National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics

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Dr. Hendricks Joined NACA in 1957  

Lewis Flight Propulsion Research Laboratory, Cleveland, Ohio 

Before NASA there was NACA – the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Started in 1915, the original focus deemed by the federal government was for the advisory panel of 12 people “to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight, with a view to their practical solutions.” A few years after its inception, the Committee became an organization with a more broadened purpose. During the next forty-three years, the work of NACA members impacted aircraft developed for wars, commercial travel, and journeys beyond the earth’s atmosphere.

However, with the birth of the nation’s space agency, NACA faded gently at the four facilities where it had thrived and was dissolved officially on October 1, 1958. At the Langley, Ames, and Lewis Research Centers, as well as the High Speed Flight Station (Edwards AFB, CA), NACA members transitioned quietly to the new organization, NASA. They took their experience, their knowledge, their passion, and the traditions gained from working as NACA and used these as a foundation to forge the future achievements in American aviation.

NASA Headquarters NACA Oral History Project
Robert C. Hendricks
Interviewed by Rebecca Wright
Cleveland, Ohio – 3 June 2014

SUMMARY

A look at some of Robert C. Hendricks’s experience with aerospace engine development at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics [NACA] from its beginnings through the years to NACA’s transition to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA] is presented in an interview-style format.

INTRODUCTION

This report is based upon an interview conducted with Robert C. Hendricks, a Senior Technologist at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Although at first he thought he was “not going to be here very long,” Robert Hendricks has been with this facility since 1957. This report presents his experience with the development of rocket engines, focusing on his time at the NACA Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory.

Today’s NASA Glenn Research Center started out in 1942 when the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics started building its Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory [AERL] in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1947 the lab was renamed the NACA Flight Propulsion Laboratory to reflect the expansion of the research. In September 1948, following the death of the NACA’s Director of Aeronautics, George Lewis, the name was changed to the NACA Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory [LFPL]. Then on 1 October 1958, the LFPL was incorporated into the new space agency, NASA, and it was renamed the NASA Lewis Research Center [LeRC]. Following John Glenn’s flight on the Space Shuttle, the Center name was changed again on 1 March 1999 to the NASA Glenn Research Center [GRC].

Robert Hendricks began his lifetime involved with aerospace engines while studying aerospace engineering at the Ohio State University [OSU]. When there in 1952, Robert’s introduction to aircraft engines came when he was hired for the summer as a draftsman for North American Aviation [NAA] in Columbus, Ohio [where he worked on the F-86, AJ-2, F-51, and FJ-4 aircraft over a period of three summers]. The summers of 1955 and 1956 were spent at the NAA-Rocketdyne and Rocketdyne Canoga Park facilities in California working as a Junior Engineer on the G-38 and Redstone, and other classified rocket engine designs.

Robert learned how rocket engines worked from the Rocketdyne Rocket Engine Course, where instructors Dean Dentry and Ennis Staggers taught him rocket engine components and integration design. Also, discussions with a number of NAA Columbus engineers taught him drafting/engineering and gave him firsthand knowledge of fighters and attack bombers up close on the assembly line.

The experiences at NAA, Rocketdyne, OSU, and eventually at NACA/NASA have been the backbone of Robert’s professional development.

The remainder of this report will follow the course of the interview to present Robert’s experience at the NACA [and later with NASA], presenting his involvement with aerospace engine development.

Source: https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/naca.htm