BILL AITKEN

October 11, 1999

Erik M. Conway, Interviewer

1

[Transcriber's note: The quality of this recording is very poor. Every effort was made to produce an accurate transcript, but where this was not possible, [unclear] is noted within the transcript.]

Conway: So I told you what I'm doing with this project. We were just talking about Larry L ~

\.¥ and subsonic versus supersonic [unclear]. But I want to go back and I want to talk about your

background.

Aitken: Okay.

Conway: Where you grew up, your education, why you went into aeronautics, that kind of thing.

Aitken: Okay. Grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, went to college at Rensselaer Polytechnic

Institute, graduated with a bachelor of aeronautical engineering degree in 1942. Immediately went

to work for the government at Langley in 1942 as a junior aeronautical engineer in flight research.

During that period I was involved with the development of loads measuring techniques for aircraft, '-'.,~\,~

as well as the aerodynamics and fl~t [unclear] qualities of the tbea [anslear] 8i tfte airplanes, like ~1 _f ,~._ 0 -'L~

the T-51, the J-47, big airplanes [unclear] back in '43.

As a result of that background and the people who were working with me at the time in

developing means of measuring flight loads not with pressure distribution measurements, although

2

that was a standard technique, we were trying to get into the strain gauge business, and we were

pretty far along with some of those techniques, so that when the X-1 project began in the '45, '44,

'45 time frame, I was one of the engineers who went out to what is now Dryden, in charge of the

flight load part of the program. I did the design of the strain gauge installation, the calibration at

Buffalo, and the early flight test of the X-1.

So I stayed out there until that program got into the powered flight phase, and then I returned

to Langley and stayed there essentially until 1961, '62, when I was transferred t!v~"o: jobs there,

first as chief of operations research, and then finally after another thirteen or so years, I retired in

1985 as director of aeronautics.

Conway: You transferred to headquarters in '62.

Aitken: Yes.

Conway: And you stayed at headquarters until '86?

Aitken: Through '85. At that time I was director of aeronautics.

Conway: When did you become director of aeronautics?

if~ ~...,....l 'ttb~·· ~ Aitken: Early in '85. I had to retire because [unclear]. I got out at the right time, frankly, eRghreer

the program was falling apart. Every since then, it's practically down at the bottom now. It's terrible.

3

The whole aeronautics program. Not just at Langley, but Ames is practically out of the business

'"~1 ~ [unclear] back into rockets. Not much left alive.

Anyhow, at headquarters, I went up there. Before I transferred there, I had spent a couple of

years at TAC [Tactical Air Command] headquarters. We ran out of flight research jobs at Langley,

because most of the stuff was transferred to Dryden. I didn't want to move back out there. So I spent ~ ~twil.c. ~

about a year and a half, two years at TAC headquarters as assistant chief of aircraft ?unclear]

..\ :--\1\1'""""" ~ ~Qil.Oeer.

And from there, John Stack [phonetic], who was the prime proponent of supersonic (~ "'-t- t<o~ ~ -,et- .. ~o \,~~

technology [unclear] in the mid thirties, was asked to be the then director of aeronautics at

headquarters in 1961, and NASA decided they really had to rebuild the aero program. Stack

transferred up there and asked me to come with him because of my past connection with the X -1 and

the fact that I'd been working with the Air Force at TAC headquarters on some of these aircraft (p'(N... \ '1\ ~ iV\JW\ n <Yf I

starting to ~.

So Stack, unfortunately, didn't stay around at headquarters long enough to get things going,

but his first congressional testimony, I guess was in 1962. He was then telling Congress the

possibilities of supersonic and hypersonic commercial transport possibilities. I'm not sure of the

exact date when the national programs started, but I would say that Stack, in a way, was a catalyst

for it. He had a lot of connections both in the industry and military.

One of the problems was that the FAA really didn't have any technical expertise to handle

any of this stuff, but the powers-that-be decided, in the sixties, to give the FAA the responsibility a{.~ l)J~.-M~ ~(C>f~·

for these developments [l:mslear]. From there on, it was Boeing, Lockheed, and Douglas, of course,

working the problem, with NASA in there more in an advisory role. As such, nobody listened to the

4

My own opinion now of what happened there is probably colored by my view of the FAA,

which was that it probably didn't have the expertise to run a technical program, but it probably was

a good thing in the long run that the program went belly up, because the airplane design, the best

one, the Boeing one, I guess--I don't know if Neil [Driver] would agree with this or not--fell short

of the requirements for commercial aircraft.

But in the meantime, we had been doing a lot of flight research on the--I wouldn't say the .,$ commercial side, but at Langley we had done a lot of flight research on the ~45, which was

a l~-t 4 f\IJ-uthltt, ~ t 6 {unclear] airplane, but not quite, and then th~4 7. So we laid the groundwork for large flexible

t\,, \Jc"' ~~ I'~'~/,..."" -19. cl-c..~\ot aircraft, with the [l.H=tctem'], then were used ~] industry standard and military standard for

certifying airplanes.

So in the early sixties, then--again, I'm vague on exact dates--but my involvement with the :i"'_lVJ';..o ,)t., ~A

SST part of the game was really if> ~] sonic boom~. I was a point man for NASA

headquarters under the then head ofNASA, James Webb, to attend all of the--not all, some meetings

of various committees, to see what the real noise problems were for supersonic aircraft and the sonic

boom problem. So I would go to a lot of those meetings and have to sit in the back row and try to

figure out how to tell my big boss what I do at NASA in supporting this stuff.

""") d.ue \p f''Q'" Lockheed at the time had a~J\'elefled the SR -71, and Kelly Johnson knew--of course, he was

in the ~unkwork, but another part of the Lockheed Company was working on the supersonic

transport, and they were trying to get their oar in as well as the other companies.

The big problem was--we probably could have handled the noise problem. Probably would

~~~ have been some [uaelem] there. But the sonic boom was rather large, which was a reason for not

5

developing the supersonic transport. Kelly Johnson's aircraft, the SR-71, was flying at such high

altitudes that their claim was that the sonic boom would not be heard. So NASA got involved in

trying to help determine whether or not it would be a problem.

So my role at headquarters at that time frame was just as an expediter to get as much

information as we could from the Lockheed Company, where stuff was pretty highly classified, and

wind tunnel tests that were done at Langley.

Previous to that--now I've got to go back a couple of years--Johnny Stack--sounds like I'm

going to repeat myself--John Stack's view of the sonic boom problem was a little different than some

other people's. His view was that it was a potential tactical weapon.

Conway: The sonic boom?

Aitken: The sonic boom. Tactical weapon used by low-flying military aircraft to destroy radars and

whatnot.

Conway: That's interesting.

'+a Aitken: And so it was either--1 guess it was in 1960 or '61 that I went to TAC, who set up a joint

program between NASA, Langley ~and Tactical Air Command headquarters to do some

sonic boom tests out at one of the fields somewhere in the desert outside of Las Vegas, one of the

4.~\.~·~ [yncleaP] air fields. I've forgotten the name of it. [nuclear] et sonicthing lik:e that Anyway, forget

that.

6

So Langley and Dominick Magliari [phonetic], who was a player in this, designed--Harvey

Hubbard [phonetic] might still be around. Have you heard of his name?

Conway: No, I haven't.

Aitken: Harvey Hubbard, noise and sonic boom. He was Dominick's boss in those days at Langley.

!Velt~ They set up the test systems outside of 9ttffes Air Force Base, with windows, all different kinds of

windows. Dryden sent aircraft, and there were tactical missiles set up on the ground with radars.

Then the Air Force provided F-1 04 and, I think, 105 aircraft to overfly the test site. Aircraft came

over at supersonic speeds, sometimes twenty feet off the deck. We had some really good--I went out

there for the tests--we had some really big sonic booms, boy, but only broke a few windows and

nothing else was affected.

But that wasn't enough. So back in this early sixties time frame, when the Office of Science

and Technology was put in charge of the program to see what the problems with sonic booms are,

they started another program out at Edwards. Built houses. I'm pretty sure Dominick was involved

in that. Built houses and ran tests with more aircraft, and there were potential problems with the

mink farmers and the turkey farmers, who got involved in this mess.

Bottom line, in my view, was that the potential structural damage from sonic booms from

high-flying aircraft was nonexistent. Okay? And the potential problem for mink farmers and turkey

farmers was probably overblown. Enough tests were made at turkey farms--we have photographs

of this--the turkeys were more spooked by stuff blowing around from the wind than they were from -rk ~uu~\} Jus+ ~'1"'~ ~

any of the sonic booms. [}llle!ear]. ~sonic boom>~as nothing.

7

But that wasn't really enough, because there was a whole swell of left-of-center people out ~ CA~~ £ ~... A<<e.l~ J.,y­

there. I can't remember the guy's name from @11.,assach11SeUs lAgtitl:lte ofTssbnala~]

e;,.LcJ r c..l· -H-­Conway: Sh,srklet [phonetic]?

Aitken: Are you going to interview him?

Conway: I don't know if he's still around, but his records are. MIT's archives, in fact, they're vast.

They're really an excellent archive. I haven't gotten to look at them yet.

Aitken: Well, he was a thorn in our side. All of us in NASA were in favor of developing supersonic a {w~f'J ~~J.

technology. He [yJlGiear] [Senator William] Proxmire's ears as the years went on, and Proxmire was

trying to kill the program, not just when it was FAA, but even after that program went belly up and

the development of technology was turned back to NASA without any FAA involvement. ~ was in there testifying before Proxmire, trying to keep NASA from developing even basic technology

in this area, and that was in the seventies time frame.

Conway: That's interesting (ynclear]. ~ """"' tv•fL. ~

Aitken: Yes. I can't be specific on the date. I remember testifying before Proxmire. I don't

remember what I said. ~ I-1- w ... sn 'f lvn"'Y·

What I'm trying to remember now is, see, when [Richard M.] Nixon became President, his

8

key advisor on aeronautics [lw.c.1ear]. IAI«.~ IJ ;t ( J ~ f-t'"'"d .

Conway: Magruder?

Aitken: Yes, Magruder. Magruder got Nixon's ear and was able to convince NASA to pick up the

program where it left off in developing technology for supersonic aircraft beyond the point where

it was when it was the FAA's program. The date of that escapes me, but Magruder--

~s$/ ~6"' .. t~. Conway: It would have been '71, because Nixon supported~

Aitken: Okay. And I had a little bit of a problem there. At that time, Roy Jackson was the head of

OAST, Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology, at NASA headquarters. I worked directly for

him. He had an in with Magruder. They were pretty well acquainted. So Roy managed to talk

At the time, George Low was, I guess, deputy head of NASA. He asked us to take a look at u. ~ 4'\ ~'Y"Wt.-k trl hP...J

our program content, which didn't have that much supersonic stuff in it. [unclear]. I think I said 20 "'""" 'AMl\., .,J!. ~.

million dollars. At that time, Roy Jackson had made me the director for supersonic and lzydresonic ~~~c.1:....

technology, so that became my responsibility.

Well, to make a long story short, somehow or other George Low looked at the numbers we

had, and instead of giving us the 20 million, we got only about 11 million. But after that, we were ~<l. M~Lc:.-"­

able to gradually build the program back up, and at that point is when Neil Driver and [unclear], who ~f. ~~t£c....

were then still working at Langley, [lmelear] aerodynamics technology and some of the structure

9

~\""5 technology. One of the problems, in my view, was the less than 100 percent support from~

Research Center on the propulsion side, but they did take the money and~· ~"- -H~M-~

Now, the best way to see what happens in that time frame, I think, is to use Ed McLean's

cr---.--~- 6\ 'i'" r~tory. My role in headquarters was just :fen:ral overseer to try to divvy up the money ~ f!ri1fl';-t.S ... - I: + ~d ~ ,_,~ tt)l 7 ~~

among the competing centers [unclear J.,.balance things out,. [ ~ ~>-P 1-, 'l-<.- ~ 1'1'414, ~

dGc'3.~~ ~ ~ z:_ J -,.)1' In the course of that, I had to testify a couple of times before Congress, and right now I can't """'~ 1-.

fmd a copy of that testimony.

Conway: [unclear].

Aitken: I don't know. I had it a few weeks ago, and I can't find it. In May of '76, there was a

[Y!}cieftr] in Astronautics and Aeronautics magazine.

6vfW'D,.,.-z.. ~·~ *Lt'A~'""

Conway: You said May of'76?

L- J.la ~'e. ""'" .. "-..e.. • ~ ~~41\ '1-.'-L IX- "{.... """

Aitken: Yes, May 1976. This is not the whole~]. Well, it might~]. And I wrote the

lead article. Says here the decision in '73 to reinvest in the design research. Well, wait a minute.

Talks about the funding here. "The SST program was canceled in '71. Funding for advanced

research in '72 was at its lowest level since '65." So in '73 we went back into business, according

to this.

Conway: You were able to~]. ~-~,.;..

10

Aitken: Right. So my article is sort of a general overview of it. Then Heldenfelcf[phonetic] from

Langley did the structures, where we stood on structures at that time. Heldenfeld isn't around

.J4. ~j..,.,c,~ M'"h~ anymore. It's a pretty good article

1[.ynclear], goes on forever. Then there's a propulsion one by Dick

Weber [phonetic] from Lewis in here, where we stood at the time, what types of engines. We were

pushing the variable-cycle engine.

0 fth . . thi I'll th. . h rn~~ ~d~-- k. ~" . I I d I ne o e Interesting ngs-- try to get Is ng t ,~ aero ynamics artie e. on t

know. One of the key things, everybody knew l£hat titanium could be one of the key materials.

Conway: Right.

~ 4/ll~ Aitken: [ ~], Heldenfeld's article. When titanium was being proposed for more studies, it was

~\ .... ~ still one of these materials that was pretty much under military control. ~] how it really

~~~+. developed, structures [.uRelenr]. NASA's ability to work on titanium was almost killed,tibt really by

the military--oh, I know who did it. Okay. It was testimony sometime or other in that '70 time frame

by Robert [S.] McNamara.

Conway: In the seventies? That's interesting.

Aitken: When was he Secretary of Defense?

Conway: He left in '68. (JA.JJV __.-

11

Aitken: Maybe I'm getting the dates mixed up. I know that McNamara testified that titanium--

sometime or other, and this was used later, maybe by Proxmire--that titanium was an absolutely

useless material for aircraft, yet at the time he knew that it was being used in military aircraft.

