“I joined the Niagara Frontier Section in 1979, my last year of undergraduate studies at UB. My early years were highlighted by road trips to student conferences. Most memorable was a trip to Washington D.C., where a couple of UB cohorts and I walked out onto the tarmac at Dulles Airport to see a British Airways Concorde.”— Don Nixon, Moog Space and Defense Group
U.S. Marine Capt. Robert A. Strieby speaks to a joint meeting of the American Helicopter Society Great Lakes Region and the Buffalo Chapter IAS, predicting helicopters will one day ferry troops ashore in place of landing craft.
James Chamberlin of A.V. Roe Canada, chief aerodynamicist on the Avro Jetliner, tells the Buffalo Chapter IAS that jet transports have a safety margin over conventional craft. Chamberlin will later lead the Avro Arrow’s technical design and, after its cancellation, become NASA’s first program manager for Project Gemini.
The first meeting of the Niagara Frontier Rocket Society, organized by Bell engineers Willis Sprattling and George Huson, is held at the Delevan Avenue Armory. The group immediately begins attending ARS national meetings.
Three captured German V-2 rocket films are shown at a Niagara Frontier Rocket Society meeting, open to all interested in rocketry and jet propulsion.
At the ARS Sixth Annual Convention in Atlantic City, Kurt R. Stehling represents the proposed Niagara Frontier Section, reporting that 400 attended the first meeting and that affiliation with the ARS is likely.
A joint meeting of the Buffalo Chapter IAS and the Niagara Frontier Rocket Society is held at the Hotel Statler. Speaker David Anderton of Aviation Week speculates on nuclear-powered planes within five years.
At another joint meeting, noted science writer Willy Ley discusses “Man’s Conquest of Space.”
Buffalo Chapter IAS member John Seal, chief research pilot at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, receives the Octave Chanute Award at the IAS summer meeting in Los Angeles for developing precise piloting techniques enabling fundamental research in stability, control, and flutter.
At the ARS Seventh Annual Convention, William Sprattling reports the Niagara Frontier Rocket Society is considering ARS affiliation; Kurt Stehling notes that the Toronto Rocket Society is interested in joining as well.
Robert Stanley, former Bell test pilot and first person to fly a jet in the United States (the Bell XP-59A), tells a Buffalo IAS meeting that prosperity has paradoxically impeded the U.S. missile program by encouraging pursuit of perfection over pragmatic interim solutions.
Maj Charles Yeager and aviatrix Jacqueline Cochrane speak to nearly 500 guests at the Aero Club of Buffalo’s 50th anniversary of powered flight celebration. Lawrence Bell introduces both pilots. Yeager flew to Buffalo himself in an F-80 Shooting Star.
The section is now the Niagara Frontier Section of the IAS rather than the Buffalo Chapter. RADM (ret) John D. Moss addresses the membership.
ARS President Andrew G. Haley speaks at the first official dinner meeting of the Niagara Frontier Section of the American Rocket Society. Directors include 33-year-old Bell engineer David Feld, who ten years later will be Bell’s program manager for the Lunar Module Ascent Engine.
At a joint IAS-ARS meeting, Dr. Walter Dornberger suggests that with adequate funding it would be possible to build two-stage hypersonic airliners capable of crossing the country in just over an hour.
ARS President Richard W. Porter speaks to the Niagara Frontier Section. The head table includes Willis Sprattling Jr., John H. Van Lonkhuyzen of Bell Aircraft, and other section officers.
Charles Draper, MIT professor whose instrumentation laboratory later became the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, speaks on “Flight Controls.”
The National Fall Meeting of the American Rocket Society is hosted by the Niagara Frontier Section in Buffalo. General Chairman is Bell engineer Harry Ferullo. Keynote speaker is Clifford C. Furnas, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Development. The luncheon speaker is LtCol Frank “Pete” Everest, then the world’s fastest human at Mach 2.87 in the Bell X-2 — a record broken the very next day when Capt Mel Apt reached Mach 3.2 before losing his life in the same aircraft.
Lawrence Dale Bell, whose company and employees constituted much of the mass of the Niagara Frontier IAS and ARS sections, dies at age 62.