"Cub Driver" wrote in message
...

The benefits of swept wings were understood by German aeronautical
engineers as far back as 1936, but as aircraft speeds were much lower
than mach 1 at the time, the issue was somewhat academic.

When Boeing had the XB-47 on the drawing board, the plane had a
straight wing. A Boeing rep was part of Operation Paperclip, the great
vacuum cleaner sucking up German technology in 1945-46. He cabled back
to hold everything; he had some stuff that Boeing ought to look at.

In consequence the B-47 had swept wings and carried its turbojets
slung under the wings in pods. Unless NACA is regarded as the same
institution, I suspect this was long in advance of NASA.

From National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 that created NASA:

NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR AERONAUTICS

Sec. 301. (a) The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, on the
effective
date of this section, shall cease to exist. On such date all functions,
powers, duties, and
obligations, and all real and personal property, personnel (other than
members of the
Committee), funds and records of that organization, shall be transferred to
the
[National Aeronautics and Space] Administration.

So I would say that its work can be claimed by NASA. Also the data uncovered
in Germany by Boeing engineer George Schairer showed that German research
into swept wing designs predated the NACA data (of which Boeing was already
familier). That being said, although the German data showed positive effects
of swept wings at high speeds, the actual 35 degree sweep was develop by
Boeing and Schairer from their own wind tunnel research. The German data
only went out to 29 degrees of sweep. Podded engines were added also from
Boeing wind tunnel research. Apparently the Air Force gave Boeing the
impression that the B-47 without podded engines was too ugly to consider,
something Boeing may have forgotten with their recent frog-mouthed Tac Air
loser.

The real reason that the B-47 had swept wings and podded engines is because
Boeing invested their B-29 profits in their own wind tunnel while their
competitors were still buying wind tunnel time from places like Cal Tech.
This allowed Boeing to try many more designs far more quickly than the
others. That is the important lesson in this story.




all the best -- Dan Ford
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