NACA and the Under Aircraft Modelmaker
ON MARCH 3, 1915, Congress passed an Enabling Act signed by President Woodrow Wilson, attached as a rider to the Navy Appropriations Bill, creating a new organization known as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The initial annual budget was $5,000. Its charter was "to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution, and to direct and conduct experiments in aerodynamics." The agency had a very small beginning during World War I when the Army loaned a hangar and two airplanes for some flight-test work at Langley Field, Virginia. By 1919, NACA had 20 employees and a very modest laboratory at Langley Field.
