controlled by a central body instead of the more conventional method of manipulating the external walls of the nozzle. This type of nozzle has been found to provide both excellent performance and a high degree of mechanical simplification over conventional nozzles. And as serendipity would have it in research, we have also found the plug nozzle to be significantly quieter than the more conventional typesof obvious import to civil applications.

On the subject of engine noise, I am able to report that our quiet engine program is progressing very nicely and on schedule-actually, a little ahead of the schedule laid down 2 years ago. An integral part of this overall program are tests of several full-scale fans on the noise test stand at Lewis. From these tests, we have learned many things about the interrelationships among noise, aerodynamic performance, and structural integrity that were unknown a year ago. While we still have 6 months to go before running the complete experimental engine at our contractor's test site, data so far indicate that we may expect to better our original noise goals.

To cite one more example of recent progress in propulsion research, I note the discovery of how the use of slots or grooves in the inner wall of the casing of a compressor can appreciably improve the stall margin of the engine. All engines, whether in civil or military aircraft, are plagued by compressor stall if they are pushed too hard or designed too close to the edge. On the other hand, designing to avoid stall degrades performance and adds complexity to the control. This discovery of how to improve the stall characteristics of an engine was only a few months old when it was incorporated by the General Electric Co. in the design of their F-101 engine for the B-1 airplane.

Underlying and supporting all of this applied research and technical advancement, in ways that are subtle and difficult to trace, is our basic research in many fields. Understanding the processes of fluid flow and heat transfer does not create a new aerodynamic shape for a wing but as a dimension of intimate experience and thought that provides both quality and validity to the applied or practical contributions. Research into solid state physics-understanding how fields and elemental particles interact-contributes to the intellectual guidance of metallurgical research which creates new alloys and, in turn, stronger and lighter turbine blades. It is all of a piece. For this reason, we have broadened the base and scope of our basic research to avoid its organizational compartmentalization and to insure its dynamic interaction in the total process of technical advancements. To further assure that this component of our work-the basic research-does not become lost under the pressures of the projects or budgets, we have created a highlevel Research Council to continuously establish needs, review plans, monitor basic research in progress across the entire program, and provide high-level advice and counsel to the Associate Administrator for Advanced Research and Technology. While this is a new and complex task, we have every reason, and are determined, to make it a successful

one.

These are but a few of many noteworthy advancements in aircraft propulsion which should give us confidence in the future. Mitigating against such easy confidence, however, are many new problems and requirements not present a few years ago, particularly in the field of civil aviation. We are, of course, hard at work on the problems of

engine noise, not only with our quiet engine program for conventional aircraft but also on blown-flap and augmentor-wing types of STOL aircraft and on the exhaust jet noise of supersonic aircraft. Because of the large amount of installed thrust in a STOL airplane and the proximity that such an airplane must operate to its urban neighbors, the noise problem is far more severe than with conventional aircraft. Data are simply not available today to show how we are to meet the goal of 95 EPNdb at 500-foot sideline distance. While I am confident such a goal will be met, much remains to be done to discover how.

The matter of engine smoke is, as you know, technically in hand for current types of engines. The higher pressures and temperatures of future engines will, however, tend to increase the severity of this pollution problem. Continuing combustion research is therefore directed not only at combustion efficiency, pressure drop, and endurance but now includes the additional objectives of minimizing the smoke, CO, NO, and unburned hydrocarbons in the exhaust products. And there's hope. We have found, for example, that the faster reaction rates that were achieved in our research to obtain shorter and more compact combustors also serves to reduce NO emissions some sixfold below current designs.

As I view the years ahead, I am impressed and stimulated by the new technical challenges in the field of propulsion for civil aircraft. An effective STOL airplane, so important to our total transportation system, embodies challenges unsurpassed by past experience. An engine for this type of civil airplane must be quieter than any yet produced, must be lighter in weight because of the large installed thrust, must embody safe engine-out features, is intricately integrated with the rest of the airplane, must embody sophisticated control of thrust direction for proper takeoff and landing operations and, if that were not enough, must be able to make a profit for the operator.

I am, therefore, not satisfied with much of our current technology including the present status of high-work turbines, the reliability of composite materials, our knowledge of augmentor-wing noise and the exhaust emissions of large engines at idle conditions.

