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82 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
dispersed across laboratories in Georgia, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Jersey,
and New York, at two locations—the Air Force Cambridge Research Center in
Boston and the Rome Air Development Center (RADC) at Griffiss Air Force
Base near Syracuse, New York. AMC also ceded control of the huge wind tunnel
and propulsion testing facilities—among the largest of their kind in the United
States—at the newly established Arnold Engineering Development Center in
Tennessee. The Special Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base in New
Mexico and the Armament Center at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida tested and
evaluated delivery systems for atomic and nonnuclear weapons. The Flight Test
Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California tested aircraft in the prototype
and production stages, while the missile test centers at Patrick Air Force Base in
Florida and Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico carried out similar work on
all types of short- and medium-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles. 40
The headquarters operation of the Air Research and Development Command
was originally located on-site at Wright Air Development Center but moved to
Baltimore in 1951 (and later to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington).
In addition to managing the command’s in-house facilities, the headquarters staff
also coordinated the activities of other functions specific to ARDC’s mission.
The Office of Scientific Research, established in 1951 to take over the functions
of the Office of Air Research, awarded research contracts to universities and
industrial firms and coordinated basic research in the ARDC laboratories. “By
basic research,” wrote OSR’s chief in 1953, “we mean fundamental investigations
which are supported because of their probable contribution to advancement of
scientific knowledge when we have no specific Air Force problem or application
in mind.” 41 Meanwhile, the Office of the Assistant for Operational Readiness
dispatched teams of experts to maintain close liaison between the headquarters
staff and the operational commands that used the weapons and other systems
developed in ARDC laboratories and test facilities. 42 The job of each team was to
tune the requirements of the commands to ARDC’s R&D programming and “to
keep the user commands conversant with the ‘state-of-the-art’ in their particular
fields of interest.” In the early 1950s, ARDC’s technical program split into seven
directorates: aeronautics and propulsion, armament, electronics, equipment,
geophysics, human factors, and nuclear applications. 43
All of these fields, except geophysics, were investigated to some extent at
the Wright Air Development Center in the 1950s, either in-house or through
contracts awarded to private-sector institutions. The newly introduced weapon
systems concept, which redefined the institutional mechanisms by which the
40 Leggin, “Army Air Forces Research and Development,” 2915; Chidlaw, “New Weapons for Air
Supremacy,” 51; “Research Command Starts to Function,” 14; “A New Command Is Born,” Flying 48 (May
1951): 87; “R&D Pattern Taking Form,” Aviation Week 54 (7 May 1951): 13.
41 O. G. Haywood Jr., “The Air Research and Development Program,” Journal of Engineering Education
43 (March 1953): 375.
42 The operational commands: Strategic Air Command, Tactical Air Command, Air Defense
Command, Air Training Command, and Military Air Transport Service.
43 “ARDC Molds U.S. Air Development,” Aviation Week 59 (17 August 1953): 79–80 (quote on 79);
“Research Command Starts to Function,” 14.