Conway: That's interesting. I'll have to [yndetni. c~ Lh.k .ft..,"'·

Aitken: I don't know how the hell to tell you to find that, but I know--because we jus} couldn't ~ ,.,J4$ \>~ ~ c,.~W-n YD" {ctole 4t "'-"., f<[.tJrd,. tJ

believe. I guess [#ear], late sixties, (JJDeiem'] not running the Vietnam War the right way.

Conway: That's interesting and would certainly explain why NASA had such a hard time [;t~J:>--k'~,...,l"t .,.. ~~+- M #

Aitken: Yes.

4- .,14.. ~tv I~ I. Aitken: So whatever his motive, it might have just been for control [lmcl0ar-].

Okay, where were we? I was just mentioning this. You can borrow this if you want to.

Conway: Now that I have the date, I can find it in the library. ~

Aitken: Well, every year we had to testify before Congress as to why we should continue the

programs and why they should be expanded. One of the years, I can't remember which one it was

12

now, I can't find the testimony I gave before Congress, but the Committee on Science and

D fl"'/M.) ./,x "-£:(...~"'~ ~ ,-, J....~ Technology asked for a report on the program ~supersonic technology [1.mGlear], September

~If~ ~,,~. .f4.. ~'I'~ '77. This was done out of my office in headquarters at the time. In a letter [l.iRelem1 and whatnot,

put together where we thought we stood, what we needed to do. I guess we had the funding.

Conway: Fantastic. I've been looking and have found very little, actually, about the[~~~~ ~,.. ~ ,;:t

document~

Aitken: That's another interesting thing. George Low, who was really more interested in space than

he was in aeronautics, was always looking for ways, like the present head of NASA is, to put money

in the space program but not into aeronautics. One of the times that he made the attempt to cut us

c..-aA""U-back, we were looking for an acronym and I came up with the Supersonic ~] Aircraft

Research Program, which was an inside joke, STAR. We taking some hits, and George Low did not

appreciate that. He made us change it and come up with something else.

Conway: ~. ~ ~ --J H....,.ql>?

Aitken: I don't think there are any records ~].

Conway: I found the two big STAR program conference publications.

Aitken: Yes.

13

Aitken: Well, this includes the back-and-forth letters between the chairman of the Science and

Technology Committee and head ofNASA at the time, [James C.] Fletcher.

I'm not sure, again, of the exact year that this happened, but during all this, the Concorde was ~~----7 -~-v~. ~\.c..~

flying, and Fletcher was writing back and forth to [l.lnclear], was the head of NASA, and I had a lot

of contacts at the time with the French. I was involved in a lot of international programs as well as

the AGARD, Advisory Group for Aeronautical Research and Development of NATO.

So they asked me if I wouldn't like to take a Concorde flight. All I had to do was get to Paris,

which would have been easy enough, and then they'd fly me to Venezuela, and I had to get home

from Venezuela. I thought about that, never been on one of these things. It had been in the air a few

years, I guess. But they were still only going to Venezuela, so it was real early in the Concorde days.

It hadn't gotten approval to land in New York yet because of noise problems.

So I don't know whether it was my idea or whether it was something somebody advised me

to do, I suggested to Dr. Fletcher that he might want to take the flight because he had to talk about

our programs and whatnot, as well as us lower-ranking types. So we arranged and had some kind

of a meeting, I've forgotten what it was, and he was going to take that freebie flight from Paris to

Venezuela. I thought it was a good idea to get him excited about possibilities for supersonic flight.

Well, after the flight, I don't know how many days after he got back to Washington, I got to

see him about it. His reaction was, "There's not enough head room in that airplane." He's a very tall

man. He had to stoop to walk down the aisle. So his comment was, "This isn't a big enough

airplane." So, of course, going to Venezuela and having to get [~ didn't help matters either.

14

But that's just an aside [~],trivia.

One of the other things that came up in the time frame, when we were still actively involved

in supersonic research was a lot of members of Congress, maybe rightly, maybe wrongly, were

convinced that there was an easy transition from the military supersonic aircraft, including at that

~ " ... \ time [J.md:eat]. So Fletcher and some of the others had to argue it wasn't really an easy transition.

Of course, they weren't equipped to do it. ~ r~~/

So we just staggered along for~] finally when [Ronald] Reagan came in, in 1981.

Things really started to fall apart in aeronautics. That was the beginning of the downfall of the ~ ttc. o~8

aeronautics program, because--can't blame Reagan for it, but they set up a group [.unclear] to see

(\~ j v.St" Cf"V \Se where to cut back on government spending, and they went after ~l-the supersonic [~]. pnJf'l'~.,)

fll1tff>M ~~ we-t/ .:fhey went after our subsonic transpo~ Of course, those today are really paying off.

Conway: Yes.

\}J&'f..7lub. Aitken: Even the latest Boeing airplanes have w~. The engine development has

been essentially, I guess, paid for by NASA~ and the noise reduction, all that stuff.

Conway: From NASA.

""''tk-- ro ~ll Aitken: Came out ofNASA. Some of the structures~ That was our subsonic program,

but that died. I had to call up Langley one time and say, "You must stop every contract that you have

right now, all the programs that are supporting the subsonic transport technology." That was a bad

15

day.

And about the same time frame, the SST program essentially went down the drain. What we

did continue, were able to continue, were most of the programs that were not just basic research, but

~h""l'" 4\.\- p~~ flight testing, military ~J. And the SR-71 was flying {lmclear] at the time, just before

·---~-~~ -~ ~ fa"eetl."> ~41\y rrotf- S"C"M-;(~cc. • ~'testing the materials and other ~' but nothing {lwcl~aP]. And where things stand

now in the supersonic business, I guess it's really bad.

Conway: Yes. Well, since the [lJ,llGlearj: H,sR P"(J!~""' ~ <k""-,"'5-C.. ~te. w~ 'r ~ /_ 4 I ( • :J 1.1$ 1- ~ fJ { ~ ej/.-c.."U-t-

~ ~~:z ~" <f- ~u-/ ~r Vl.jiW.... p-P/r'lltlf • f'vf ~~ ~~ J'"JJ..-, 1-(c. $ ~~'t4.,"'L. /?VII~J II"-+.

Aitken: But it's probably not going to be successful unless there's a change in administration,

somebody else running the--

Conway: Yes. Well, of course, there will be a change in administration [.LmGle~. llll/'- ""'-r ~k.tkoQ{' I

~ ~ .ft11"H. W\'l\ W.\1'!. ~ ~ ~..t•f'J,~ 'th~ t>+- ~.('lH'\~vk,_, te~,lh.l

+., "'- ~.

Aitken: I don't know yet who it's going to be, but there's some undercover work being done

- IN'~ . -/k, /'t16 ~ \.~f' e,}.J ,,.,,_ • [liocleftr]. Have you talked to Ming Tang[~]?

Conway: Yes. I haven't formally interviewed him, so I haven't asked him a lot of questions.t wt

[~

Aitken: He's probably the only guy at Langley that's interested. And the other thing he's working

on, of course, is to try to get a better partnership with the military. That's probably the only way

L• S fi"'/.r'l~ ~~\~ IA-oll.Jb'f\.CJJ, ... ~

they're ever going to save ~] m:td those f>t=egt:ams.

Conway: [unclear].

16

Aitken: Yes. It's funny, a lot of the--not a lot, but some of the developments in the subsonic

program were implemented by other countries before our outfits, Douglas or Boeing [llocle~.

A."·~ ~ Conway: Do you think there's more conservatism in jyDcletni Boeing, Douglas, _(ync1.0ar],

technology?

Aitken: Well, back in the days when that subsonic program was active, the answer is that Boeing

never believed anything unless they did it themselves from scratch. They weren't even happy about ~~I'll -\<.:>h~ JO' (.e~•

NASA~]. Douglas, on the other hand, didn't operate that way. There were always better ~ fWc"'" ~

0 1'\ Dt.•PA.t.Mfllk•t.:. .,·de. w• 'U-. l. 0

cJcJ ~ IJt6'Y3 • relations in the subsonic area, Langley, I'll say Langley

1hecause the aemRa.mics [unclear]. Boeing w'

e-· thought they had all the answers. I mean, after all, they developed an airplane, the 4 7 aircraft, which

was the forerunner, really, of their jet business.

Conway: Right.

-C.~~ ':::£. ~,.) f'4. .. ,_

Aitken: Without much help from Langley. [lJDelear]. When I was in charge of the flight tests that ~

-:r~t o1A- -fo "Pry~ NASA ran--NACA ran on the '-47s, we did the instrumentation at Langley and~] flight tests. t, ~ rcr-

The only place I could find wind tunnel data to compare with the flight data that we were getting,

17

which were Boeing tests,'fllere were no Langley wind tunnel tests on the ~ 7. The reason was that

Boeing didn't truste_ • • •

Conway: They had designs [ypclea-4 5-Jz;,/e,a ~ ,

Aitken: Yes. And it was very difficult to classify it. That was the only way you could keep it from ....,..

leaking out. So there was that tension between [l.meleart. I can't blame Boeing for this, because they

~~ ~ ~!~,~~ had a leg up on l).mei'ear f But I'm not sure where this is getting me.

In the SST days, relationships between Langley and Boeing were very good. McLean and

Driver and many of the other people from Langley were at Boeing, and I was out there two or three

days one time while they were going through some of the last configurations of generation of

decision processes before the program collapsed. They worked closely. In the SST business, there ~ ~\ ~N'~-.:s flullL.

was a close relationship between [~1 and the Langley people and Boeing [yncleaFo]. I think Neil

and Ed McLean must have spent many months just sitting side by side and working at Boeing. But

the subsonic business, [ l1llelemt. ~ ~ 61t'll ~r ~o , .. of\ •

Conway: [unclear].

Aitken: So I don't know whether, when you talked to Neil, he mentioned the many months he spent

out at Boeing or not.

Conway: Yes, he did. He talked quite a bit about his activities at Boeing and especially about

18

[llneJ:eart. 4lt- ~ 1\.~-/~ -H ~ ~~ .... ~ •

~ /r 's ~, ''i'tl\ 1•' 1--. (\ +- l'~~v-e..

~~ +~u ,....+ '-'~"' Lt dec:u~~J

b"¥ Aitken: Would you consider--would your [!ulelear] permit you to interview any Boeing people?

Conway: I intend to, yes.

fpC'\ Aitken: How about W 4,.p....~? I think he's still alive. --

"S ar~'v\~f t4&r vJC'-~ ~+ Conway: I've been told by Boeing[~] he is.

Aitken: He's a great guy and he was there from the get-go. A couple of the other people who were

involved, ~' I don't know whether they're still around or not, retired or what. And present-

day Boeing, I don't think anybody is considering seriously development of an SST. That's just an

opinion.

Conway: In fact, ~· N- ~ll If l~Dk t.~ 8"0C-C~ ~ ~~ ~ J,"liJ

~ /11M- ~ ~ . ~~~ '" -1'4... H..sll.. ,~,,..f/>1 -ft-..7- t~st- e~ • A-Ni -r:·,. -lo IJ ~ 1\(..c"ff.v- cLlil. ~/Kif- , 8v/- Z Ju:...c.. +a ,t:-v-1 &c:.v~t::3

-lo .:>1'/..-f ~~---. Aitken: Sounds like a long time to work this problem.

l"'-•3 ftll • c.c..-1-. Conway: I have three years ~]. c>'t\.., v

Aitken: Great.

19

Conway: I may well not be able to get close to the White House documents I want, but .[ynclea.9. ~'':> ~ ~ ~+c. ~ VJ\.~ ~~ .:rf+,ta- tr4- ~~ --..:/ ~ ... ,..,)'! ~!~

Lm~ oe Ofvffi tgceul [nn• harJ, bat tkat's ail tight, beeaese tke Fevisur pt=gcess ftmelear].

[J.mcleat= peFtiorr]. ~ 0~6 +o ;e-+- ~.

Aitken: You sound rather knowledgeable. What was your background before you started this

project?

Conway: Before I started this project, I have an engineering undergraduate degree, mechanical ~ ~ ./.-" t~ ... ~ v.J'\1-4- M"'~\"'C-

engineering, and I was a Navy officer, surface gu:¥ [lwGlettr], but then I worked for a year [lloclear]. a"''~· 1\.

That's sort of my direct experience. I went to graduate school at University of Minnesota and my 4/'b ~ ~ ~l.rtN'et\. t- II'\

dissertation was on aircraft landing [l.wclearfcommercial and military aviation in the thirties, forties,

M ~ ''""' ~u\y ''''-' and fifties. Then I got this contract and actually started working on this [.uncfear]. [unclear portion].

5~~hd ~,~ -llc f[)L ~ ~s. ~ .. ..c. '16~ ~ ltA4l l/6rwN·c.".:s

J,D6k.. ?

Aitken: No.

, .. ,:z.. ' Conway: It's an old book, actually. It's hard to find. This is a copy that I just got .[JJ.oGlear1. But

Aitken: He's right on that.

Conway: I think he's right about that.

20

Aitken: Yes.

Conway: And as you can see, it's a very detailed book. Unfortunately, most of his sources have

been destroyed. He was able to get into the FAA records right after they were sent to the Federal

~~\ Records Center for storage. He goes through with great ~' but he doesn't have any technical

\Jl.£ l.A.4S 4 ~ ~-~- M ~t\I\~~ f-Understanding. [ uaelearf, so I'm trying to fill in some of the technical {ynclef111. And talking to

~~.

people gives me the l,yD.cleatt. There really aren't any NASA records, not that I've been able to find. AJ~tl side_ ri- ~·MJ-S 1 ...-(,~ I)"'/- lh -k., J,c>olc. .._,_ -If •

So it's a book that I recommend reading [y,nclea4 ,~ 'tV1/ c:.rr"" ~~J ·~ ,n. · ~ t,·&..-~.

,sh~c..4# Aitken: Just glancing at this, I see [ynGiearj letters to various people.

kNLtJ ~~vt&fl'11} Sf~ e~t-:S t:'lff M ~ T.

Conway: That's how I~]. Me and MIT archivists are on good terms .[ynclear]. 5o ~#.'!:/

~ ~ ~ Jilt IJc.. ~~ .::A$y.

Aitken: Well, I guess--

c~

Aitken: When was this published?

Conway: '82.

