Description: This report describes the new method for making computations in connection with the study of rigid airship, which was used in the investigation of the navy's ZR-1 by the special subcommittee of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics appointed for this purpose. It presents the general theory of the air forces on airship hulls of the type mentioned, and an attempt has been made to develop the results from the very fundamentals of mechanics without reference to some of the modern highly developed conceptions, which may not yet be thoroughly known to readers uninitiated into modern aerodynamics, and which may, perhaps, for all time remain restricted to a small number of specialists.

Description: This report gives the description and the use of a specially designed aerodynamic plane table. For the accurate and expeditious geometrical measurement of models in an aerodynamic laboratory, and for miscellaneous truing operations, there is frequent need for a specially equipped plan table. For example, one may have to measure truly to 0.001 inch the offsets of an airfoil at many parts of its surface. Or the offsets of a strut, airship hull, or other carefully formed figure may require exact calipering. Again, a complete airplane model may have to be adjusted for correct incidence at all parts of its surfaces or verified in those parts for conformance to specifications. Such work, if but occasional, may be done on a planing or milling machine; but if frequent, justifies the provision of a special table. For this reason it was found desirable in 1918 to make the table described in this report and to equip it with such gauges and measures as the work should require.

Description: The question of behavior of a streamlined body with round or square cross-sections is of importance in determining the shape to give an airplane fuselage. It is our task here to show how the lift and drag are affected, with the object placed obliquely to the air stream.

Description: This report prepared for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, describes an airship slide rule developed by the Gas-Chemistry Section of the Bureau of Standards, at the request of the Bureau of Engineering of the Navy Department. It is intended primarily to give rapid solutions of a few problems of frequent occurrence in airship navigation, but it can be used to advantage in solving a great variety of problems, involving volumes, lifting powers, temperatures, pressures, altitudes and the purity of the balloon gas. The rule is graduated to read directly in the units actually used in making observations, constants and conversion factors being taken care of by the length and location of the scales. It is thought that with this rule practically any problem likely to arise in this class of work can be readily solved after the user has become familiar with the operation of the rule; and that the solution will, in most cases, be as accurate as the data warrant.

Description: This report contains a description of a new and useful method suitable for the design of propellers and for the interpretation of tests with propellers. The fictitious slipstream velocity, computed from the absorbed horsepower, is plotted against the relative slip velocity. It is discussed in detail how this velocity is obtained, interpreted, and used. The methods are then illustrated by applying them to model tests and to free flight tests with actual propellers.