Scientific Study Of Aircraft Urged.

New York Times 100 years ago today, December 20, 1912:
President Appoints Commission on Aerodynamical Laboratory.
DR. WOODWARD HEADS IT
Regarded as Necessity to Commercial, Naval, and Military Interests.
    WASHINGTON, Dec. 19.— A long step in the direction of obtaining more scientific information for use in the construction of air craft was taken to-day when President Taft appointed a commission on an aerodynamical laboratory, of which Dr. R. S. Woodward, President of the Carnegie Institute of Washington and a representative of the National Academy of Sciences, is named as Chairman.
    The object of the commission, which was created on the recommendation of the Secretary of the Navy, will be to report to the President, for recommendation to Congress, on the necessity or desirability of establishing a National aerodynamical laboratory, its scope, organization, the most suitable location for it, and the cost of its installation. In addition to Dr. Woodward, the following were appointed members of the commission:
    Charles D. Walcott, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; S. W. Stratton, Director of the United States Bureau of Standards; Prof. William J. Humphreys, consulting physicist of the United States Weather Bureau at the Mount Weather observatory; Brig. Gen. James Allen, U.S.A., Chief Signal Officer; Major Samuel Reber, Chief Signal Officer for the Eastern District; Capt. W. I. Chambers, U.S.N., in charge of aviation United States Navy; Naval Constructor David W. Taylor, U.S.N.; M. D. Sellers, of the Technical Committee of the Aeronautical Society of New York; Henry A. Wise Wood, Vice President of the Aero Club of America; Bion J. Arnold, engineer of the Aero Club of Chicago; Prof. W. F. Durand, engineer of Leland Stanford University; Prof. Richard MacLaurin, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Charles M. Manley of New York, Harold M. Sewall of Bath, Me.; Herbert Parsons of New York, Col. Frederick H. Smith of Peoria, Ill.; Frank West Rollins of New Hampshire, and Dr. A. F. Zahn, secretary of the Aero Club of Washington.
    In his letter to the President recommending the appointment of the committee Secretary Meyer said:
    "The construction of air craft among all the leading powers of Europe is now based largely on scientific information obtained at their notable aerodynamic laboratories, and the installation of such a plant in this country is regarded as a necessity to our commercial interests and to the production of safety and efficiency in our air craft."
    In his annual report, Rear Admiral Philip Andrews, Chief of the Bureau of Navigation of the Navy Department, pointed out that, through the delay in establishing an aerodynamic laboratory in the United States, there had resulted a waste of time and money and a decline of prestige and unnecessary sacrifice of human life among aviators.