Aitken: '82. ~

21

Conway: Well, it's--

[Begin Tape 1, Side 2]

Conway: And university presses tend not to advertise, because advertising is expensive and they're (£_ 1$ A ~+a-vf' •

poor. So I think books like this tend not to come to attention ~T1And the title's also not very

(!.. "JYJtA: w,~ .s suggestive. There are actually four books by the name.Jyn.clea.r], and this is the only one that has

anything to do with aeronautics.

-:t=.,. ,....,}t.,., ;to\ J.e ,.c. J

Aitken: []llle}earf, "the actions of key individuals in the conflict, including Robert McNamara."

Conway: Yes. Yes, he gives McNamara a hard time, but that's--

Aitken: Everybody should.

Conway: Yes. McNamara's papers also exist. Unfortunately, when the Pentagon sent them over

..a. ss r to the National Archives, they sent them in a classified collection, so I have to get ~stuff

declassified. ~·

Aitken: You've got a real career here.

~ ~,,;~ ""~7 Conway: Yes. It takes a while to really investigate [yoclettr], especially when it involves classified

22

material and personal papers. One nice thing is that Boeing's archives is fantastic, and Boeing told

~~'e. me~] they already interviewed all the~' so I may not even have to do it.

Conway: They have two people that run their archives. Mike something. I talked to them directly.

I don't quite know how to do it yet, but I also want to try to get some of the current Boeing people

~·'n./ -h k to talk to. That probably ~leftti more difficult, but I'll certainly try it. T-hat's [l:lftelem].

Aitken: I'm trying to think of the key Douglas guy. Maybe Neil knows.

Conway: I have Neil's list of people to talk to.

Aitken: Oh, you have? Okay.

Conway: Yes. Let's see. Who have I got for Douglas? Dick Fitzsimmons.

Aitken: Right.

Conway: I tried to reach him, and I failed to. I got a mailing address, but I checked in the computer

~·-~- ... ~· and [.uaelea:r]'.

Aitken: What's the mailing address?

,J~~ Conway: I've got 1801 Sandlewood Lane, [JJncleart Beach.

23

Aitken: Yes. That sounds familiar, because I used to send a Christmas card to him. Haven't heard

from him....,. , "" "' ~(c. ~ r :J

-C:t'«."l~o'1(1-- vC\c.~·~ +'-Conway: I'm going to call the Douglas archivist. It's a separate func1eaE1. Boeing's been ~

..tw~ ~~..-.> bv-1- ;,"" •+ dorc:. ye-1-. :Z:. ,...J +o c..tl .,,.,J and see if she knows if he's still around ~.

Aitken: How about--talking about Lockheed, I'm not sure again of the time frame, but did Neil

mention Ed Cortright [phonetic]?

Aitken: Foss. That's good.

Conway: Ed CAftright, you said?

Aitken: Cortright. He was the president of Lockheed during the time when the NASA program

started to go belly up, but Cortright had been a director at Langley.

24

Conway: Interesting.

Aitken: And I believe he lives in Yorktown now. So all you've got to do is check the Yorktown k- "'""~ ~\'eC..~.

telephone directory for his telephone number. He's got a lot of background because of~]

u..~~ at the time that things were happening, and he was out at Lockheed, I guess in the early eighties

when things were falling apart. But Dick Foss was the real technical guy for Lockheed.

Conway: He allegedly lives in Las Vegas.

alk with people and [unclear]. I'm figuring Boeing [unclear]. The question is whether

I can get [unclear].

Aitken: Give me some other names on Neil's list.

Conway: I've got Godfried freebie [phonetic].

Aitken: Oh, my goodness. [l.mclem1. $~1J. ~ "'..-e~ •

Conway: I've got a phone number, but I haven't checked [.llllGieati . ..J:o ~ 1~

25 {.....4~)

Aitken: He lived a couple of [yo.clearf8.way from Seattle. I remember going out to his house for

dinner one night. Any other Boeing names?

~. Conway: ijerman s,galla [phonetic]?

Aitken: Yes. Now, he was probably the top technical guy, Segalla.

Conway: I'll try to reach him l,1meleaff.

Aitken: He's not that old. He's probably as old as I am.

£.,;.• Conway: Okay. [yn.e-}eaf]. Manuel Boxer [phonetic]?

Aitken: He used to work at Langley also during the early days, during the war. He's retired now.

Conway: Yes. And that's it for Boeing.

Aitken: All right. On your list of people, when you get to Boxer, he'll probably know if these guys

are still around or not. Richard Weber from Lewis was the key propulsion guy early in the NASA y..e.\-} 11~e;l ·~~ c5'5Js

[!lnelearjwhen the FAA went out o~"t"siness. Richard Weber. And Boxer will know some of the

other guys at Lewis. But Dick Weber was the key guy.

26

Conway: Two Bs?

Aitken: Let me check it. One. Richard J. Weber. He started at Lewis in '51, so he's not that old.

Conway: Okay. Let's see. Let me ask you some questions about the S'(AR program to see if I can

dredge up any more memories. What did you see as being the focus of the StAR program? What

technologies did you emphasize?

Aitken: Well, the key one was propulsion because of the noise problems. We tended to continue .s'A.vrc.'-' '-f-1-

to work on the sonic boom problem, but never considered that a make-or-break thing, ~elearj

1 ,14. ~1\£.0C'k jo" c.q,t'\

notwithstanding, because [ ~ operate the aircraft over water .[J,lJlclear} .• 6o c...ve ~~ ... c:l.uul ~~,J 11/h.n~/n""- -. v'\.~1\- f'i'U &fe.~ , ~

The aeronautics was shaping up pretty well, with continued focus on configuration. The

~ v-14~ structures problems were pretty well in hand. ~ work on structures, but the main thing was

propulsion ~].

Conway:

Aitken: Precedents. Those are the kinds of questions you'll have to ask somebody like Weber, a

propulsion type, or Boxer. With my limited technical knowledge of propulsion, I don't think I can

answer that question.

Conway: Okay. No problem. So let's see. Then what--

27

Aitken: I think it was just some body's wild idea, and I don't know where it came from. I don't know

whether it came from Lewis, the people there, or someplace else. I do suspect that some of the input

came from Pratt & Whitney, but I don't know whether if you talk to the Lewis people, p.melealf. ~1"f&..t"" ;.~''/

JL"' Conway: I was wondering if [llfleie1ir] 71.

}....we "'"' ,·de., •

Aitken: No, not [~~~~ot"(: my limited propulsion [lmelemt ...,....,. LJ-,..c_.

Conway: So what did you see as being the achievements of the S[AR progrClllb[uncleart:-

Aitken: Well, we thought we had progressed to the point where it was possible to build a supersonic ~~'-"1- 4Jf"8e w:f4. v~ }.~

transport, but obviously everybody[~, this recent Douglas study Luncleari. yo~ ~ ~ s-.ys.

W'' U....,M'?~ ~ ssr ~ ~ 5~ f'"/~ Conway: That came later. That's 1990. Douglas ~seventies, [unclear]. +o 1'~D:s 4~1-.

<C~ ~VI 7 -/4wJ- ~ W4VkL. &.4-

k ft/IU''alc o/o ~ if- 4~ ~~""'"'""' !::Y ""' "14.. .,He. t .. l-4;-4~

Aitken: Oh, I see, because of the increase in size of the things like 747, they get bigger and bigger,

and you start looking at the economics.

Conway: Right, and the noise problem, too, because both of those things changed since the

configuration that evolved in the seventies. ~]. ~- W4r! f}[jd Ia$~ 49~ f--

Aitken: I think that we were a bunch of optimists in our bunch, in our group, those of us at

28

headquarters who were working in this area, and, of course, people like Driver and Langley

proponents. I think we felt at the time, when we were going out of business, that we could propose eo~Gc'l~ V•' b~ ~J?:

a real ~leatj. Back probably somewhere in the records you'll find something that Neil wgte, i)\_..h9fl\"" J ~M.r4 t\J.., ~ ~ {J~ .,.,._ C.N fd ~ ~

published,~ viable supersonic transport with the technology [lmeJ:ero']. We thought we'd left CAt<. ~ .. ~.

it in pretty good shape, but~. ~ ~"-J " IPI ~ H> J..,s.

The big problem was really how to get--assuming that we were correct and that nobody was

still in the program, how do you propose another government-wi[e support similar to the FAA 11"0 ~~ ~ f~l&A""J ~ ~~ v~ •

~? We all felt that the only way to do it correctly was to have NASA as the controlling - ~ ~ ).tJ.....4-~ / ~v//~f government entit))[~]. After all, NASA is the space agency> M.r J4, 4~,/J~ "',....,_.

,.,_ .,.... Conway: Despite the presence of the "aeronauti(j' name.

1\

Aitken: I think when they came out with that strange logo that they had for a while, the "A" was

small, lower case.

Conway: Oh, I haven't seen that. I'll have to look. That would be useful to me, because having ~j\...C'~~.

visual symbols like that is really nice when you're dealing with EunciearJ.

Aitken: I'm pretty sure I saw it around someplace or other, but don't waste your time really looking

for it.

\. -~ ~\Pl1~ ·\y. ~ \\ """

Conway: I'm sure that if it's on letterhead or something, ~- Very interesting.

29

Let's see. You've mentioned Proxmire. I'm trying to get a sense ofProxmire. From my own ~~\!\w.A

.ehildren, he was the man with the Golden Fleece [Award].

Aitken: Right.

Conway: Always looking for waste or fraud, especially in research and development. Was that your

sense of his motivation throuehout the sixties and seventies, or was he really attempting to be ~,.114J.- utv•'l'fA~l.>f

~ (;I> I

[.atiClem1 or just a fiscal conservative?

Aitken: I think he was just a fiscal conservative, looking for any way of cutting back on government

~~ spending. I don't think he held us with any Golden Fleece A wards. I don't think he did, in

aeronautics. But in addition to not being in favor of spending money on this SST business, he was

overruled by other people, so he didn't kill it. He was negative on almost all parts of NASA's

p ~~r-A,/1\ , aeronautic 1J,1RCreat j.

Conway:

Aitken: Probably. He wasn't always wrong.

Conway: No, he wasn't always wrong.

. \ ~~~"{J' \ tt'

Aitken: Too bad there isn't somebody in there today that's pointing out some of these~] the

30

government's supporting.

Conway: Yes. He's an interesting character. His records are actually in the Wisconsin State \- ftc. y ~...e $teA leA

Archives ~]. I might try to ~Gle&P]-. ~{I:- " "-'~

Aitken: I'm telling you, when we had to appear before his committee, everybody was really

swe~ng under the armpits. He was a very good interrogator. He was never nasty. A pleasant man,

but [uncl~. W. co,f.J -/tvo-.1 -h. J, ... rJ,I' "r yovr

Aitken: Yes.

IJt>~ ~ /)rJ ?'- J

Conway: Was there any university-funded research in the STAR program? Was it all ~?

Aitken: There was some. There was some. I don't remember the details. You'd have to get the

budget~ We were always--! won't say forced to, but there was sort of a minimum level of

funding that had to go to all aeronautic programs. So we always had some. There was probably

some on the aerodynamic side [unclear], propulsion side. ~] MIT [unclear], I believe ~ Vt4f"' ~* OC(~Xd, -h ~ .. 1'u'e-

(unclear). IAI~ ""~ M Jl ~ d.6~ 1 -& 11(:.1.~ ,..... .1~1 • ••

Conway: I saw one on--I know one that's on critical environmental issues, but I don't know another

31

one on ~~.u:}sleatf. $$T';,

Aitken: Who's the author of the environmental--

Conway: It was a group authorship. I don't remember offhand~· ~ ~ ~.

-le('; Aitken: There was one report put together by somebody at MITNears ago now, and I was asked to

review it.

Conway: So this is something I haven't found.

Aitken: And I had a lot of problems with it. I don't think we ever resolved them. I don't know what

happened to it.

'P~ J.{r,(l. fr»,t~~ 6~k,( Conway: [llnelear] ten years ag~ f~. Yes, that's right when the .{.unclear]:-

Q..A'f ~p ~

Aitken: I wish I could remember it. l!JAeleM], since I retired.

Conway: ~]. Okay. That's good. There are a lot of studies.

Aitken: Does the name Jack T-etbretk [pheBetie] ring any bells? ~~

32

Conway: Tlw nmnc [aneleart. He was an engineer in the propulsion lab at MIT, is that right?

Aitken: He was at MIT and he was my boss at headquarters for a brief while. He was a guy that +<=--;. ~r ,,..,,..._

got this other thing started to look into. I think it was fmlelcarj. But you might contact him and see

;..ec > Sf( "II"'""' ~~"f..,S • ~ ~ss Conway: Yes. Iitn6w [miClear]. DoyouknowofaguybythenameofRichard~ [phonetic]?

Aitken: Yes. Cornell, right?

Conway: Yes, but not anymore. He's out in Colorado. He's on the supersonic business jet

campaign trail, too.

Aitken: He was at Cornell for a while.

u~. Conway: Y.0s, [YRsleaf'i, head of a program at Cglgraea 8~at@.. [unclear]. In the early eighties, ~ w.w

" Co""'""' Hre.. IN\. ~Jt,~h"l:-J /41.:~ ~ ly [ooel~, headed by John Stifter [phonetic] [unclear]. ; 1 ·L ~ I'd!- /( kA.-, ._.....,.. Jr.

~~r ~ ~#J ~ Yf.l" ~ """Y"~/

Aitken: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You have copies of that crap?

~J./f, Conway: I've got just the studies, not any documents [.lJll.Giem1.

I 6 _U_ t/:_,. ~ C"¥t ~; l.,...c) ~,....._ ~ ~

Aitken: [~. I've got copies of the studies ~eltarj. They were~· They were done

a couple of times. ~k., 0 "- ~" ~-{- w~ < ~-~ •

Conway: I'm getting the sense that they weren't very satisfactory.

~· Aitken: No. S1iner kept the thing from being a disaster for NASA. He was instrumental in keeping

us alive in aeronautics, because they were done in the Reagan administration [lulelear]'. v~ ~ ~ ~ '""! .ft ~t.--t ( I e~"""-·o .

Conway: Right.

Aitken: Office of Science and Technology.

Conway: Right. Under ~eletiij. ~v.~~r~ ·

l·~ .;v.A- • Aitken: Something [lmeleRr]. Yes, S~er was an interesting character. He was a Boeing type.

Conway: Right.

