The Altitude Wind Tunnel (AWT) was the nation's only facility capable of studying full-scale aircraft engines under realistic flight conditions. It played a significant role in the development of the first US jet engines as well as technologies such as the variable-area nozzle and afterburner. The AWT's capabilities, however, were superseded by other tunnels by the late-1950s. The facility's inner components were then removed so that hardware for the nation's first manned space program, Project Mercury, could be tested in altitude conditions. In 1961 a portion of the tunnel was converted into one of the country's first large vacuum tanks and renamed the Space Power Chambers (SPC). The SPC was used extensively throughout the 1960s to test different aspects of the Centaur second-stage rocket.
This documentary traces the AWT's story from conception in pre-War Germany through its construction, life as a wind tunnel, repurposing for Mercury, and rebirth as the SPC for vacuum testing of Centaur electronics and shroud jettison systems, to its closure in the mid-1970s, and ultimate destruction in 2009. Abe SiIverstein's career, which paralleled much of the AWT's, is highlighted throughout. This video includes a wealth of newly discovered footage, animations demonstrating how the facilities worked, and 3-D imagery.
