This collection, compiled by J. Gorden Vaeth, consists of documents, reports, news clippings, scrapbooks, publications, and photographs relating to rigid and non-rigid airships worldwide.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of documents, reports, news clippings, scrapbooks, publications, and photographs relating to rigid and non-rigid airships worldwide, including the USS Shenandoah; USS Akron; USS Macon; USS Los Angeles; Schütte-Lanz; R-23; TC-14: and the Zeppelins Hindenburg and Bodensee. It was compiled by J. Gordon Vaeth for personal and research reasons.
Arrangement:
Collection is arranged by type of material. Most publications are housed individually in folders.
Biographical / Historical:
J. Gordon Vaeth (1921-2012) was an accomplished author and historian on the subject of airships. He was known as the 'leader of the airship underground' during his earlier days with the Naval Airship Program at the start of World War II. During his active duty in the U. S. Navy (1942-1946), he was assigned to Commander Airship Patrol Group One, later Commander Fleet, Airships, Atlantic, then to Naval Air Station Lakehurst. He entered civilian life in 1947, continuing to work with programs relating to airships, including at the Office of Naval Research, the Helios Project, and on Skyhook. Vaeth held many positions for the federal government and was the director of systems engineering for the National Environmental Satellite Service at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at the time of his retirement. Vaeth was a frequent lecturer, including appearances in television documentaries, as well as the author of numerous professional articles and books.
General:
Additional materials: Mr. Vaeth also donated a number of books and volumes of "The Airship Quarterly" which are housed in National Air and Space Museum Branch Library.
Provenance:
J. Gordon Vaeth, Gift, 1993, NASM.1994.0011
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests
United States. Office of Naval Research Search this
Extent:
0.2 Cubic feet (1 slim letter document box)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Slides (35mm transparencies)
Date:
1947-1951
Summary:
Recognition slides were one of the methods used in the 1940s and 1950s to train service personnel in the identification of aircraft types, as well as ship types. This collection consists of 102 glass-mounted black and white 35 mm recognition training slides with related documents issued by the Office of Naval Research Special Devices Center in Port Washington, New York.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of 102 glass-mounted black and white 35 mm recognition training slides with related documents. The material was issued by the Office of Naval Research Special Devices Center in Port Washington, New York, as "Device 5-QQ-2a, November 1951 Slide Supplement, to Devices 5-QQ-1, and 5-QQ-2 Recognition Slide Kits." Included with the unused replacement slide set is a booklet of perforated gummed stickers and a form in the shape of a mailing card. The user was expected to remove each sticker from the booklet, wet the back of the sticker to activate the gummed adhesive, then place the sticker over the outdated image in the basic recognition training set's printed material. Instructions on the sticker booklet note that 'Slides having the prefix "x" are replacements for obsolete slides in the basic kits. Obsolete slides should be removed and destroyed.' Pages of gummed paper stickers in the booklet are separated by glassine pages; the gummed side of the stickers have adhered to the glassine. The last page of stickers is detached from the booklet and has become adhered to one side of the "Special Devices Maintenance Report" form; the two stickers originally at the right side of the page appear to have been torn off and were not received as part of the donation. While the contents are officially listed as "100 Recognition Slides" the collection was received with 102 slides; several slides are duplicates.
Arrangement:
Materials are grouped by format. Slides are arranged in numerical order.