Aitken: Yes. But if you've got that, that's all I have. [unclear] having to produce documents and eli ~~~e ~1-111 ~ a rre6f'6~~ •

background. I mentiof\ that I still [Bp.clear.]. When I started to look for it, I couldn't find anything • _ ('t!.4~ ~ ~ Wt ~-tf tfMT- j:J..Jt- M wnf...rJ

[uncl~ar], mostly just internal stuff. Some of that stuff on the Sttiler business (!!Jl.clettrj, and I don't

mean St~er was the problem. He kept things from falling apart.

34 e;.

Conway: So let's see. I'm getting the sense that Stiner's committee was really important. Was

. ~~~ . Stfner important in holding the meeting together, or was StTUer's committee important overall

1*1\ ltufN?' ~ ~ ;., M";J A/A~ II-? [we lear] Reagan administration [ynclem:-]?

Dfh """- z._

Aitken: The answer is ~], I guess, but only because of Stiner. If it wasn't for him, ~· -l-'--iV1S ~.,lJ w-,.c ~ rt4~ t,,.J -.+- AJ~t-614.

Conway: That's interesting.

Aitken: Is he still around?

Conway: I don't know. He hasn't been mentioned to me as still being around. I know someone

interviewed him in '93 for another book [lme}earl, so it's possible.

Aitken: I'll tell you something about STiner. That's not still running, is it?

Conway: Yes, it is.

Aitken: This is just humorous.

Conway: Okay. [Tape recorder turned off.]

So back to sfiner's committee again. I'm interested that--I'm fascinated in--I guess in

covering what you think is important about Stiner, what was important about the direction of Stiner's

Cb'fiA~ \feet. ~·""" ~ 35

~s [tmclear]?

Aitken: Well, since it was really set up, in my opinion, to be able to kill aeronautics within NASA,

~-Y ~ea.e ~ the important thing was that he essentially redirected enough of the whys and wherefores to Limcl0ati ....,

~~ an organization like a government organization, the basic research and the advanced research relative

A.

to any type of airplane, whether it was military, civilian, supersonic, or subsonic. He highlighted the

need for any government involvement in the aeronautic research business. He spelled it out rather

plainly that there was no other way of doing it. ~,~14..S

At that time there were three major large aircraft contracts [uoGlem'] Lockhee4~wu:l0a.FJ, a,..J. 6~~ ./.r

military aircraft, but none of them had the facilities which were in place with NASA and Langley,

Lewis, or Ames. No individual company could afford to do this type of work. I suspect that now -/9 d. k J•'.

somebody's probably going to sell off Ames Research Center to private contractors [.unGletnt. So

I think that's the most important aspect of it and made a strong case for continued government

involvement in space and aeronautics advanced vehicle studies, as well as flight testing.

Which brings me to another thing. We were continually having to review why we had flight 6• /f.«-~ ~ s-JvJ.;e.$

research~] involved m that, every ten years or so. There are continued studies of why NASA

has so many wind tunnels. That was one of the favorite questions of any congressman, [!mc1e:ta

continued to operate these tunnels.

I guess it was during--it must have been during the administration change when Reagan took ~val

office ij1ncl~, starting to get nasty. There was a young lady in the Office of Management and

Budget who didn't know anything about aeronautics, and I was asked to take her down to Langley ~ cL ~ t,¥-pWNJ. WLJ- ~

and show her the facility. We went to all these different wind tunnels~' after this tour, "Why ,.. t ..- \ '~ I '-'14S ~ ftl.., TYfO'I ,~.....,_. 6'1- tSt/6~ ~

36

do you have so many wind tunnels?" The same question. It was very clear that some tunnels only :JJ~--c. s,_J.. teL~ ,_ ~~·-c. s~

operate in sorn:e- [.JJRelem.-], some only operate .[uncleaP], and some are supersonic, and there are ,.,/- :r

different sizes. ~=1· Hadn't convinced her. {uaelemt' And I guess that's about the same time

That's not a very good answer. It's a rather involved question.

Conway: It gives me a sense of what was going on in the early Reagan administration, so that's

':f;:r actually quite [J.Hrj.

Aitken: Just a bit more on that. The continued need to justify aeronautics ~eleM]. ts ~ 4,t.·ll.

Conway: The politicians don't understand that the industry isn't particularly pweleeto~¥.46'. ...,4 ~ ll- 51f1H"I ~;s 14~ ~ ~,rtc-.

Aitken: The only thing in favor of the industry, the only one that I'm aware of right now, has been

for years, has a better balance of payments type of action than anything else. What else do you

export? We don't export spacecraft.

Conway: We export~· b1'7J .;

Aitken: Right.

Conway: [~. For some reason I sense a disconnect in the [Bill] Clinton administration

\..1~~ ~~> ~t- 37

~]but doesn't see a connection between NASA and L!J:aelearJ! "'*""".._ /:,,$,1fe.S.S •

Aitken: Well, that's because of--well, LUAOIU~i\ .because of the people running NASA right now.

That's where the disconnect occurs.

Conway: You mean NASA~· J.{Q..

Aitken: NASA administration. Internally in NASA.

Conway: I have that sense, too. So let's see. I'm tryiBg tg get sgme mare detail abottt [tmGlearJ.

Aitken: I didn't help much.

Conway: Do you have any memory of why the arrow wing configuration became the primary

choice during the [~~&IH! Prr>/~"?

Aitken: My recollection is that it was aerodynamically the most efficient and tended to minimize

6~~ ~· That's my recollection, but an expert like McLean and Driver would know that.

Conway: Okay. I already ask0d )lQQ aeeet the ftmeleftfj. Oka,, The S0Rsitil1e '}Q0SUQR [lmGle~.

The StAR program did a lot of work with structures and materials and engines. Did any of that stuff

that you know of find its way into subsonic enginesl ~ c5/N~?

38

Aitken: I think the Langley materials program, whether it was working for hypersonic, supersonic,

or subsonic, had been--I don't know whether it still is or not--an excellent program. ~~ ~ v,'-c.J

~ ~~- ~'~ c4 ~ materials developed ~] and more exotic metal~ has spilled off into the subsonic world,

)~""'fo#•~

although during our subsonic activity, of course, we were supposed to be working onjlmGlettr]!=c>M.fO-";.fe.s.

Aerodynamically, I don't think so. Propulsion-wise, I suppose there was some small spinoff from

that, some of the studies on noise. Agaia you'd haec to ask [mtcleat·]. But, you know, it's pretty ~ ..,.. .. vld..

hard for me to visualize now much of the supersonic technology that really {wtihEH]. The #111,.).. $'1 .... '-~ &.•o""'' Ill'(. .s ~,-~"1:

environmental problems, and I don't mean the noise~], but I mean the development ~slear~, c~

there's just no application for that.[ll.Pclear}:

Conway: What other NASA aeronautics programs were going on? Is this it?

.ftt, ') ~ J,..,-1/ Aitken: Oh, no, [lJ)l.CleMj. It was a very large R&D-based program in aeronautics, the numbers I

6ujp- W4J ar r ,4 .. u f

can't recall right now, but 60 and 70 percent of the aeronautics ~elcmt Some of it was focused

and some of it wasn't. Some focused on development of the military configurations. Did a lot of

u~ tt '"~ p~ctr at- 4Vf' work on helicopters [alrxei?fprogram and vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, ~now if the y ~~

"-22 ever stays alive, that's a payoff[unclear]. So that was mostly~· -'with

propellers. Okay. That started and that was running as a program in this same time frame, with

39

precursor aircraft [unclear] and flight tested. I meant the F-22 as well as the new fighter. That came

out of Langley ~].CA..;" ~ q ·

Conway: [).laeiem']. ~ Js ,..-v.J ,4 ~

Aitken: Oh, yes. '88 or '89, I was deputy chairman of a joint U.S.-United Kingdom study of which

way should the countries go on these fighter aircraft. We came up with four configurations. I've bt.A-~ ~ ~ o.~t wo/.J trl- /11\,·~~ vun-c.r/ J,~ ~~,..J ,,.,1.,/.s~'l,e I.~.J

forgotten ~' all of which had been studied, extensively in this time fr'Orr~.in wind tunnel tests tl"\~

and some flight tests~· Two of those configurations are now LJ.meleartin the F-22 program.

So there was a lot of variable lift work going on in that time frame for aircraft, both with tilt rotor

as well as the other. Se [tmelem]. I had a eatmaet epel'atieRj! fe\.., days age: [unclear] bright lights.

Conway. I ean imagine I'm just trying to get sem.e efthe other--

Aitken: Get the budget books. You'll see a breakdown. We used to break it down into-- [Brief

interruption]

Get the budget books, which should be available. You'll see the breakout of the funding, and fbi.orc..~, 61j~,..·~ hy~,~·& ec ~

you'll see it's broken out [llnc1ear], vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, [unclear], as well as

[.unclea:ta]. And there was another one I won't talk about, but we had a black program.

~' IN'Uif ~ J4e..;t~~ ~/t.o.J#-6.

,f '(.~~~'~~I 7:, I I J .fvt.,.., .J.C...•3 ~ Conway: Tell me about that [yn.cleat]. [Tape recorder turned off.]

I understand.

40

Aitken: Not that the information is valuable or broke any rules.

Conway: Yes. I understand completely. Okay. Let's see. Okay, I ditrlk we vC been [:wrelMr].

What was your relationship with the administrator during this time f.uDdeBfi?

Aitken: It wasn't always that great with George Low, who was the deputy in that time frame. But

with Fletcher, who was sort of key throughout, it was fine. I didn't have his ear, but he knew if he ........ c;;.

~ U.lltJ. ~u. "'"' ~ ~ d...lnt;t ~ ~ ~cS'll\.' wanted to talk about any of this stuff, ~ar]. And earlier on I mentioned [1m.clear] problems in

~ ~ {AIW\N\,3~

the early sixties [lmelear] set up by the Office of Science and Technology ~, when Webb was

.~ 11'1\

administrator. I was [JHldear] that, so my relationship with Webb was close, and with Fletcher. ~,~, ~ ..

Reasonable. Later on, with [v~. But I convinced them we ought to support the DARPA

7 Conway: [J.meleart. '"fk. AJ fr~ f .

d.;-~ 4.6 J-cr4

J:. ,.14e.flll I .. f- ~) .... ~ - -t,"}J,7_ ~~ ,-ys • -lo ,.c..t-

Aitken: That was terrible. That's the only thing I regret '~some money flowing in,[un~. ,.,r w:'f'. Be,fU -:J:.;>Df -./, ~M4./~ ~~.

[unclear portion]. But some of the others I never [.undear]. I mean, I'd [l.melea11, but I never had any ~. c-.t~ l.lvat'c.a '-"'~ ~

personal contacts with them. I felt they understood what I was talking about.

~+-­Conway: Do you think any of them had any particular interest in or biases fer aeronautics as

~

opposed to space?

41

Aitken: Of the bunch, I think Webb knew what his real role was, to keep the space program going.

He was ~ey£1" negative on the aeronautics. Fletcher was sort of in the middle. He didn't really do },~ .J4_ a~ Ne.cA\''' proJWe"" $t:.lt(J..

anything to~], but he wasn't that enthusiastic about~· And Beggs [phonetic] was an

aeronautics supporter all the way. Right now one of the fellows wh~ used to work for me, named

::r~ ~k.. [unclear], is trying to get Beggs and a couple of other people to intercede right now with the Clinton

~ k.. administration from going any further downhill. The last time I talked [Jmelear] decided it wasn't

a timely thing to do and would rather work on the Bush administration possibilities~- So ~bt\'-::J ()tot. ~t- CJc6 ~'Nl ~ s Gu~ ~]negative on the S(AR, [~lear] Low. Again it was because he was a space cadet. We

both went to the same college.~]. v.~~t5~"-c"" wfCI') .floor ..._ ~fill. -\obi=~ I ~R'

I'm getting off on the ~leartagain. The first day he called, ~]. I was supposed to I\

brief him on probably the S(!_ AR program. Might have been something else. I was fifteen minutes

~.r I*~ 1711- ~»- --tit ~ ~+ ~ ~t- g&l'j' late, [unelem']. He was a martinet.

Aitken: No. He went to be LJ.l:Asl@arf: l'f'e;$,d.....r- rf L t'.L,

n't think he 1er worke~ there.

42

Conway: [ynelearj. Since you were at headquarters, what can you tell me about the relationship

between headquarters and the NASA labs, and between the labs and ~cl0ar}? ~~ 40 ~,

Aitken:

They considered themselves to be completely independent, and whatever was happening at the other 'r wG/i# /,l4L ,..,,,,~ kH. ~ ~ ~ ~ $a'+ JA..,,._ ...l ..,pJ~ ~ ek q/\,Y~ •

labs ~]. That ~nclear]. Of course, Langley~~fg'~~ll~ng everything. And that was the cS-krwl .b.::..dL- "' ~ cJ.,s ,

atmosphere. As a headquarters person, ~cl~atf, balance the budgets to the point where it didn't Tit..'{ VI~ W"-' -/,

look as though you were favoring one center versus the other, [.uocl0af] how much money went to I'./-~ ,., lfV!' C. 1\ 9Va l

various program in the centers. Always a juggling act. I didn't sse m~·self [l!BeleM]. t:k ~·~o- 7 "o/diJ/ ~ .:c tt...J t:it 4«. $ ~

Within headquarters, [unGiett:ti. Again, the atmosphere there was space was most important. t:h ~~~~ ~"'""n"c.S tJS. Sl't"-l Al41~~ of~~a.vA-...s '-CA.I ~ ~ ~~-~~ ~v~t-s .. J

[unclear J uccurred whenever anybody thought about a reorganization. ~]. The biggest ...u.., allsr. argument came between the R&"(-based people and people like myself [Lmelemi who were more

U(. SA-.J fLI r b \.k. 0 /£. -Ar w~ 6~ ~ lk ~ ~-1-rn<!, vehicle oriented. [.uoclea:P], but talking about the aeronautics of a supersonic aircraft, whether

-f:oc.J~ military or civil, that part of the pie belonged in the [uoc~art program so there was some key

connection between the aeronautic, structures, and propulsion [Jmd ~. c:t. a'.Vl'n-e. s •

So the biggest argument with headquarters in my tenure there was always between people IL'i r ~c."- , ,'ve ~~~

who were far out~' wanting to give all the money to universities, and ~nclsar] support ~ te-~~ ~ 4 ve"-a~J ~WScJ

anything ~and people like myself who were more interested in [J!I!I1!15!!bl1) programs _....

whether they were helicopters, subsonic, supersonic, [unclear] or hypersonic. And that is generally :;& ~~ ~ /1'Df17t*-S' :f "wJ ~ ~ AM,j eta,j;-., Wk•'l;;" lvJ. .._ -10~~

how ~eleft.1i. [unclear portion]. But it was not without a fight. I didn't always win them, but near

~ Df p~JC'1t.mS ~ -fO~~f}J (,~/ ~"i..htn\J t>vb661\•'"l. c.rr~.J

~tLi~ A.t:k-1) 6~;-M(, .,.,..e,f7v4+-, J.h1,J z ~ K tk'"s~~

~""~ ~ vf "o~ ~ ~~ M~·

\ ....... •• : ... • :: .. ~-.:!

