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Eastman Jacobs

Eastman N. Jacobs (1902–1987) was a leading aerodynamicist who worked for NACA's Langley Research Center from the 1920s to the 1940s. He was responsible for advancing many fields in aerodynamics, dealing particularly with wind tunnels, airfoils, turbulence, boundary layers, and Schlieren photography.

Biography

Eastman Jacobs joined NACA in 1925 after earning a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He quickly became one of the leading scientists at the Langley Research Center due to his work with optimizing airfoils using a variable density wind tunnel that could operate with high Reynolds numbers. He was also officially the head of the Variable Density Wind Tunnel Division from 1928-1939. He and his colleagues were able to significantly reduce the turbulence in the wind tunnel, which led to a better understanding of boundary development around airfoil sections. A better knowledge of boundary layer growth then led to an optimization scheme for low-drag laminar flow airfoils. This optimization scheme produced the NACA 4-digit airfoils that led to faster aircraft like the P-51 Mustang in World War II. In 1937, he received the Sylvanus Albert Reed Award for his improvement of airfoils.

By the 1930s, Jacobs became interested in high-speed wind tunnels, and helped to build one of the first in the United States. He became the first person to observe a shock wave propagating over an airfoil using Schlieren photography. In 1935, he was invited to the now famous fifth Volta conference on aerodynamics titled "High Velocities in Aviation". There, he gave a presentation on high-speed wind tunnels and his Schlieren images which exposed the technology to the rest of the world.

In 1933, Jacobs became quite possibly the first person to fly in the eye of a Hurricane. While at Norfolk Virginia, Jacobs tied his Pitcairn airplane into the wind to prevent damage and took shelter while the eye approached. When the eye crossed over, Jacobs took off and flew inside the eye as the storm decreased in power as it traveled inland. He then landed and tied the plane down facing the opposite direction, but into the now reversed direction of wind. This was done, in his words, "to save the airplane.There were no witnesses to the act, and the credit for the first person to fly in the eye of a hurricane went to Joseph Duckworth some 10 years later.

Later in his career, he delved into using jet/atomic hybrid propulsion for aircraft. After discovering advancements in the field of jet power were not being shared by NACA, he retired at an early age of 42 in 1944.

After retiring, Jacobs settled down on a Malibu ranch with his mother, Alice Nixon Jacobs. He would occupy his time building airplanes, steam engines, boats and telescopes. He would later open a restaurant on the coast of Malibu at the Los Angeles/Ventura County Line, currently known as Neptune's Net.

Personal life

Jacobs married Ivy Allison Willson in 1922. They had three children, Phyllis, Eastman ("Bud") Jr., and Dorothy. He remarried Melba Shackelford in 1959 and has two children, John and Theodore ("Ted"). He also had two other daughters, Mary and Doris (Julie) with Celia Epstein, a notable mathematician for the US government.