If the airplane was born with the Wright brothers' first flight in Kitty Hawk, N.C., it grew to maturity one state away in Virginia -- at what is now NASA's Langley Research Center.
Widely known for its role in the development of spacecraft as well as airplanes, Langley opened in 1917 as the first national aeronautics laboratory. In an era of wood-and-cloth planes that in many details still resembled the 1903 Wright Flyer, researchers at Langley led the way in transforming them into today's fast, safe and reliable aircraft.
"You're talking about a place that was the very first civilian aeronautical research laboratory in the country," said James Hansen, an Auburn University history professor and author of two books about Langley. "A lot of the basic questions about how to improve airplanes hadn't been asked yet, let alone answered."
The site chosen for the lab by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was a then-remote spot near the Chesapeake Bay described by one person working there as "nature's cesspool with the muddiest mud, the weediest weeds and the most ferocious mosquitoes."
Although that description was part of a memo Langley officials wrote in 1919 seeking to move closer to Washington, Hansen believes Congress' refusal to allow the relocation contributed to the creativity of the work done there.
He gives Langley much credit for the research, development and testing during the 1920s and 1930s that resulted in what was essentially a modern airplane by the beginning of World War II.
Through the work at Langley, the airplane evolved from a biplane to monoplane, became streamlined, adopted retractable landing gear and refined flight-control components.
By the mid-1930s, the research led to the Douglas DC-3 passenger plane and the start of the airline industry.
The work at Langley was done by testing models and full-size planes in wind tunnels which, because they needed so much electricity, Hansen said, were largely responsible for development of electric power service on the Virginia Peninsula.
The federal commitment to perfecting the airplane kept the United States ahead of other countries, and Hansen said it's arguable that Langley's contributions gave the United States victory in the Second World War.
"It's not a straight line of saying if you don't have Langley, you don't win World War II, but it's not out of the question," Hansen said.
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics opened additional laboratories during that war, and Langley became part of an even larger agency with the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958.
Langley became best-known for its roles in space programs starting with Mercury in the 1960s to the international space station and missions to Mars. But it has continued to devote a large part of its manpower and energy to aeronautical research.
In the early post-war period, Langley research tackled design changes required by planes breaking the sound barrier and a little later developed the variable-sweep wing concept still in use in some fighter jets.
Research at Langley is currently about equally divided between space and aeronautics, said Kathy Barnstorff, a Langley spokeswoman.
While some of that research is closely related to spaceflight, much of it aims at continuing to enhance the safety and efficiency of airplane flight, and even to seek breakthroughs in air travel.
For instance, some researchers are involved in development of "highway in the sky" air-control systems that could one day allow people to pilot their own planes between smaller airports almost as easily as they now drive on freeways.
Other research deals with better weather forecasting for pilots and development of "synthetic vision" systems that let pilots see an image of what's outside regardless of weather conditions.
Under a project that aims to reduce the rate of fatal airplane accidents by 80 percent before 2008, researchers are developing systems to predict turbulence and help pilots avoid getting caught in the tornadolike vortex that develops in the wake of other airplanes.
The proportion of research devoted to aeronautics at Langley has diminished over the past decade, Barnstorff said, partly because of cuts in the federal budget and partly because NASA is taking pains to avoid doing research that is also being conducted by private industry.
Hansen said he believes the government would be mistaken to think that airplanes are "mature" machines for which all the breakthrough developments are in the past. Langley needs to maintain its commitment to exploring new frontiers in aeronautical design, he said.
"We're cheating ourselves if we don't continue a strong commitment to basic research and development," Hansen said. "We need to get smarter."
Andrew Petkofsky is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