'·.·

...• :··.s;::. ~.C.r • .

. ;

,, .. , .

~ ,.c·· .: ·'

.......

: :

·,

___ .._, ..... _

.. r: < p.-,;.-:..~)~~t :=-~ .... ~·:,'"'f.•" -"4"&...~4.:) .; ... ~.... V': .. •n. . ._} · ...

- ........

··-=--· .. :-a·.

... ~-- .... --.!~ ~-~ .... ·-· . -. . .

t\")_·.:.1, ~\·.:~~- ,,.

I·

.: .. '.~~~~ . .:. ·1-:~-~~-~l·.t\ _::0.----~

.. ··-"" ..J/,

.~.\i

--~-7- .... · .:~~ .. .... . :

._,.:-.:1"' • .;~\.: .• _,

• l

. :~~~-\.._,.::;·., .. ;,..· .,.., ·:.:: '· J ' • .. ·•.••• .. '1 : .. ·: ~:.. ~ .• • .J" ••.• •·

·.

·-:..

·--... -.... -.... ,.'", ..... =S.~ ,·:. ·-~:.. __ }. ... ~;:" \S' \<~.;

. ...... '. . ..... . ..

\~--·-~~ ~~·".t"';

..... · . ...... -·- ... --

•. ·;;;!}':} t',l-~(:,

.:;·~~.;.

t.:._ ·-· ......

'"'-,;.

43

theend~. Z ~ '-"'n"'l/

Conway: [unclear]. ~~-IU'

lA. 'ref- ,.ve-h- .wA ,Jt1V '"' J ~~ .ttc,... c.eiV'--. - .....,.,... t/Ut-

Aitken: Okay. Well, I mentioned it from the standpoint.[.uncl8ai'f; and it depended--the relationship ,;. /ft., t-.,1,~ ,~

between headquarters and aeronautics people depended on who was where [llndear] headquarters. ~ ~ ~ .. y w-.s ~~~·";1 e~ ~.

I ended up being called Mr. Aeronautics by every center, who felt that I~]. But most of the L4~~ Y'). ~tl t) l ~ adversar)J~ almost in any other area [.l.w 'ftif'].a. ~tlaff- fh. ~ NWI.'"~w s.

[End of recording]

t

__,. I

I

- ' L t -;.~ trr? erde

\J;ou d €.- 7'- ._

w~r

/../-, ye 3- ,{or/;;/ ,

r .-; o::; b-e G .c; t-r< Cl f..,..~ ~

eta(,.~~ r- -1--f.r'C(,) rc_, r..sA 'A:: l'"fi , • '1._ •

~ ' 7 C...o~~? r, 'r,,. > >

?rt 1e. 1- /.3o e.t J 4;, d f-17 r:h' rz 1 c. c( . .'I c./ ~ 'i2 I v- 0\.. v·l'l ~~~ /t )t ~ I

6/- 7'·-1'7 C- .~ -4/ S/ 1-c- c. - ; · 3 .5J /".r~ c../? t=-l(_pi-z7 ~e...:f" e cJ rc- 4 () l"' D );;}'- ~ ;? ;--t...l ( 1 -.ftr (J V"Y I

/ ~ ..s-.J c h t-v~ r.n.- c.. c ~ c, ·6 .. f V"'u 7"' d '"' e-

--Tf-t e_ ._H~ -1~ G ~ r / e K! 'b It'~ -"9. ... ! 'I

(J,.d ~io£,/ "' ~ c. ... ""'' I. ll,l..p~../ci1L ; 0 ~ 0 \..~"" ~ rr(!;;cl / '0 ' (5; / '~ v 7'-_: ,t- Cr. tot '7- (7 ~ l (' J. ..J {._j \J j- c h e ~It"" 7-t-, - 1 "u· ~/'I~>-' /, 'b~ .;; . ), y.--/ , 1 I~ ---.£- d ' cf c -( C• cf d ~c-~' Tf?

d 1 h-e tr<S. "'c .. r_e....s /;e..:l-v.../'~ ... a.. t? u 7 "v- ~;; (..bl!t f

c5wc::::r 7'- 1A,J;'7 o,-~ ~ vc>rr d ;' ~ r-(y ::f ~~ r~ 1'-.1 ") .- C-It~ v-Cflr; r~s r.. C.t( CiJ '6 *' rt.z e_

T',.t /.; ?1 It ~-y ~ ~ /Q 1 ~ ~ o ~ €/ ."'(- LV; L..o ~tS, / v ..-7 c. /l- :-~ d' ~ Q f/'C;:. 1., f.-~ u / / tr ,;A> \--~ lt-1 cl C'rl

"'7/l ~ CJ""' c{ t: /f' .S7~ 14--i ~ \/ CJ ;:.. ?'-(---..;~I b I (, 6 - c,~4"...L '-ott' / ;.-, ':i-r'l. 6 ~·~; T ~ tr(<;;. / ~ F :F I v ">?

• -"t...,s:"):~ f"J ~Y 7b ,._,

) ',r

-

•r

I "Z. IV (j CAJ ... ! ,. I

. t :, , ...?" t II'Y-\

7'-1- (.l ;C 3

Pee 1 P --¢1 - ;r r· , rl ;-;._, c...(an~ 74-t,s r )\'" t 6 VJ 7··r 1 ~ ;o ""l ~

;0C'.IJ~ -f-.3- ~jOpc~--1-fu r-?h~ ~;purt50~""l1' pve2 vorv-

(__~ r; . p -{-J ("' ' I ( •• J"J f 'J' I !2/. h.-Q I {,? I~ ~~ 1'1 :: " c1 Oy...j or Jd J,,_-; ~roc,k L t </...; I~ 'Ti-1 ~ Y"'e ;-no-• t') -,..

6~ t)lr£~o7'f·u't.y f'ypr;v-..s~01't:. ~~ ~- . /6J (,..., Ci I 7 rl h C) d 'f / n It f h .;.:.;, e e._('"/ I h I S1' t t~ '~1/' f I ~ .)1v ,, ("'

...,_;.,..~ I'.~. -.,;..,-~ .. ,. n d d. I ·~ lc;~ lS t.JcA G\1")" I "? . s, -/ It- / 1-d '/:> ;:; v-~ 1. ,-q n, C1 ...s ~ u ~h c-.: t '1 t ~"J ~' ..f

1"" ,

;C? ~ /? !'-"'> /7 6 d 7- r::::L ~ t: ~ , c -1 c Y"; ~ d ~ o...J (J e v(f2l <'f) ,.)

~:; · ~4 ~:.y. !_~ I /he. /'tr("J ./v o •. l?a t!CJ vr--z ~ o d,~ ~..;~;-

;.,.v 11 (.' h D/t~/ ("' w1T-t. '74. ~ ' , , "' e ~..f.-:3. ,.,_ r-/(J,I.!:t ,9, b"! 0 ~ ~ > ..:;1._;·1,7 I' ~ ;[X I r .... /

/ 1./tl.- •J/ / bl/ , .... /"?'- nP • -r7"'•"' ; ' / l '7/~.s I' r;

) · l.l , f" :._/ 7? ;L:,.\:j j /7.-,~ ~I r4 ':f' pr~...,;{-.; I 0l,... .o1 ... I-~

\,

• / ('J ci ~ 7-n c co t-tr~ c 1 '-.S"..}rcl ;·~ ~ (

G[{'(?!... (?t;. I r l t,/ 1 .. 7 / (; ~ 1 0 r ()'V'y dr; ~ b ,;.;· /\("" ~ .~ ~ /). ~

'

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Langley Research Center Hampton, VA 23681-0001

Mail Stop 185B

Reply toAunof: Dear Mr. Aitken,

Happy New Year!

1 anuary 7, 2000

I've enclosed an edited draft of the interview we did in September. The tape was of poor quality, so there are some unclear passages that I've reconstructed as well as I could. Please look them over. I've tabbed them so you can find them easily. I've also asked for amplification on certain points. If you're willing to answer the questions on paper, I'll include the questions and answers in an appendix to the interview.

Once you're done with this, please mail it back so I can type up the changes. Then I'll send you final drafts under a legal cover letter for you to sign.

Thanks again for your time and effort.

Sincerely,

2AfYY!. C, Erik M. Conway ~ Visiting Historian 757-864-6525 E.M. Conway@larc.nasa.gov

BILL AITKEN

October 11 , 1999

Erik M. Conway, Interviewer

1

[Transcriber's note: The quality of this recording is very poor. Every effort was made to produce an accurate transcript, but where this was not possible, [unclear] is noted within the transcript.]

Conway: So I told you what I'm doing with this proj ect. We were just talking about Larry Loftin

and subsonic versus supersonic lift. But I want to go back and I want to talk about your background.

Aitken: Okay.

Conway: Where you grew up, your education, why you went into aeronautics, that kind of thing.

Aitken: Okay. Grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, went to college at Rensselaer Polytechnic

Institute, graduated with a bachelor of aeronautical engineering degree in 1942. Immediately went

to work for the govenunent at Langley in 1942 as a junior aeronautical engineer in flight research.

During that period I was involved with the development of loads measuring techniques for aircraft,

as well as the aerodynan1ics and flight handling qualities of the then. the airplanes, like the P-51, the

P-47, and big airplanes like the B-24 back in '43.

As a result of that background and the people who were working with me at the time in

developing means of measuring flight loads not with pressure distribution measurements, although

Aitken transcript , 10/11/1999 , rev . 1 January 6 , 2000

2

that was a standard teclmique, we were trying to get into the strain gauge business, and we were

pretty far along with some of those techniques, so that when the X-1 project began in the 'tf'S:;i4:!1,-

'45 time frame, I was one of the engineers who went out to what is now Dryden, in charge of the

flight load part of the program. I did the design of the strain gauge installation, the calibration at ·o l

Buffalo, and the ear!J flight tes~of the X-1 .

So I stayed out there w1til that program got into the powered flight phase, and then I retwned

to Langley and stayed there essentially until 1961, '62, when I was transferred to HQ and did various .i I"\"" ce ,..., J

jobs there, first as chief of operations research, and then finally after another-#tffto@~O years, I

retired in 1985 as director of aeronautics.

Conway: You transferred to headquarters in '62.

Aitken: Yes.

Conway: And you stayed at headquarters until ' 8~?

Aitken: Tlu·ough '85. At that time I was director of aeronautics.

Conway: When did you become director of aeronautics?

-v Aitken: Early in '85. I had to retire because of medical problems. I got out at the right time,

Aitken transcript , 10 /11/1999 , rev . 1 January 6 , 2000

3

frankly, because the nrno-•·"'...-. ·· · :t. Evetf since then, it's practically down at the bottom

sram. Not just at Langley, but Ames is practically out

y

div

L of/-. 'n ty1e(). -h'of'/f...J

Tot much left alive.

re: Before I transferred there, I had spent a couple of

rters. We ran out of flight research jobs at Langley,

len. I didn't want to move back out there. So I spent

-r~ 1quarters as assistant chief of aircraft and missiles

•\

.• ~ u vm~:ne~o was the prime proponent of supersonic teclmology right

from the get-go back in the mid thirties, was asked to be the then director of aeronautics at

headquarters in 1961 , and NASA decided they really had to rebuild the aero program. Stack (" '1 ~ r J' •

transfen-ed U]Ytlrere and asked me to come with him because of my past connection with the X-1 and

the fact that I'd been working with the Air Force at TAC headquarters on some of these aircraft

w-e~ starting to come in the inventory.

So Stack, unfortunately, didn't stay around at headquarters long enough to get thinp-c ~~ ·

but his first congressional testimony, I guess was in 1962. He was then telling Con

possibilities of supersonic and hypersonic commercial transport possibilities. I'm not sure of the

exact date when the national programs started, but I would say that Stack, in a way, was a catalyst

for it. He had a lot of c01mections both in the industry and military.

One of the problems was that the FAA really didn't have any teclmical expertise to handle

any of this stuff, but the powers-that-be decided, in the sixties, to give the FAA the responsibility

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999 , rev . 1 January 6 , 2 000

4

for the development of the supersonic transport. From there on, it was Boeing, Lockheed, and

Douglas, of course, working the problem, with NASA in there more in an advisory role. As such,

nobody listened to the NASA experts.

My own opinion now -r' r I <1 ,·ke 1'1\4~ ck_ -6_,'\ DYI

which was thatitprobablydi< -{;~ 1'3-L\7 a.r'\c\ '<e-rss- +l~~k+ ..J..c~.n'Y\~ pro~n... a .J n,s . :Do yo..;

a good thing in the long run ~c-..1/ wJ..~f ~ ~

'Y my view of the FAA,

·am, but it probably was

:1irplane design, the best P·"'JI'7<"'J '·' 7 cu .s o</ -fl..e_S<:..

vv'4.S I , one, the Boeing one, I guess -k. do • - m 4 tfr:. r· ;p:Jhlr ·ith this or not--fell shoti

C u fr\!,1 J- -ti-e_ 6-kf:..·J, "'-t ci, s~ 1vr ... I .,

of the requi rements for com ([ ~~ k.-1-.u~ . ~ ~ k+ c. II~ Swep+- ,· . '

But in the meantitnt ~ "'Y ~r~ Qnd w (J Afru-~ m the--! wouldn't say the .$1 I I ~'I} .f..,.

1\.IJW k NIIC4 I

commercial side, but at Lan l.l't'l.ckrs~ J ~bvli,_,'~ ~ ! B-45, which was almost , -Kest: ~~~ ..

a supersonic airplane, but not qurre, emu m v u _. , _ _________ wldwork for large fl

aircraft, with the flight testing program, that were then used to develop industry standarc'.u ~ ... ......-..__._~-~

military standards for certify ing airplanes.

