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ReseaRch a n d developmenT In T h e na v y 57
corrosion-resistant, and tensile-strength properties of heavier metals, such as
stainless steel. 64 Like aluminum and other lightweight metal alloys, titanium also
showed promise as a component material in turbojet engines. The laboratory
also established a polymers division in 1952 to study and develop high-strength
synthetic rubber, plastics, and textiles for use in cockpit canopies, windows, and
other aircraft components. 65
Research and development in these and other fields continued throughout
the postwar period until the 1970s, when a series of major reorganizations at
the local and regional levels and within the Bureau of Aeronautics culminated in
the rapid decline of naval aviation at Philadelphia. In 1956, the Naval Aircraft
Factory became the Naval Air Engineering Facility (NAEF), and its major
functions officially shifted from aircraft production to research, development,
prototyping, and maintenance of aircraft and guided-missile launching and
recovery equipment. 66 The following year, the bureau granted independent status
to the laboratories previously assigned to the wartime Naval Air Experiment
Station. In 1962, NAEF adopted a new name—the Naval Air Engineering
Center (NAEC)—and the Naval Aircraft Factory became the Naval Air
Engineering Laboratory, bringing to five the total number of R&D laboratories
operating alongside NAEC. 67 By the mid-1970s, however, efforts underway since
the 1950s to streamline the Navy’s shore establishment and shift more in-house
R&D operations to private-sector contractors prompted a sharp reduction of
aviation activities in Philadelphia as facilities were closed, merged, or transferred
to other Navy installations. 68
Bureau of Ships
At the end of the World War II, the Bureau of Ships relied on private
shipyards and its own shipyards to design, fabricate, and assemble the hulls and
superstructures required for destroyers, cruisers, battleships, aircraft carriers, and
submarines. The Bureau of Ordnance supplied guns, depth charges, torpedoes,
and other weapons, while industrial contractors typically provided operating
64 Research on high-strength alloys was also supported by ONR, which established and coordinated
with the material bureaus a major titanium R&D program in 1952. See J. J. Harwood, “Metallurgy
Research Program of the Office of Naval Research,” Journal of Metals 9 (May 1957): 673.
65 Trimble, Wings for the Navy, 321–22, 329–30.
66 When the Naval Aircraft Factory officially lost its production status in 1956, the Navy was
already in the process of reorganizing its aviation programs in the Philadelphia area. Two years earlier, the
Naval Air Development and Material Center had been established at Johnsville, Pennsylvania. This new
organizational unit administered the Naval Air Development Center at Johnsville, the Naval Air Material
Center at Philadelphia, the Naval Air Turbine Test Center (moved from Philadelphia to Trenton in 1955),
and the Naval Air Test Facility at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey. In 1959, the Naval Air
Development and Material Center became the headquarters organization for the Naval Air Research and
Development Activities Command.
67 The other laboratories (Aeronautical Engine Laboratory, Aeronautical Structures Laboratory,
Aeronautical Materials Laboratory, and the Air Crew Equipment Laboratory) were the direct
organizational descendents of the four laboratories grouped together in the Naval Experiment Station
in 1943.
68 Trimble, Wings for the Navy, 323–324, 329–30.