While these are, indeed, stimulating technical challenges, some of the concerns I voiced before this subcommittee a year ago are still with us. I noted at the time the increasing divergence of military and civil requirements and the need to give special attention to both. That, I believe, is being done. I also highlighted the difficult problem of bridging the gap between research and the development of operational hardware. One effective way of closing this gap is the timely addition of what is generally, if inaccurately, designated as a "proof-of-concept" project. The new initiative of the STOL experimental airplane in the coming fiscal year that was outlined by Mr. Roy Jackson can go far in closing this gap for this particular type of aircraft.

I also expressed a concern last year about our research facilities. Our present research plant is getting old and new elements need to be added that are aimed at the future. I, therefore, applaud the inclusion in our current budget of funds for the updating of the 40- by 80-foot tunnel at the Ames Research Center and hope that this signals a return to the attention such aeronautical facilities received in earlier decades.

But, at bottom, my greatest hope for the future, and my largest present concern, centers on the people of our research centers--the 5,000 skilled, dedicated, and experienced men and women currently engaged in aeronautical research for NASA. This is a national asset of large importance that must be diligently tended. I was disturbed last year with the lack of youth at our centers and I am still disturbed. This need to inject a significent element of youth into our research centers, with all of the enthusiasm, spirit, and modern education they can bring to the job, remains intractable. Under shrinking personnel ceilings and present regulations, only a very weak attack on this problem has been possible. My only hope is that we may yet experience, for the first time in many years, a stable level of complement so that at least the normal attrition of staff may be used to bring youth in instead of being a means to reach ever lower complement levels.

In summary, I am grateful for the support of this subcommittee to the programs of OART through the years, and can assure you that we are working hard to merit this support. We are, for the most part, working on the important problems; relationships among centers and among agencies of our Government are truly excellent; our work force is solidly in place and going about their job in a businesslike manner; and we're busy as never before. While the future does confront us with both problems and uncertainties of large dimension, there is much about American aviation to justify a sense of pride and much about current aeronautical research to enable us to face this future with confidence.

Thank you.

Mr. HECHLER. Thank you, Mr. Lundin.

Mr. Jackson, does this complete the series of prepared statements that you are presenting to the committee?

Mr. JACKSON. Yes.

Mr. HECHLER. You will find that this committee, unlike some committees of Congress, is not looking to where they can cut this program but particularly in the aeronautics field we are looking for ways in which we can strengthen this program and ask why you aren't doing more than you propose to do. I think this sentiment is shared by people on both sides of the aisle on this subcommittee.

Mr. Armstrong, do you have anything to add of an informal nature to these presentations?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. No. It is particularly satisfying to have people from the Centers who are really doing the work share their views with the committee.

Mr. HECHLER. Dr. Mark alluded to the old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and it has always puzzled me and I raised this question many times, why isn't it possible in NAS to recapture some of the old spirit, morale, and national emphasis on aeronautics which NACA had? Or what can be done in order to recapture that and build on it?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. We endorse that view and I believe that the people here assembled today voice unanimous consent and agreement.

Mr. HECHLER. Now it puzzles me, Mr. Jackson and associates, that we have made so many mistakes in the early sixties and mid-sixties in the deemphasis of aeronautics that we have a lot of catching up to do. There is one area which several of you gentlemen mentioned,

namely the recruitment of young people which alarms me by the lack of progress. How can you say, Mr. Cortright, as you have, that we have been forced to cancel all hiring of new graduates and then in the same breath say how necessary it is to recruit young people? Yet when this committee and the Congress last year voted additional authorizations for the hiring of new graduates to go into the aeronautics field, NASA turned around and didn't use the money and washed it out. What is wrong? The rhetoric is very high-blown, but when we give you the authority to do it, nothing is done.

Mr. JACKSON. Mr. Chairman, would you like Mr. Cortright to comment first in respect to your question?

Mr. HECHLER. Yes.

Mr. CORTRIGHT. I think it is a good question. It will take me just a minute to say what I want to say on it, sir.

When I talked with you last, we saw eye to eye on the need for young people. I put together a total new recruiting program at Langley in which I recruit myself every year. All my senior directors go out and recruit a job that is normally done by much younger men. The idea was to bring us face to face with the student and to begin to understand the problems at the universities and with the students and also to tell that what our views on their opportunities were. This was highly successful. Last year when we hired 50 young men, we had the best crop with the highest grade point averages that we have had in 15 years.