Biographical / Historical:
In a combat situation, the ability to identify an aircraft quickly and accurately as friend or foe is of paramount importance. In World War I, national insignia were used for the first time to identify military aircraft used by the combatants. These insignia could be hard to spot when an aircraft in flight was seen silhouetted against a bright sky, so visual aircraft recognition training materials began to emphasize the shape of an aircraft as seen from different angles. The WEFT system, based on study of the shapes and locations of an aircraft's Wings, Engines, Fuselage, and Tail, was developed by the British just prior to and during World War II and made extensive use of three-view (bottom, front, side) silhouettes of aircraft. The WEFT system of recognition training was adopted by the US Navy and the US Army Air Corps in 1941. In 1942, a different approach to training was developed by Samuel Renshaw of Ohio State University; Renshaw's concept presented students with a brief "flash" view of an aircraft on a screen, forcing them to concentrate on the overall shape of the aircraft (whole image) rather than studying individual components (image analysis). Still picture film slides could be used both for initial identification training based on the WEFT system as well as for Renshaw-style "flash" viewing to improve recognition speed. Film slides created specifically for recognition training were typically produced with a printed cardboard frame identifying the subject of the slide sandwiched between thin glass sheets designed to both protect the film image from repeated handling and from the intense heat produced by the incandescent light sources used in slide projectors. The Office of Naval Research Special Devices Center in Port Washington, New York, produced several slide-based recognition training devices for the US military during the Cold War period following World War II.
Provenance:
Mark Kahn, gift, 2023, NASM.2023.0022
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
United States. Office of Naval Research Search this
Container:
Box 1, Folder 1
Type:
Archival materials
Text
Collection Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Collection Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Aircraft Recognition Slides [Kahn], Acc. NASM.2023.0022, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
35 mm Glass-Mounted Aircraft Recognition Slides (1 of 2)
Collection Creator:
United States. Office of Naval Research Search this
Container:
Box 1, Folder 2
Type:
Archival materials
Slides
Collection Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Collection Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Aircraft Recognition Slides [Kahn], Acc. NASM.2023.0022, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
35 mm Glass-Mounted Aircraft Recognition Slides (2 of 2)
Collection Creator:
United States. Office of Naval Research Search this
Container:
Box 1, Folder 3
Type:
Archival materials
Slides
Collection Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Collection Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Aircraft Recognition Slides [Kahn], Acc. NASM.2023.0022, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
United States. Office of Naval Research Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Collection Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Aircraft Recognition Slides [Kahn], Acc. NASM.2023.0022, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Singer, S. Fred (Siegfried Fred), 1924- Search this
Extent:
54.5 Cubic feet ((50 records center boxes))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Publications
Photographs
Drawings
Financial records
Notes
Correspondence
Place:
Outer space -- Exploration -- United States
Outer space -- Exploration
Date:
1953-1989
bulk 1960-1980
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of Singer's personal papers. The material consists of correspondence and research files, as well as financial records. The collection covers Singer's career beginning with his tenure at Maryland and continued through his retirement in 1989.
Biographical / Historical:
Dr. Siegfried Fred Singer (1924- ) is a professor, physicist, and administrator. Singer emigrated to the United States from Vienna in 1940 (naturalized 1944) and attended Ohio State University (BEE 1943; D.Sc. (honorary) 1970) and Princeton (AM 1944, Ph.D. (physics) 1948). He taught briefly as a doctoral candidate at Princeton (1943-44) before joining the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory as a physicist (1946-50). He acted as the Office of Naval Research Scientific Liaison Officer at the US Embassy in London (1950-53), then joined the faculty of the University of Maryland (assoc. professor, physics 1953-59; professor 1959-62). He continued to alternate between public and academic positions, working at the National Weather Satellite Center, Department of Commerce (Director, 1962-64); School of Environmental and Planetary Science, University of Miami (Dean, 1964-67); Department of the Interior (Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water Quality and Research, 1967-70); University of Virginia (Professor, Environmental Science, 1971-87); and the Department of Transportation (Chief Scientist, 1987-89). Singer authored a number of papers and articles on astrophysics, space exploration, and environmental issues and was involved in formulating public policies on these topics.
General:
NASMrev
Provenance:
S. Fred Singer, gift, 1989, 1989-0130, unknown
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests
No access restrictions Many of SIA's holdings are located off-site, and advance notice is recommended to consult a collection. Please email the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu
Molecular biophysics proceedings of an international summer school held in Squaw Valley, California, August 17-28, 1964 edited by Bernard Pullman and Mitchel Weissbluth
Estuarine transport processes : symposium / sponsored by Office of Naval Research, Geography Programs, Sea Grant, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, University of South Carolina ; edited by Björn Kjerfve
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