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86 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
war. 55 This state-of-the-art laboratory served as the centerpiece of AEDC’s new
engine test facility, which conducted full-scale tests and evaluations of all types
of jet engines operating under controlled temperature and humidity conditions
at simulated altitudes reaching eighty thousand feet, far exceeding the limits of
conventional piston-driven engines. Gas dynamics and wind tunnel facilities were
subsequently added to the Tullahoma center to evaluate new airframe designs at
hypersonic speeds and also to test aircraft-installed ramjet and turbojet power
plants. Expansion of these facilities to achieve faster speeds at higher simulated
altitudes proceeded accordingly throughout the rest of the decade in response to
the Air Force requirement that industrial contractors test their prototype aircraft
and propulsion systems at Tullahoma. Tests conducted for the Army and the
Navy—on the propulsion systems for the Sergeant, Pershing, and Polaris missile
systems, for example—also added to the workload during this period. 56
Although AEDC engineers tested new airframes and the propulsion units
that powered them at supersonic and hypersonic speeds, their counterparts at
the Armament Test Center at Eglin Air Force Base—located on the gulf coast
of Florida, fifty miles east of Pensacola—carried out similar investigations to
determine the effects of such high velocities on the operation and effectiveness
of conventional ordnance. “[N]ew high-speed airplane designs have raised a
slew of armament problems that haven’t even been tackled yet,” Business Week
reported in 1949. Little was known, for example, about the effects of protruding
gun barrels on the aerodynamic stability of aircraft flying at supersonic speeds.
Similarly, in the case of free-fall bombing, it was unclear whether standard
ordnance inherited from the war would be suitable for delivery from high-speed
aircraft. Conventional bomb sights were also outdated, prompting Eglin’s test
engineers to work with private manufacturers to develop automatic, radar-guided
targeting systems for supersonic aircraft. 57 The rapid increase in the Armament
Test Center’s budget was one likely measure of the significance attributed to
the operational limits placed on weapon systems as aircraft velocities passed the
sound barrier: It quadrupled between 1952 and 1957, from $5 million to $20
million.
Construction of the Armament Test Center (later shortened to Armament
Center) at Eglin Air Force base commenced in 1950, but work in this field
had already been underway since the mid-1930s, when the Army Air Corps
established a bombing and gunnery range on the same site. In 1951, Air Force
headquarters transferred the test center from the Air Materiel Command to the
55 Sturm, The USAF Scientific Advisory Board, 6; A. McSurely, “AF Planning Huge New Research
Center,” Aviation Week 51 (21 November 1949): 11–12; D. A. Anderton, “AF Reveals Plans for Engineering
Center,” Aviation Week 55 (2 July 1951): 13–14. On the transfer of German aircraft and rocket technology
and scientific personnel to the United States, see Clarence Lasby, Project Paperclip: German Scientists and
the Cold War (New York: Atheneum, 1971); and Karen J. Weitze, Command Lineage, Scientific Achievement,
and Major Tenant Missions, vol. 1 of Keeping the Edge: Air Force Materiel Command Cold War Context,
1945–1991 (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Oh.: Headquarters, Air Force Materiel Command, August
2003), 162–86.
56 G. W. Newton, “AEDC Provides Huge Jet Engine Test Facility,” S. A. E. Journal 62 ( July 1954):
28–32; J. Trainor, “Arnold Center Tests All Big Systems,” Missiles and Rockets 9 (14 August 1961): 32.
57 “Weapon Center,” Business Week (30 April 1949): 26, 28 (quote on 28).