First published in 1999 as volume 16 in the NASA "Monograph in Aerospace History" series. This study contains photographs and illustrations.

This book captures the excitement of a formative phase of UK science during and immediately following WWII. It links back to scientists working at Antarctic whaling stations and the complimentary voyages of Captain Scott's Discovery that explored the vast icy Southern Ocean, funded by a tax on whale oil. In the depths of WWII a small group of young scientists were brought together under the inspirational leadership of Dr (later Sir) George Deacon, and shortly after the end of the war, the UKis first National Institute of Oceanography was formed. The discoveries from 50 years ago underpin our modern-day science. The bookis chapters are all written and edited by NIO scientists and convey the atmosphere of work at sea in a bygone age before small computers, satellite navigation and easy communication. The book is A useful introduction for students of marine and/or environmental science. It will appeal to many scientists and the general public , to those interested in science and innovation during and after WWII and of course to many living in the Surrey who always wondered what went on in the leafy lanes that were home to NIO and its successors for almost 50 years.

The Eclipse Project by Tom Tucker provides a readable narrative and a number of documents that record an important flight research effort at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. Carried out by Kelly Space & Technology, Inc. in partnership with the Air Force and Dryden at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert of California, this project tested and gathered data about a potential newer and less expensive way to launch satellites into space. Whether the new technology comes into actual use will depend on funding, market forces, and other factors at least partly beyond the control of the participants in the project. This is a familiar situation in the history of flight research.

The Eclipse Project by Tom Tucker provides a readable narrative and a number of documents that record an important flight research effort at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. Carried out by Kelly Space and Technology, Inc., in partnership with the Air Force and Dryden at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert of California, this project tested and gathered data about a potential newer and less expensive way to launch satellites into space. Whether the new technology comes into actual use will depend on funding, market forces, and other factors at least partly beyond the control of the participants in the project. This is a familiar situation in the history of flight research.

This publication relates the important history of the Propulsion Controlled Aircraft project at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center and describes the development of the Flight Research Center Simulation during the period from 1955 to 1975. These are the years in which analog computers were used as a major component of every flight simulation that was mechanized in support of the many different flight research project at the High-Speed Flight Station (HSFS-redesigned the Flight Research Center FRC] in 1959 and the Dryden Flight Research Center DFRC] in 1976). Initially, analog computers were used along with a ground-based cockpit for these simulators. This started in 1955. In 1964 a small scientific digital computer was bought and added to the X-15 simulator. This was the start of the hybrid (combined analog and digital) computer period of flight simulators. Both of these periods are covered in this document. This publication discusses how we developed the many different analog simulations. However, it is important to mention the reasons why we did so. This monograph tells the PCA story in a non- technical way with emphasis on the human aspects of the engineering and flight-research effort. It thereby supplements the extensive technical literature on PCA and makes the development of this technology accessible to a wide audience.

This monograph relates the important history of the Propulsion Controlled Aircraft project at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. Spurred by a number of airplane crashes caused by the loss of hydraulic flight controls, a NASA-industry team lead by Frank W. Burcham and C. Gordon Fullerton developed a way to land an aircraft safely using only engine thrust to control the airplane.

The Eclipse Project by Tom Tucker provides a readable narrative and a number of documents that record an important flight research effort at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. Carried out by Kelly Space & Technology, Inc. in partnership with the Air Force and Dryden at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert of California, this project tested and gathered data about a potential newer and less expensive way to launch satellites into space. Whether the new technology comes into actual use will depend on funding, market forces, and other factors at least partly beyond the control of the participants in the project. This is a familiar situation in the history of flight research.

First published in 1999 as volume 16 in the NASA "Monograph in Aerospace History" series. This study contains photographs and illustrations.

Every schoolchild in America knows that Benjamin Franklin flew a kite during a thunderstorm in the summer of 1752. Electricity from the clouds above traveled down the kite's twine and threw a spark from a key that Franklin had attached to the string. He thereby proved that lightning and electricity were one.
What many of us do not realize is that Franklin used this breakthrough in his day's intensely competitive field of electrical science to embarrass his French and English rivals. His kite experiment was an international event and the Franklin that it presented to the world--a homespun, rural philosopher-scientist performing an immensely important and dangerous experiment with a child's toy--became the Franklin of myth. In fact, this sly presentation on Franklin's part so charmed the French that he became an irresistible celebrity when he traveled there during the American Revolution. The crowds and the journalists, and the ladies, cajoled the French powers into joining us in our fight against the British.
What no one has successfully proven until now--and what few have suggested--is that Franklin never flew the kite at all. Benjamin Franklin was an enthusiastic hoaxer. And with the electric kite, he performed his greatest hoax. As Tucker shows, it was this trick that may have won the American Revolution.