So in the early sixties, then--again, I'm vague on exact dates--but my involvement with the

SST part of the game was really through noise and sonic boom. I was a point man for NASA

headquru.ters under the then head ofNASA, James Webb, to attend all of..the--not all, seme meetings

of various committees, to see what the real noise problems were for supersonic aircraft and the sonic

boom problem. So I would go to a lot of those meetings and have to sit in the back row and try to

r--~ figure out how to tell my big boss whatiJ do at NASA in supporting this ;~

Lockheed at the time was developing the SR-71, ru.1d Kelly Johnson knew--of course, he was

in the Skunk Works, but another part of the Lockheed Company was working on the supersonic

Aitken t r anscript , 10/11/1999, rev . 1 J a nua ry 6 , 2000

5

transport, and they were trying to get their oar in as well as the other companies.

The big problem was--we probably could have handled the noise problem. Probably would

have been some waivers there. But the sonic boom was rather large, which was a reason for not

developing the supersonic transport. Kelly Johnson's aircraft, the SR-71, was flying at such high

altitudes that their claim was that the sonic boom would not be heard. So NASA got involved in

trying to help determine whether or not it would be a problem.

~'Y' So my role at headquarters ¢ that time frame was just as an expediter to get as much

information as we could from the Lockheed Company, where stuff was pretty highly classified, and

wind tunnel tests that were done at Langley.

Previous to that--now I've got to go back a couple ofyears--Johmf' Stack--sounds like I'm

going to repeat myself--John Stack's view of the sonic boom problem was a little different than some

other people's. His view was that it was a potential tactical weapon.

Conway: The sonic boom?

Aitken: The sonic boom. Tactical weapon used by low-flying military aircraft to destroy radars and

whatnot.

Conway: That's interesting.

Aitken: And so it was either--! guess it was in 1960 or '61 that I went to TAC, who set up a joint

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

6

program between NASA, Langley, and Tactical Air Command headquarters to do some sonic boom

tests out at one of the fields somewhere in the desert outside of Las Vegas, one of the auxiliary air

fields. I've forgotten the name of it.

So Langley and DominicJ( Maglieri, who was a player in this, designed--Harvey Hubbard

Conway: No, I haven't.

Aitken: Harvey Hubbard, noise and sonic boom. He was Dominic~'s boss in those days at Langley.

They set up the test systems outside ofNellis Air Force Base, with windows, all different kinds of

windows. Dryden sent aircraft, and there were tactical missiles set up on the ground with radars.

Then the Air Force provided F-1 04 and, I think, 105 aircraft to overfly the test site. Aircraft came

over at supersonic speeds, sometimes twenty feet off the deck. We had some really good--I went out

there for the tests--we had some really big sonic booms, boy, but only broke a few windows and

nothing else was affected.

But that wasn't enough. So back in this early sixties time frame, when the Office of Science

and Technology was put in charge of the program to see what the problems with sonic booms are,

they started another program out at Edwards. Built houses. I'm pretty sure Dominicji was involved

in that. Built houses and ran tests with more aircraft, and there were potential problems with the

mink farmers and the turkey farmers, who got involved in this mess.

Bottom line, in my view, was that the potential structural damage from sonic booms from

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

7

high-flying aircraft was nonexistent. Okay? And the potential problem for mink farmers and turkey

farmers was probably overblown. Enough tests were made at turkey farms--we have photographs

of this--the turkeys were more spooked by stuff blowing around from the wind than they were from

any of the sonic booms. The animals just ignored the sonic boom, it was nothing.

But that wasn't really enough, because there was a whole swell of left-of-center people out

there. I can't remember the guy's name from MIT [Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology]. 1

Conway: Shurcliff?

Aitken: Yes,Shurcliff, who was leading the charge. Are you going to interview him?

Conway: I don't know if he's still around, but his records are. MIT's archives, in fact, they're vast.

They're really an excellent archive. I haven't gotten to look at them yet.

Aitken: Well, he was a thorn in our side. All of us in NASA were in favor of developing supersonic

technology. He always had [Senator William] Proxmire's ears as the years went on, and Proxmire

was trying to kill the program, not just when it was FAA, but even after that program went belly up

and the development of technology was turned back to NASA without any FAA involvement.

Shurcliff was in there testifying before Proxmire, trying to keep NASA from developing even basic

1Editor's note: Shurcliff was employed by the Cambridge Electron Accelerator, and the records of his "Citizen's League against the Sonic Boom" are in the MIT archives.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

8

technology in this area, and that was in the seventies time frame.

Conway: That's interesting. Shurcliff was quite an activist.

Aitken: Yes. I can't be specific on the date. I remember testifying before Proxmire. I don't

remember what I said. It wasn' t fmmy.

What I'm trying to remember now is, see, when [Richard M.] Nixon became President, his

key advisor on aeronautics was Bill something.

Conway: Magruder?

Aitken: Yes, Magruder? Magruder got Nixon's ear and was able to convince NASA to pick up the

program where it left off in developing teclmology for supersonic aircraft beyond the point where

it was when it was the FAA's program. The date ofthat escapes me, but Magruder--

Conway: It would have been '71 , because Nixon supported the SST personally.

Aitken: Okay. And I had a little bit of a problem there. At that time, Roy Jackson was the head of

2Edi tors ' nore ,· William Magruder was a test pilot ~ ~en,. ..,He., f &.. ·

~~S¥- r~9arcn c9nto r aRa ~?the AAF/USAF before golng t o Lockheed to work on that company ' s SST . He became head of the FAA SST program in 1969 , and after cancellat i on in 1 97 1 became t he White House ' s specia l assistant for science and technology .

Aitken transcript , 10/11/1999, rev . 1 January 6 , 2000

9

OAST, Office of Aeronautics and Space Teclmology, at NASA headquarters. I worked directly for

him. He had an in with Magruder. They were pretty well acquainted. So Roy managed to talk

Magruder and OMB into putting additional funds in the NASA budget.

At the time, George Low was~ess, deputy head ofNASA. He asked us to take a look at

our program content, which didn't have that much supersonic stuff in it and make an estimate of how

much money we needed. I think I said 20 million dollars. At that time, Roy Jackson had made me

the director for supersonic and hypersonic technology, so that became my responsibility.

Well, to make a long story short, somehow or other George Low looked at the numbers we

had, and instead of giving us the 20 million, we got only about 11 million. But after that, we were

able to gradually build the program back up, and at that point is rwhen Neil Driver and Ed McLean

and those guys, who were then still working at Langley, started to develop the aerodynamics

teclmology and some ofthe structurf teclmology. One of the problems, in my view, was the less

than 100 percent supp01i from Lewis Research Center on the propulsion side, but they did take the

money and work towards something.

Now, the best way to see what happens in that time fran1e, I think, is to use Ed McLean's

story.3 My role in headquarters was just as a general overseer to try to divvy up the money among

the competing centers and programs--! didn't depend on any of my technical expertise to make these

decisions. I just tried to balance things out.

In the course of that, I had to testify a couple of times before Congress, and right now I can't

3Edito r ' s note: reference is t o F. Edwa rd McLean , Supersonic Cruise Aircraft Tech n o l ogy (Washington , DC : NASA SP- ????, 1985).

Aitken transc r ip t , 10/11/1999 , rev . 1 January 6 , 2000

10

find a copy of that testimony.

Conway: I can find it through the congressional records index.

Aitken: I don't know. I had it a few weeks ago, and I can't find it. In May of '76, there was a

supersonic cruise article in Astronautics and Aeronautics magazine.

Conway: You said May of '76?

Aitken: Yes, May 1976. This is not the whole magazine. Well, it might be the whole magazine.

And I wrote the lead article. Says here the decision in '73 to reinvest in the design research. Well,

wait a minute. Talks about the funding here. "The SST program was canceled in '71. Funding for

advanced research in '72 was at its lowest level since '65." So in '73 we went back into business,

according to this.

Conway: You were able to re-expand.

~

Aitken: Right. So my article is sort of a general overview of it. Then Heldenfelds from Langley

did the structures, where we stood on structures at that time. Heldenfelds isn't around anymore. It's

a pretty good article, the structures article goes on forever. Then there's a propulsion one by Dick

Weber Jphonetic] from Lewis in here, where we stood at the time, what types of engines. We were I

Aitken transcript , 10 /11/1999 , rev. 1 J anuary 6 , 2000

11

pushing the variable-cycle engine.

One of the interesting things--1'11 try to get this right. There must be an aerodynamics article

in this. I don't know. One of the key things, everybody knew'1h.at titanium could be one of the key

materials.

Conway: Right.

Aitken: That' s all in Heldenfel~'s article. When titanium was being proposed for more studies, it

was still one of these materials that was pretty much under military control. Don' t know how it

really developed, structures related to that. NASA's ability to work on titanium was almost killed.

Not really by the military--oh, I know who did it. Okay. It was testimony sometime or other in that

'70 time frame by Robert [S.] McNamara.

Conway: In the seventies? That's interesting.

Aitken: When was he Secretary of Defense?

Conway: He left in '68.

Aitken: Maybe I'm getting the dates mixed up. I know that McNamara testified that titanium-­

sometime or other, and this was used later, maybe by Proxmire--that titanium was an absolutely

Aitken transcript , 10/11/1999 , rev . 1 January 6 , 2000

12

useless material for aircraft, yet at the time he knew that it was being used in military aircraft.

Conway: That's interesting. I'll have to dig up that testimony.

Aitken: I don't know how the hell to tell you to find that, but I know--because we just couldn't

;-t believe.,; I guess this was late sixties, but then when you look at his record of not running the

Vietnam War the right way it makes more sense.

Conway: That's interesting and would certainly explain why NASA had such a hard time getting

titanium to experiment on.

Aitken: Yes.

Aitken: So whatever his motive, it might have just been for control of the material.

Okay, where were we? I was just mentioning this. You can borrow this if you want to.

Conway: Now that I have the date, I can find it in the library.

Aitken: Well, every year we had to testify before Congress as to why we should continue the

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

1 3

programs and why they should be expanded. One of the years, I can't remember which one it was

now, I can't find the testimony I gave before Congress, but the Committee on Science and

Technology asked for a rep01t on the program options for achieving supersonic technology, this is

dated September '77. This was done out of my office in headquart ers at the time. In a letter between

me and the chairman and whatnet, we put together where we thought we stood, what we needed to

do. I guess we had the funding.

Conway: Fantastic. I've been looking ru1d have found very litt le, actually, about the SCAR

[Supersonic Crui se Aircraft Research] program and its documents.

Aitken: That's ru1other interesting thing. George Low, who was really more interested in space than

he was in aeronautics, was always looking for ways, like the present head of NASA is, to put money

in the space program but not into aeronautics. One of the times that he made the attempt to cut us

back, we were looking for an acronym and I came up with the Supersonic Cruise Aircraft Research

rcc~ Program, which was an inside joke, SCAR. We ~some hits, and George Low did not

appreciate that. He made us change it and come up with something else.

Conway: Did the program leave any records?

Aitken: I don't think there are any records other than the published conference proceedings .

Aitken transcript , 10/11/1999 , rev . 1 January 6 , 2000

14 c,

Conway: I found the two big STAR program conference publications.

Aitken: Yes.

Aitken: Well, this includes the back-and-forth letters between the chairman of the Science and

Teclmology Committee and head ofNASA at the time, [James C.] Fletcher.

I'm not sure, again, of the exact year that this happened, but during all this, the Concorde was

fl ying, and Fleteher was writing back and forth to [unclear]. Fletcher was the head of NASA, and

I had a lot of contacts at the time with the French. I was involved in a lot of international programs

as well as the AGARD, Advisory Group for Aeronautical Research and Development ofNATO.

So they asked me ifl wouldn't like to take a Concorde flight. All I had to do was get to Paris,

which would have been easy enough, and then they'd fly me to Venezuela, and I had to get home

from Venezuela. I thought about that, never been on one of these things. It had been in the air a few

years, I guess. But they were still only going to Venezuela, so it was real early in the Concorde days.

It hadn't gotten approval to land in New York yet because of noise problems.

So I don't know whether it was my idea or whether it was something somebody advised me

to do, I suggested to Dr. Fletcher that he might want to take the flight because he had to talk about

our programs and whatnot, as well as us lower-ranking types. So we arranged and had some kind

of a meeting, I've forgotten what it was, and he was going to take that freebie flight from Paris to

Venezuela. I thought it was a good idea to get him excited about possibilities for supersonic flight.

Well, after the flight, I don't know how many days after he got back to Washington, I got to

Aitken transc r ipt , 10/11 /1999 , rev . 1 January 6 , 2000

15

see him about it. His reaction was, "There's not enough head room in that airplane." He's a vety tall

man. He had to stoop to walk down the aisle. So his comment was, "This isn't a big enough

airplane." So, of course, going to Venezuela and having to get down there didn't help matters either.

But that's just an aside, trivia.

One of the other things that carne up in the time frame, when we were still actively involved

in supersonic research was a lot of members of Congress, maybe rightly, maybe wrongly, were

convinced that there was an easy transition from the military supersonic aircraft, including at that

time the B-1 [bomber]. So Fletcher and some of the others had to argue it wasn't really an easy

transition. Of course, they weren't equipped to do it.

So we just staggered along for a few years. Finally when [Ronald] Reagan carne in, in 1981,

things really started to fall apart in aeronautics. That was the beginning of the downfall of the

aeronautics progran1, because--can't blame Reagan for it, but they set up a group in the OMB to see

where to cut back on government spending, and they went after not just the supersonic cruise

program, they went after our subsonic transport programs as well. Of course, those today are really

paying off.

Conway: Yes.

Cct (\ you ex(Jcu16.. ~ \ ~ trl~

Ai Of\ -tk UJ\f\:\ \-e..ts fr<>jf'a."" .ve winglets . The engine development has been

a.t0 e.n -e~~ ,'nc.. pro<J'ltYYI> li'k c...

~ ~1 £ ~'t.t'C'-Tf- £:.~ IN_ ? es: 10ise reduction, all that stuff.

Ai January 6, 2000

16

Conway: From NASA.

Aitken: Came out ofNASA. Some of the structures work as well. That was our subsonic program,

but that died. I had to call up Langley one time and say, "You must stop every contract that you have

right now, all the programs that are supporting the subsonic transport technology." That was a bad

day.

And about the same time frame, the SST program essentially went down the drain. What we

did continue, were able to continue, were most of the programs that were not just basic research, but

flight testing, and military testing. And the SR -71 was flying at Dryden at the time, just before my

retirement, testing the materials and other bits and pieces, but nothing of any great significance. And

where things stand now in the supersonic business, I guess it's really bad.

