Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. - NACA Career

NACA Career

On graduation, Kraft accepted a job with the Chance Vought aircraft company in Connecticut. He had also sent an application to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), a government agency whose Langley Research Center was located in Hampton, Virginia; Kraft considered it to be too close to home, but applied as insurance. On arrival at Chance Vought he was told that he could not be inducted without his birth certificate, which he had not brought with him. Annoyed by the bureaucratic mindset of the company, he decided to accept the offer from NACA instead. In the 1940s, NACA was a research and development organization, devoted to cutting-edge aeronautical research. At the Langley Research Center, advanced wind tunnels were used to test new aircraft designs, and studies were taking place on new concepts such as the X-1 rocket plane. Kraft was assigned to the flight research division, where Gilruth was then head of research. His work with NACA included the development of an early example of gust alleviation system for an aircraft flying in turbulent air. This involved correcting for variations in the atmosphere by automatically deflecting the control surfaces. He also discovered that wingtip vortices, and not prop-wash, are responsible for most of the turbulence in the air that trails flying aircraft. This phenomenon was forgotten and later rediscovered independently.

While enjoying his work, Kraft found it increasingly stressful, especially since he did not consider himself to be a strong theoretician. In 1956, he was diagnosed with an ulcer and started to think about a change of career.