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106 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
and standardization predominated, scientific and engineering studies of all
types, regardless of the definitions or categories (e.g., basic, applied, fundamental,
product-oriented) assigned to them by the Air Staff, were also supported by the
service laboratories in line with evolving Air Force requirements. The laboratories
focused on three major technologies after World War II—jet propulsion systems
for tactical and strategic aircraft, microelectronics for ground-based and airborne
avionics, and long-range ballistic missile systems equipped with nuclear weapons.
At the same time, they diversified into state-of-the-art fields, ranging from laser
and particle-beam weapons to artificial intelligence.
Because it lacked the same type of institutional infrastructure that
constituted the Army’s arsenal system and the Navy’s network of shipyards,
the Air Force relied much more heavily on the private sector for the requisite
technical expertise and manufacturing know-how required to turn out aircraft
and other advanced weapon systems. According to one estimate reported in
Aviation Week in 1953, the Air Research and Development Command allocated
nearly 90 percent of its R&D funds to civilian contractors that year, while the
Army and the Navy distributed 45 percent and 65 percent, respectively, to
external vendors. 109 The absence of an in-house production capability, however,
did not preclude the existence of a significant internal R&D function in the Air
Force. Since its establishment as the Army Air Corps before World War II, the
Air Force had maintained a broad knowledge base in science and engineering,
initially concentrated at Wright Field in Ohio, but later replicated and dispersed
among laboratories and testing facilities located throughout the United States.
The institutional structure of Air Force R&D after 1945 differed from its Army
and Navy counterparts in degree, not in kind. Throughout all three services,
with the exception of the Naval Research Laboratory, in-house studies were
conducted in direct support of weapons development programs. The content
and scope of such work typically covered a broad range of mutually supporting
subjects, from less-frequent fundamental investigations of scientific phenomena
to the far more common functions of testing, evaluation, standardization, and
prototype production of weapon systems and components. Similarly, in the case
of speculative research unrelated to specific weapons requirements, the services
established special program offices, such as the Air Force Office of Scientific
Research, to manage contracts distributed to universities and other privatesector
R&D organizations.
The evidence presented in this chapter suggests that institutional change
in the Air Force’s R&D establishment after World War II was driven more
by strategic considerations and evolving weapons requirements than by broad
policies designed to resolve the seemingly intractable conflict between advocates
of an independent R&D operation separate from production and procurement
and those who favored the merger of these functions into a single organization.
Because the laboratories at Wright Field were not equipped to test jet engines
and their components, the Air Force established a new facility to fulfill this
109 “ARDC Molds U.S. Air Development,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 75.