Conway: Yes. Well, since the demise of the High Speed Research program [in 1998] there hasn't

been any supersonic work at Langley at all. Just the ultraefficient engine program survived at Lewis.

But Langley is pushing the supersonic business jet.

Aitken: But it's probably not going to be successful unless there's a change in administration,

somebody else running the--

Conway: Yes. Well, of course, there will be a change in administration next year. But whether the

new regime will have a more favorable view of aeronautics remains to be seen.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

17

Aitken: I don't know yet who it's going to be, but there's some undercover work being done with

the Bush [George W.] people. Have you talked to Ming Tang?

Conway: Yes. I haven't formally interviewed him, so I haven't asked him a lot of questions.

Aitken: He's probably the only guy at Langley that's interested. And the other thing he's working

on, of course, is to t1y to get a better partnership with the military. That's probably the only way

they're ever going to save Langley 's aeronautics programs.

Conway: Because Congress thinks that the aircraft companies should do there own research and -development?

Aitken: Yes. It's fmm y, a lot of the--not a lot, but some of the developments in the subsonic

program were implemented by other countries before our outfits, Douglas or Boeing.

Conway: Do you think there's more conservatism in Boeing, Douglas, about adopting new

technology?

Aitken: Well , back in the days when that subsonic program was active, the answer is that Boeing

never believed anything unless they did it themselves fi·om scratch. They weren't even happy about

NASA wind tmmel testing. Douglas, on the other hand, didn't operate that way, or Lock11eed. There

Aitken transcript , 10/11/1999 , rev . 1 January 6, 2000

18

were always better relations in the subsonic area between Langley, I'll say Langley on the aeronautics

side with Lockheed than with Boeing. Boeing thought they had all the answers. I mean, after all,

they developed an airplane, the B-47 aircraft, which was the forerunner, really, of their jet business.

Conway: Right.

Aitken: Without much help from Langley. I know the answer there. When I was in charge of the

flight tests that NASA ran--NACA ran on the B-47s, we did the instrumentation at Langley and I

went out to Dryden for the flight tests. The only place I could find wind tunnel data to compare with

the flight data that we were getting, ~ were Boeing tests, there were no Langley wind tunnel

tests on the B-4 7. The reason was that Boeing didn't trust us.

Conway: They had designs stolen before. 4

Aitken: Yes. And it was very difficult to classify it. That was the only way you could keep it from

leaking out. So there was that tension between Boeing and us in the 1950s. I can't blame Boeing

for this, because they had a leg up on everything for a long time. But I'm not sure where this is

getting me.

4Editor's note: Boeing's wind tunnel data on its model 247 transport designed in the early 1930s found its way into Douglas Aircraft's hands via the California Institute of Technology's tunnel. Douglas turned the data into the DC-3, which destroyed the 247's market.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

19

In the SST days, relationships between Langley and Boeing were very good. McLean and

Driver and many of the other people from Langley were at Boeing, and I was out there two or three

~'~~ days one time while they were going through some of the last configurations of g;gn8i'&Wu:.of

decision processes before the program collapsed. They worked closely. In the SST business, there

was a close relationship between Neil and the Langley people and Boeing's aerodynamics people.

I think Neil and Ed McLean must have spent many months just sitting side by side and working at

Boeing. But in the subsonic business, there was still that tension.

Conway: [unclear].

Aitken: So I don't know whether, when you talked to Neil, he mentioned the many months he spent

out at Boeing or not.

Conway: Yes, he did. He talked quite a bit about his activities at Boeing and especially about the

configuration change. That's not well documented, but its an important issue.

Aitken: Would you consider--would your budget permit you to interview any Boeing people?

Conway: I intend to, yes.

Aitken: How about Withington? I think he's still alive.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

20

Conway: I've been told by Boeing's archivist that he is.

Aitken: He's a great guy and he was there from the get-go. A couple of the other people who were

involved. I don't know whether they're still around or not, retired or what. And present-day Boeing,

I don't think anybody is considering seriously development of an SST. That's just an opinion.

Conway: It doesn't look like Boeing intended to build the plane they were designing in the High

Speed Research Program that just ended. And I'm told that neither did NASA. But I have to find

documents to support that.

Aitken: Sounds like a long time to work this problem.

Conway: I have three years.

Aitken: Great.

Conway: I may well not be able to get close to the White House documents I want, but I'll try.

Aitken: You sound rather knowledgeable. What was your background before you started this

project?

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

21

Conway: Before I started this project? I have an engineering undergraduate degree, mechanical

engineering, and I was a Navy officer, surface guy for four years, but then I worked for a year with

Marine aviators. That's sort of my direct experience. I went to graduate school at University of

Minnesota and my dissertation was on aircraft landing aids and their development in both

commercial and military aviation during the thirties, forties, and fifties. Then I got this contract and

actually started working on this in July 1999, starting with the DC area's records. Have you seen

Mel Horwitch's SST book?5

Aitken: No.

Conway: It's an old book, actually. It's hard to find. This is a copy that I just got from a used book

store. But he claims the environmental movement killed the SST program.

Aitken: He's right on that.

Conway: I think he's right about that.

Aitken: Yes.

5Mel Horwitch, Clipped Wings (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982)

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

22

Conway: And as you can see, it's a very detailed book. Unfortunately, most of his sources have

been destroyed. He was able to get into the FAA records right after they were sent to the Federal

Records Center for storage. He goes through with great detail, but he doesn't have any technical

understanding. He was a graduate student in management, so I'm trying to fill in some of the

technical issues. And talking to people gives me the NASA side of things, which isn't in this book

at all. There really aren't any NASA records, not that I've been able to find. So it's a book that I

recommend reading if you can find it in the library.

Aitken: Just glancing at this, I see Shurcliffletters to various people.

Conway: That's how I know Shurcliffs stuff exists at MIT.

Aitken: Well, I guess--

Conway: [unclear]?

Aitken: When was this published?

Conway: '82.

Aitken: '82. [unclear].

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

23

Conway: Well, it's--

[Begin Tape 1, Side 2]

[Editor's note: conversation during tape change was on the rarity ofHorwitch's book]

Conway: And university presses tend not to advertise, because advertising is expensive and they're

poor. So I think books like this tend not to come to people's attention. And the title's also not very

suggestive. There are actually four books by the name Clipped Wings, and this is the only one that

has anything to do with aeronautics.

Aitken: It mentions in here, "the actions of key individuals in the conflict, including Robert

McNamara."

Conway: Yes. Yes, he gives McNamara a hard time, but that's--

Aitken: Everybody should.

Conway: Yes. McNamara's papers also exist. Unfortunately, when the Pentagon sent them over

to the National Archives, they sent them in a classified collection, so I have to get this stuff

declassified.

Aitken: You've got a real career here.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

24

Conway: Yes. It takes a while to really investigate a complex history, especially when it involves

classified material and personal papers. One nice thing is that Boeing's archives is fantastic, and

Boeing's archivist told me that they've already interviewed all the SST people, so I may not even

have to do it.

Aitken: There's an archive at Boeing?

Conway: Yes. They have two people that run their archives. I talked to them directly. I don't quite

know how to do it yet, but I also want to try to get some of the current Boeing people to talk to. That

probably going to be more difficult, but I'll certainly try it.

Aitken: I'm trying to think of the key Douglas guy. Maybe Neil knows.

Conway: I have Neil's list of people to talk to.

Aitken: Oh, you have? Okay.

Conway: Yes. Let's see. Who have I got for Douglas? Dick Fitzsimmons.

Aitken: Right.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

25

Conway: I tried to reach him, and I failed to. I got a mailing address.

Aitken: What's the mailing address?

Conway: I've got 1801 Sandlewood Lane, Newport Beach.

Aitken: Yes. That sounds familiar, because I used to send a Clu·istmas card to him. Haven't heard

from him in a couple years.

Conway: I'm going to call the Douglas archivist. It's a separate place from Boeing's archives.

Boeing's been unifying the two, but it isn't done yet.

Aitken: How about--talking about Lockheed, I'm not sure again of the time frame, but did Neil

mention Ed Cortright ty>J;umetic ]?

Conway: No. Dick Foss tJ3fionetic].

Aitken: Foss. That's good.

Cl Conway: Ed C~rtright, you said?

Aitken transcript , 10/11/1999 , rev . 1 January 6 , 2000

26

Aitken: Cortright. He was the president of Lockheed during the time when the NASA program

started to go belly up, but Cortright had been a director at Langley.

Conway: Interesting.

Aitken: And I believe he lives in Yorktown now. So all you've got to do is check the Yorktown

telephone directory for his telephone number. He's got a lot of background because of he was

director of Langley at the time that things were happening, and he was out at Lockheed, I guess in

the early eighties when things were falling apart. But Dick Foss was the real technical guy for

Lockheed.

Conway: He allegedly lives in Las Vegas.

Aitken: Give me some other names on Neil's list.

Conway: I've got Godfried Freible.

Aitken: Oh, my goodness. Should be around.

Conway: I've got a phone number, but I haven't checked it yet.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

27

Aitken: He lived a couple of lakes away from Seattle. I remember going out to his house for dinner

one night. Any other Boeing names?

Conway: Armond Sigalla?

Aitken: Yes. Now, he was probably the top technical guy, Sigalla.

Conway: I'll try to reach him.

Aitken: He's not that old. He's probably as old as I am.

Conway: Okay. Emmanuel Boxer?

Aitken: He used to work at Langley also during the early days, during the war. He's retired now.

Conway: Yes. And that's it for Boeing.

Aitken: All right. On your list of people, when you get to Boxer, he'll probably know if these guys

are still around or not. Richard Weber from Lewis was the key propulsion guy early in the NASA

when the FAA went out of business. Richard Weber. And Boxer will know some of the other guys

at Lewis. But Dick Weber was the key guy.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

28

Conway: Two Bs?

Aitken: Let me check it. One. Richard J. Weber. He started at Lewis in '51, so he's not that old.

Conway: Okay. Let's see. Let me ask you some questions about the SCAR program to see if I can

dredge up any more memories. What did you see as being the focus of the SCAR program? What

technologies did you emphasize?

Aitken: Well, the key one was propulsion because of the noise problems. We tended to continue

to work on the sonic boom problem, but never considered that a make-or-break thing, Shurcliff

notwithstanding, because like Concorde you can operate the aircraft over water. So we considered

overland operation a non-problem.

The aeronautics was shaping up pretty well, with continued focus on configuration. The

structures problems were pretty well in hand. There was work on structures, but the main thing was

propulsion.

Conway: The variable cycle engine. What precedents for multiple cycle engines were there?

Aitken: Precedents. Those are the kinds of questions you'll have to ask somebody like Weber, a

propulsion type, or Boxer. With my limited technical knowledge of propulsion, I don't think I can

answer that question.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

29

Conway: Okay. No problem. So let's see. Then what--

Aitken: I think it was just somebody's wild idea, and I don't know where it came from. I don't know

whether it came from Lewis, the people there, or someplace else. I do suspect that some of the input

came from Pratt & Whitney, but I don't know whether if you talk to the Lewis people, whether

they' ll have an idea.

Conway: I was wo ndering if the SR-71 was the precedent.

Aitken: No, absolutely no{ Not in my limited propulsion knowledge.

Conway: So what do you see as being the achievements of the SCAR program?

Aitken: Well, we thought we had progressed to the point where it was possible to build a supersonic

transport, but obviously not everybody agreed with us, like this recent Douglas study you mentioned.

Conway: That came later. That's 1990. Douglas was comparing the SST from the SCAR progran1

r-rX to 1990s aircraft and their economics and arguing that it would be possible to make the 1970s SCAR

1\ configuration compete economically with later aircraft.

Aitken: Oh, I see, because of the increase in size of the things like 747, they get bigger and bigger,

Aitken transcript , 10/11/1999 , rev . 1 J a nuary 6 , 2000

30

and you start looking at the economics.

Conway: Right, and the noise problem, too, because both of those things changed since the

configuration that evo lved in the seventies. That was Douglas' argument.

Aitken: I think that we were a bunch of optimists in our blmch, in our group, those of us at r(. headquarters who were working in this area, and, of course, people like Driver and Langley

" proponents. I think we felt at the time, when we were going out of business, that we could propose

a real commercially viable SST. Back probably somewhere in the records you'll find something that

0 Neil WJj te, published, internal memoranda that prove we could do a viable supersonic transport with

the technology we had in hand. We thought we'd left it in pretty good shape, but there was a lot

more to do.

The big problem was really how to get--assuming that we were con·ect and that nobody was

d sti ll in the progran1, how do you propose another government-w\5e support similar to the FAA

program? We all felt that the only way to do it correctly was to have NASA as the controlling

government entity but we didn' t have any support. After a ll, NASA is the space agency, not the

aeronautics agency.

Conway: Despite the presence of the "aeronautics" in the name.

Aitken: I th ink when they came out with that strange logo that they had fo r a while, the "A" was

Aitken transcript , 10/11/1999 , rev . 1 January 6 , 2000

31

small, lower case.

Conway: Oh, I haven't seen that. I'll have to look. That would be useful to me, because having

visual symbols like that is really nice when you're dealing with historians.

Aitken: I'm pretty sure I saw it around someplace or other, but don't waste your time really looking

for it.

Conway: I'm sure that if it's on letterhead or something, I'll run into it. Very interesting.

Let's see. You've mentioned Proxmire. I'm trying to get a sense of Proxmire. From my own

childhood, he was the man with the Golden Fleece [Award].

Aitken: Right.

Conway: Always looking for waste or fraud, especially in research and development. Was that your

sense of his motivation throughout the sixties and seventies, or was he really attempting to be a

committed environmentalist or just a fiscal conservative?

Aitken: I think he was just a fiscal conservative, looking for any way of cutting back on government

spending. I don't think he hit us with any Golden Fleece Awards. I don't think he did, in aeronautics.

But in addition to not being in favor of spending money on this SST business, he was overruled by

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

32

other people, so he didn't kill it. He was negative on almost all parts of NASA's aeronautic program.

Conway: And the space shuttle, too.

Aitken: Probably. He wasn't always wrong.

Conway: No, he wasn't always wrong.

Aitken: Too bad there isn't somebody in there today that's pointing out some of these idiocies the

government's supporting.

Conway: Yes. He's an interesting character. His records are actually in the Wisconsin State

Archives but they're sealed. I might try to talk to him.