Now, why have I not hired any this year? The reason is I am faced with a reduction of staff of 200. A reduction in force using Civil Service procedures is such that it is not possible for me to pick the 200 lowest performers at the Center. You are well aware of the limitations and I am doing what I can do to get a little more flexibility in the hands of the lab director so that when we have to cut back, we can strengthen, not weaken the Center. With the constraints we have today, I would be cutting people who don't deserve to be fired out of the agency. Every new man we would hire could be displacing a high performer and I felt it wasn't ethical to do that. I feel the decision is debatable, but that is the way I arrived at the decision, very unhappily.

Mr. HECHLER. You are just telling the committee you can't get there from here. We are trying to accomplish something along with you. Do you mean to indicate that the processes of Government cannot be utilized for what we all recognize is a necessary goal?

Mr. CORTRIGHT. No, sir; I have two optimistic notes to throw in, if I may. We have just signed an agreement with the Thomas Nelson Community College whereby they will train apprentices for us. At the end of a 3-year period in which the trainees take classroom work at Thomas Nelson and on-the-job training at Langley, they would be eligible to replace our technicians as they retire or leave for other reasons. I hope to stop the leakage away of skilled technicians.

On the engineers, once we get through this year's reduction in force, we will be back campaigning next year and start the buildup again. With regard to your specific request of last year, we have a program in which we have obligated $435,000 so far. We will shortly have 20 students, 14 of them from George Washington and five or six from Old Dominion University, working at the laboratory and taking grad

uate education in aeronautics which is in direct response to your program.

Mr. HECHLER. This is very good. The Congress voted last year 1.4 million a year for 3 years and how much is the figure that is put into the current budget that you are now submitting for the purpose under R. & P.M. for this type of stimulus?

Mr. JACKSON. Mr. Chairman, we have a plan, but before I describe it, you surprise me with your statement of 1.4 million a year. I believe it was 1.4 million over a period of 3 years.

Mr. WELLS. It was 1.4 million to begin with fiscal year 1971 with the intent that this was setting in motion a program that would continue at this level. It was obviously not authorized for 1972 as yet, but this was the intent to institute a program at a certain level which will continue.

Mr. JACKSON. I will ask Mr. Kilgore, who is a Deputy for Management, to describe our plan for you. I might say, though, while the $1.4 million did pass with the authorization bill, it did not pass with the appropriation bill. We fully respect your desire. It is the same desire we have. We do have a plan. It is underway.

Mr. HECHLER. I might advise also when we got into the conference committee last year and were confronting a number of the individuals in the other body that wanted to cut back a lot of items, it was with great ease that I was able to persuade them to increase this item. We made a convincing case for the necessity of increasing authorization to employ young aeronautical engineers and research specialists. We made the case so effectively that we got strong support for it from the Senate conferees.

Mr. JACKSON. I think that is our good fortune.

Mr. HECHLER. Everybody recognizes the need. It is very frustrating that we can't seem to get very far with accomplishing it, despite the fact Congress and NASA both want to proceed.

Mr. JACKSON. In regard to the total complement, the decision was made by the Administration that there shall be a net reduction in force within NASA, so we have to face that reduction and it has been described here how we are going about it-we think we are doing it in a way that is in the best interest of the total program, but we certainly completely recognize that it doesn't satisfy the need for bringing in the younger trained engineers and scientists.

Mr. HECHLER. I don't want to impose on your time or Mr. Kilgore's by going through material we already have. I would like to observe that I think it is one-third what we voted last year, is that correct?

Mr. KILGORE. I might be able to clear this up. We took very seriously the suggestion last year on the 1.4 million for fiscal year 1971. We have a very firm program underway at the present time for a total of $1.4 million.

Mr. HECHLER. Over 3 years?

Mr. KILGORE. It was spread over 3 years so that the students will have 1 year in residence at our research centers. The only way to complete the program with a graduate student was to spread it over his 3-year graduate career.

Mr. HECHLER. I understand. Why don't you make it 4.2 then ?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. If we have $1.4 million appropriated for this purpose in fiscal year 1972, we can expand. We put the 1.4 in as you said