ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, August 21, 1996             TAG: 9608210021
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-4  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: HAMPTON
SOURCE: Associated Press| 

LANGLEY WIND TUNNEL TO BLOW AGAIN

The oldest wind tunnel at the NASA Langley Research Center is coming out of retirement.

NASA agreed to let Old Dominion University conduct research inside its 30-by-60-foot wind tunnel, a massive structure overlooking the Back River at Langley Air Force Base. NASA closed the 65-year-old tunnel last fall as a money-saving measure.

The university hopes to use the tunnel for such research as aerodynamic tests on automobiles, trucks and train cars, said Bob Ash, ODU's associate vice president for Research, Economic Development and Graduate Studies.

Old Dominion has had a small wind tunnel on its Norfolk campus for 30 years, Ash said, but having full-time access to the Langley tunnel could help the university attract students and prestige.

``We will have the largest wind tunnel of any university in the world,'' he said. ``Hopefully, it will be more than just a hood ornament.''

NASA agreed last month to lease the tunnel to the university until Oct. 30, so students and faculty could test a model of a nose cone for an F-15 fighter. The university is conducting the tests for the Air Force and McDonnell Douglas, Ash said.

Meanwhile, NASA and Old Dominion hope to sign a long-term lease by November, said NASA Langley spokesman Michael Finneran. No money will change hands between NASA and the school, though the university must pay the costs of running the wind tunnel, Finneran said.

When it closed last October, the wind tunnel was the oldest operating at Langley. It opened in May 1931 and remained the world's largest until 1945.

The first airplane tested in the tunnel was a Navy biplane; the last was a model of the Navy's F/A-18 Hornet fighter-bomber.

In between, it was used to test hundreds of aircraft and models, as well as a submarine and the nation's first spacecraft, the Mercury capsule. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1985.

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