Aitken: I'm telling you, when we had to appear before his committee, everybody was really

swearing under the annpits. He was a very good interrogator. He was never nasty. A pleasant man,

but he could throw the barbs at you.

Conway: He could ask hard questions?

Aitken: Yes.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

33

Conway: Was there any university-funded research in the SCAR program? Or was it all Boeing

and Douglas?

Aitken: There was some. There was some. I don't remember the details. You'd have to get the

budget. We were always--I won't say forced to, but there was sort of a minimum level of funding

that had to go to all aeronautic programs. Another vague thought occurred to me. There was an MIT

study done, I believe on SST ..

Conway: I saw one on--1 know one that's on critical environmental issues, but I don't know another

one on SSTs.

Aitken: Who's the author of the environmental--

Conway: It was a group authorship. I don't remember offhand who the chair was.

Aitken: There was one report put together by somebody at MIT years ago now, and I was asked to

review it.

Conway: So this is something I haven't found.

Aitken: And I had a lot of problems with it. I don't think we ever resolved them. I don't know what

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

34

happened to it.

Conway: Done ten years ago?. Yes, that's right when the HSR program started.

Aitken: I wish I could remember it. Can' t keep track since I retired.

Conway: Okay. That's good. There are a lot of studies.

t ~'' K

Aitken: Does the name Jack ~Fbreck [phonetic] ring any bells?

Conway: Kerrebock? He was an engineer in the propulsion lab at MIT, is that right?

Aitken: He was at MIT and he was my boss at headquarters for a brief while. He was a guy that

got this other thing started to look into. I think it was the SST program. But you might contact him

and see what he knows about this whole thing.

Conway: Yes. I know he ' s still an emeritus. Do you know of a guy by the name of Richard

See bass?

Aitken: Yes. Cornell, right?

Aitken transcript , 10/11/1999 , rev . 1 January 6 , 2000

35

Conway: Yes, but not anymore. He's out in Colorado. He's on the supersonic business jet

campaign trail, too.

Aitken: He was at Cornell for a while.

Conway: Yes. In the early eighties, there was a committee on aerospace policy headed by John . r'(-·

r;_i~"-

StineF--[pheaetie] from Boeing. Do you recall anything about it?

Aitken: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You have copies of that crap?

Conway: I've got just the studies, not any documents behind it.

Aitken: I've got copies of the studies too. They were called the Eagle report. They were done a

couple of times. Yeah, oh man that was a mess.

Conway: I'm getting the sense that they weren't very satisfactory.

Aitken: No. Steiner kept the thing from being a disaster for NASA. He was instrumental in

keeping us alive in aeronautics, because they were done in the Reagan administration when they

were trying to kill everything.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

36

Conway: Right.

Aitken: Office of Science and Technology.

Conway: Right. Under Keyworth [George].

Aitken: Something like that. Yes, Steiner was an interesting character. He was a Boeing type.

Conway: Right.

Aitken: Yes. But if you've got that, that's all I have. Tough having to produce documents and

background. I mention that I still that I still have most of my correspondence. When I started to look

for it, I couldn't find anything really relevant, mostly just internal stuff. Some of that stuff on the

Steiner business we didn't dare put in writing, and I don't mean Steiner was the problem. He kept

things from falling apart.

Conway: So let's see. I'm getting the sense that Steiner's committee was really important. Was

Steiner important in holding the committee together, or was Steiner's committee important overall

in keeping the Reagan administration from gutting NASA?

Aitken: The answer is option B, I guess, but only because of Steiner. If it wasn't for him, things

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

37

would have been really bad at NASA.

Conway: That's interesting.

Aitken: Is he still around?

Conway: I don't know. He hasn't been mentioned to me as still being around. I know someone

interviewed him in '93 for another book, so it's possible.

Aitken: I'll tell you something about Steiner. That's not still running, is it?

Conway: Yes, it is.

Aitken: This is just humorous.

Conway: Okay. [Tape recorder turned off.]

So back to Steiner's committee again. I'm interested that--l'm fascinated in--I guess in

covering what you think is important about Steiner, what was important about the direction of

Steiner's committee took in its studies?

Aitken: Well, since it was really set up, in my opinion, to be able to kill aeronautics within NASA,

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

38

the important thing was that he essentially redirected enough of the whys and wherefores to say that

we need an organization like a government organization, to do the basic research and the advanced

research relative to any type of airplane, whether it was military, civilian, supersonic, or subsonic.

He highlighted the need for any government involvement in the aeronautic research business. He

spelled it out rather plainly that there was no other way of doing it.

At that time there were three major large aircraft contractors, Lockheed, Boeing, and

Douglas, and some others for military aircraft, but none of them had the facilities which were in

place with NASA and Langley, Lewis, or Ames. No individual company could afford to do this type

of work. I suspect that now some body's probably going to sell off Ames Research Center to private

contractors to do the job. So I think that's the most important aspect of it and made a strong case for

continued government involvement in space and aeronautics advanced vehicle studies, as well as

flight testing.

Which brings me to another thing. We were continually having to review why we had flight

research so there were many studies involved in that, every ten years or so. There are continued

studies of why NASA has so many wind tunnels. That was one of the favorite questions of any

congressman, why we continued to operate these tunnels.

I guess it was during--it must have been during the administration change when Reagan took

office, it was starting to get nasty. There was a young lady in the Office of Management and Budget

who didn't know anything about aeronautics, and I was asked to take her down to Langley and show

her the facility. We went to all these different wind tunnels and explained what they did, and the

first question she asked after this tour, "Why do you have so many wind tunnels?" The same

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

39

question as when I started. It was very clear that some tunnels only operate in subsonic speed ranges,

some only operate transonic, and some are supersonic, and there are different sizes. But I hadn't

convinced her. And I guess that's about the same time frame as the Steiner business. So those things

were happening all the time. And then I retired.

That's not a very good answer. It's a rather involved question.

Conway: It gives me a sense of what was going on in the early Reagan administration, so that's

actually quite useful.

Aitken: Just a bit more on that. The continued need to justify aeronautics is there still.

Conway: The politicians don't understand that the industry isn't particularly profitable and can't

support this kind of work.

Aitken: The only thing in favor of the industry, the only one that I'm aware of right now, has been

for years, has a better balance of payments type of action than anything else. What else do you

export? We don't export spacecraft.

Conway: We export Boeings.

Aitken: Right.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

40

Conway: For some reason I sense a disconnect in the [Bill] Clinton administration, which knows

that, but doesn't see a connection between NASA and that business.

Aitken: Well, that's because of--well, because of the people running NASA right now. That's where

the disconnect occurs.

Conway: You mean NASA HQ.

Aitken: NASA administration. Internally in NASA.

Conway: I have that sense, too.

Aitken: I didn't help much.

Conway: Do you have any memory of why the arrow wing configuration became the primary

choice during the SCAR program?

Aitken: My recollection is that it was aerodynamically the most efficient and tended to minimize

sonic boom. That's my recollection, but an expert like McLean and Driver would know that.

Conway: Okay. The SCAR program did a lot of work with structures and materials and engines.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

41

Did any of that stuff that you know of find its way into subsonic engines or structures?

Aitken: I think the Langley materials program, whether it was working for hypersonic, supersonic,

or subsonic, had been--I don't know whether it still is or not--an excellent program. My view is that

many of the materials developed, composites and more exotic metals, have spilled off into the

subsonic world, although during our subsonic activity, of course, we were supposed to be working

on composites. Aerodynamically, I don't think

spinoff from that, some of the studies on no is

now much of the supersonic technology that n

I don't mean the noise and sonic boom, but I m•

no application for that.

Conway: What other NASA aeronautics prog

nls. eA. $So-?- ."!. Cc::.f'l~ d

be.cav.se -f.{.t... ..fa.pe fvq /."'7 wco..S

So foor ~+ -fl.c_ -fa.nsu •'f"''on!S-t

Cov\J" './- -/e_f{ -Jk dl~o"'Cf!CL kiwcut "F-ll.Z '' t:t"'d '' { ... 2.1 ' '-­

l!..~t" yo.., cl Qn·f...J vJ ~ ~~ yo c./ I 7

me.ar? f .·... of~;-. ,':, s-e.Df.'on '

te small

sualize

1s, and

e's just

Aitken: Oh, no, this was small. It was a very large R&T -base program in aeronautics, the numbers

I can't recall right now, but 60 and 70 percent of the aeronautics budget was R&T base. Some of it

was focused and some of it wasn't. Some focused on development of the military configurations.

Did a lot of work on helicopters as a big part of our progran1 and vetiical takeoff and landing aircraft,

now if the V -22 ever stays alive, that's a payoff. So that was mostly Ames with propellers. Okay.

That strui ed and that was running as a program in tllis same time frame, with precursor aircraft and v t~.,..,-c,. \-. " .

flight testing. I meant the ~22 as weJ.~ new fighter~at-came out ofb~glg.y. as well. A

Aitken t r a nscript , 10/ 11/1999 , rev . 1 Janua ry 6 , 2000

42

Conway: That's news to me.

Aitken: Oh, yes. '88 or '89, I was deputy chairman of a joint U.S.-United Kingdom study of which _:,...

l, 1..-1_! .,

way should the countries go on-theSe fighter aircraft. We came up with four configurations. I've

forgotten, but there were four different ways of mixing vertical lift and propulsive lift, all of which

had been studied extensively in this time from in wind tunnel tests and some flight tests. Two of

those configurations are now contenders in the F-22 program. So there was a lot of variable lift work

going on in that time frame for aircraft, both with tilt rotor as well as the other.

Conway: I can imagine. I'm just trying to get some of the other--

Aitken: Get the budget books. You'll see a breakdown. We used to break it down into-- [Brief

interruption]

Get the budget books, which should be available. You'll see the breakout of the funding, and

you'll see it's broken out rotorcraft, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, supersonic, hypersonic

aircraft as well as disciplinary breakouts. And there was another one I won't talk about, but we had

a black program.

Conway: Tell me about that if you can. If not, no problem. [Tape recorder turned off.]

I understand.

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

43

Aitken: Not that the information is valuable or broke any rules.

Conway: Yes. I understand completely. Okay. Let's see. Okay, what was your relationship with

the administrator during this time?

Aitken: It wasn't always that great with George Low, who was the deputy in that time frame. But

N if he

wanted to talk about any of this stuff, he could 'uring

the noise and sonic boom problems in the early ffice

of Science and Teclmology, when Webb was adm vith

Webb was close, and with Fletcher. Reasonable. ~m

we ought to support the DARPA hypersonic pro gr.

Yo" 1¥'(1( ()

Conway: NASP? [National Aerospace Plane] "

Aitken: That was terrible. That's the only thing I regret, funding those guys. I saw it as a way to

get some money flowing in. But with Beggs I was always personally fine. But some of the others

I never knew. I mean, I'd conduct business with them, but I never had any personal contacts with

them. I fe lt they understood what I was talking about.

Conway: Do you think any of them had any patiicular interest in or biases against aeronautics as

Aitken transcript , 10/11/1999, rev . 1 January 6 , 2000

44

opposed to space?

Aitken: Of the bunch, I think Webb knew what his real role was, to keep the space program going.

He was never negative on the aeronautics. Fletcher was sort of in the middle. He didn't really do

anything to bleed the aeronautics program, but he wasn't that enthusiastic about SCAR. And Beggs

[p.honeMct was an aeronautics supporter all the way. Right now one of the fellows who used to work

(

' \ ' I , i .~ ·., . ·, '\.A.'-'.

for me, named Jerry G~6; is trying to get Beggs and a couple of other people to intercede right now

with the Clinton administration from going any further downhill. The last time I talked to them they

decided it wasn't a timely thing to do and would rather work on the Bush administration possibilities.

So the only one that was kind of negative on the SCAR program was George Low. Again it was

because he was a space cadet. We both went to the same college.

I'm getting off on the wrong floor again. The first day he called me from Washington. I was

supposed to brief him on probably the SCAR program. Might have been something else. I was

fifteen minutes late, and that got me off on the wrong foot with that guy. He was a martinet.

Conway: Low went to North American after he left NASA?

Aitken: No. He went to be president ofRPI. [Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.]

Conway: Ok.

Conway: Since you were at headquarters, what can you tell me about the relationship between

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000

45

headquarters and the NASA labs, and between the labs and each other?

Aitken: Well , I mentioned the labs. None of them would ever give the other one two cents. They

considered themselves to be completely independent, and whatever was happening at the other labs

it was like pulling teeth to get them to sit down together and do anything. That started back in the

tr. ~ ' NACA days. Of course, Langley was still running everything. And that was the atmosphere. As

/L

a headquarters person, my job was to balance the budgets to the point where it didn't look as though

you were favoring one center versus the other. It was in my control how much money went to various o./1 #J;!

program in the centers. Always a juggling act. I didn't do it,myself, I had a fine staff.

Within headquarters, forgetting aeronautics versus space, mostly aeronautics was funded

through OAST [Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology]. Again, the atmosphere there was

space was most important. Biggest arguments occurred whenever anybody thought about a

reorganization. The biggest argument came between the R&T-base people and people like myself

who were more vehicle oriented. We saw R&T base OK for way out there in the future, but talking

about the aeronautics of a supersonic aircraft, whether military or civi l, that part of the pie belonged

- '-le..-, ~1' in the focusJed prograr11 so there was-some key connection between the aerorumticr,structures, and

propulsion activities.

So the biggest argument with headquarters in my tenure there was always between people

who were far out R&T base, wanting to give all the money to universities, and give no support to

anything related to a vehicle, and people like myself who were more interested in focused programs

whether they were helicopters, subsonic, supersonic,or hypersonic. And that is generally how I

Aitken transcri pt , 10/11/1999 , rev . 1 January 6 , 2000

46

structured my programs. I had an organization which had a focused set of programs: rotorcraft,

general aviation, subsonic aircraft, military aircraft, supersonic aircraft. And I had the disciplinary

programs set up to support the focused programs. But it was not without a fight. I didn't always win

them, but near the end I won most of them.

Conway: I'm still not clear on how the labs related to each other.

Aitken: Okay. Well, I mentioned it from the standpoint that the centers wouldn't give each other

two cents, and it depended--the relationship between headquarters and aeronautics people at the labs

depended on who was where in headquarters. I ended up being called Mr. Aeronautics by every

center, who felt that I was giving everyone a fair break. But most of the labs vs. HQ was adversarial,

almost in any other area except in aeronautics.

[End of recording]

Aitken transcript, 10/11/1999, rev. 1 January 6, 2000