated the other varied widely in each case. In 1974, for example,
nearly 70 percent of the operating budget for the flight dynamics laboratory
supported in-house R&D programs. The remaining funds were distributed to
private-sector contractors, some on behalf of other government agencies. Similarly,
80 percent of the R&D budget in the aerospace research laboratory that
year supported in-house programs in energy conversion, fluid mechanics, metallurgy
and ceramics, hypersonics, chemistry, and solid-state and plasma physics.
Moreover, nearly half of the members of the technical staff working on projects
in these fields held doctorates in science or engineering. In the aeropropulsion
laboratory, by contrast, most of the development work on turbines, ramjets, fuels,
and lubricants was contracted out to commercial engine manufacturers. The
92 P. J. Klass, “Major Reorganization Designed to Broaden WADD Capabilities,” Aviation Week
and Space Technology 72 (9 May 1960): 27; Klass, “WADD Avionics Division Aims at Space,” Aviation
Week and Space Technology 73 (1 August 1960): 72–73; “WADD Reorganizes for Increased Capabilities,”
Aviation Week and Space Technology 72 (23 May 1960): 95.
93 See P. J. Klass, “Avionics Lab Expanding Applications,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 101 (15
July 1974): 206.