The Story of the Airborne Aero-Optics Laboratory

This paper tells the background leading to the realization that a flight-test program to study aero-optics was needed. The remaining part of the paper describes many of the tasks that had to be learned in order to actually develop the flight program known as the Airborne Aero-Optic Laboratory. In addition to the development of the laboratory aircraft some of the development of the specialized equipment and operational methods are described.