History
In June 1917 Commander Raynal Cawthorne Bolling lead a Bureau of Aircraft Production mission to France, investigating if it was possible to build British and French aircraft in the United States. The Engineering Division was set up to evaluate his proposals. It combined a number of existing division of the Air Service, including the Engineering Department and the Airplane Experimental Department. The first project it undertook was installing an American Liberty L-12 engine on the British de Havilland D.H.9 aircraft, redesignating it USD-9 and USD-9A.
Other aircraft modified include the Bristol F.2B, redesignated XB-1.
After World War I ended, designed aircraft such as the Boeing GA-1 and the Engineering Division VCP racing plane.
In 1925, in order to promote private aircraft developments, the Engineering Division was restricted by General Mason Patrick and could no longer build experimental aircraft.
In 1926 the United States Army Air Service was replaced with the United States Army Air Corps, and the Engineering Division became the Material Division, based at Wright Field. It was given the task of evaluating all projects submitted. This involved recommending technical improvements to manufacturers, drawing up contracts to be awarded, and testing prototype aircraft.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)