NACA Research Memorandums

"Several dive paths were calculated for a C54 airplane starting from level flight at an altitude of 4000 feet and from an initial indicated airspeed of 200 miles per hour. The results show that, within the limits of the possible paths permitted by the evidence of the crash at Bainbridge, the speed of impact would be about 370 miles per hour and the time to crash would be between 12 1/2 and 15 1/2 seconds. Tail load calculations indicate that, with moderate negative acceleration of the airplane, the tail would fail near the end of the dive in a manner consistent in several important respects with the evidence" (p. 1)

Some Tests and Calculations Pertaining to the Dive Path and to Wing and Tail Loads in the Accident to Eastern Airlines C54B Airplane, NC-88814, Near Bainbridge, Maryland, May 30, 1947

Several dive paths were calculated for a C54 airplane starting from level flight at an altitude of 4000 feet and from an initial indicated airspeed of 200 miles per hour. The results show that, within the limits of the possible paths permitted by the evidence of the crash at Bainbridge, the speed of impact would be about 370 miles per hour and the time to crash would be between 12 1/2 and 15 1/2 seconds. Tail load calculations indicate that, with moderate negative acceleration of the airplane, the tail would fail near the end of the dive in a manner consistent in several important respects with the evidence. A number of tests were made of the elevator tab control system to determine whether the tab would move by an amount sufficient to have caused the observed dive if the stored energy in the tab control cable were suddenly released. The results of these tests indicated that the probable tab movement is such as to be capable of causing a dive similar to the one observed at Bainbridge

Social Darwinism in Anglophone Academic Journals: A Contribution to the History of the Term

This essay is a partial history of the term ‘Social Darwinism’. Using large electronic databases, it is shown that the use of the term in leading Anglophone academic journals was rare up to the 1940s. Citations of the term were generally disapproving of the racist or imperialist ideologies with which it was associated. Neither Herbert Spencer nor William Graham Sumner were described as Social Darwinists in this early literature. Talcott Parsons (1932, 1934, 1937) extended the meaning of the term to describe any extensive use of ideas from biology in the social sciences. Subsequently, Richard Hofstadter (1944) gave the use of the term a huge boost, in the context of a global anti-fascist war.Peer reviewe