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Hidden Figures - Margot Lee Shetterly

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proven when Langley built a small test<br />

tunnel with perforated walls. In 1950,<br />

they retrofitted the Sixteen-foot High-<br />

Speed Tunnel (rechristened the Sixteenfoot<br />

Transonic Dynamics Tunnel) with<br />

slotted walls and then did the same for<br />

the Eight-foot High-Speed Tunnel.<br />

Taming the tunnel interference was a<br />

“long sought technical prize” for the<br />

researchers, and in 1951 it earned John<br />

Stack and his colleagues another coveted<br />

Collier Trophy.<br />

The new tunnel design set the stage for<br />

the second of the decade’s significant<br />

developments. An engineer named<br />

Richard Whitcomb noticed that in the<br />

transonic speed range, the greatest<br />

turbulence occurred at the point where<br />

the wings of a model plane connected to<br />

its fuselage. Indenting the plane’s body

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