“At my first Niagara Frontier Section dinner meeting I sat next to astronaut Sandy Magnus. It was an incredible experience for an undergraduate student and aspiring engineer.”— Jessica Evans, Product Manager, Product Lifecycle Management, Moog Space and Defense Group
Igor Sikorsky addressed the first meeting of the Buffalo Chapter of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences at Kleinhans Music Hall, Buffalo, with 1,500 in attendance. Foreshadowing the helicopter’s wartime medical role in Korea seven years later, Sikorsky stated: “The helicopter will prove to be one of the most effective instruments for saving lives and assisting the injured.”
Lawrence D. Bell, president of Bell Aircraft Corporation, presented to Benson Hamlin, development engineer, a $100 award for his paper on “The Theory of Jet Propulsion,” the best read at a Niagara Frontier Section IAS meeting during the year. At that time Hamlin was leading the preliminary design of the Bell X-1.
Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory engineer William E. Crowell receives $100 from Bell Aircraft President Larry Bell for his Niagara Frontier IAS best paper of the year, on aircraft cabin air conditioning.
Commodore Frank Whittle, developer of the jet engine in the United Kingdom, speaks to the Buffalo Chapter of the IAS at the Hotel Statler during a two-day visit to tour “aviation plants and laboratories.”
Before a meeting of fifty members, Cornell Aeronautical Flight Research Department engineers William Milliken and Edmund Laitone discuss their research on the stability and control of aircraft. Milliken told a reporter: “We will literally fly them on paper before they are built.”
Bell rocket engineers Stuart Edleson and Norvin Erickson discuss “Rocket Power Plants” and “Development Testing of Rocket Motors” at a meeting of the Buffalo Chapter IAS. The first meeting of the Niagara Frontier Section of the American Rocket Society is still five years away.
Bell Aircraft president Lawrence D. Bell speaks to the Buffalo Chapter IAS on “The Aviation Industry Looks to the Future.”
The Niagara Frontier Section IAS holds a meeting at the Hotel Statler with Dr. G.R. Wendt of the University of Rochester speaking on “Can we Prevent Airsickness” and E.R. Dye of Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory presenting “Crashes Need Not Be Fatal.”
George D. Ray, a Bell Aircraft structures engineer, sends a telegram on behalf of the Buffalo Chapter IAS to Governor Thomas E. Dewey condemning the governor’s handling of violence during the Bell Aircraft strike. Fifteen non-striking employees had been injured by “flying squads” of strikers the previous day.
Dr. Richard H. Sherwood, a Civil Aeronautics Board medical examiner, suggests at a Buffalo Chapter IAS meeting that “spying” into the lives of airline pilots may be necessary to prevent accidents, citing debt, personal conduct, and alcohol use.