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Old 5th May 2019, 07:59
HypersonicAero HypersonicAero is offline
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Air Technical Index documents

I'm a researcher in aerodynamics. I'm been spending some time doing a few detailed literature searches on select topics in aerodynamics, including wind tunnel testing of aerodynamic models. My searches have turned up a ton of wind tunnel data generated by the Germans during World War 2. To that end, I'm looking for quite a few original German aeronautics reports.

Many of the documents that I'm looking for are in NASM's captured document collection, but quite a few are not. These documents tend to have ATI numbers that identify them as part of the Air Technical Index collection of documents. This collection appears to consist of both captured German documents and original research done in the US. ATI documents were distributed by the predecessor to the US DoD's Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). They predate the "AD" document series that they use to distribute documents now.

Does anyone know how to find ATI documents in libraries or archives? I haven't been able to find any way to reliably track down a given ATI document once I have its associated ATI number. It's straightforward to find "AD" documents at most university libraries, for example, but all ATI documents appear to be dead ends. I'd appreciate any tips or comments.
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Old 5th May 2019, 22:16
edwest2 edwest2 is offline
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Re: Air Technical Index documents

I also research aerodynamics, especially from captured German documents and reports that were written by German authors right after the war. The DTIC still exists.


https://discover.dtic.mil/contact-us/


Captured documents were translated and distributed to US aircraft companies right after the war. As far as I can tell, there has been little published about the activities going on at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio during the war and immediately after. They examined captured German aircraft through their T3 Engineering department. Intelligence was collected by T2 Intelligence. Captured German aircraft were given FE or Foreign Equipment numbers, later changed to T2 numbers, with both being visible in photographs.

Last edited by edwest2; 6th May 2019 at 01:41.
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Old 6th May 2019, 07:39
HypersonicAero HypersonicAero is offline
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Re: Air Technical Index documents

Hi Ed! I appreciate the info. What Wright Field was doing just after the war was always an enigma to me, though I have to admit that I haven't found much if anything describing their activities. All I know is that a lot of their documents are at NASM now.

As far as I know, DTIC does have the ATI documents in microfilm. The issue is that the collection is old and deteriorating. DTIC is reluctant to release them for that reason. That's why I'm interested in trying to find them through other means. I was hoping that other members of this forum would have some experience tracking them down and could share their methods.

I was looking deeper into these forums and ran into an old post by Richard Eger:

http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showpo...14&postcount=2

Mr. Eger refers to an index he was compiling that could help locate ATI documents (among other series). This could help me track down the captured documents I'm looking for. However, I've learned that Mr. Eger has sadly passed away. Does anyone know what happened to Mr. Eger's index or if his work was continued by someone else? This kind of index must have taken a lot of work and organization to pull off, because I can only find bits and pieces of information about these document series. Again, I really appreciate everyone's help and expertise here.
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Old 6th May 2019, 18:18
edwest2 edwest2 is offline
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Re: Air Technical Index documents

Richard Eger ran a website called the Luftwaffe Archives Group at lwag.org. That site is no longer available. Steve Coates posted the following here: His physical collection went to the Museum of Flight in Seattle as far as I am aware.
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Old 6th May 2019, 22:49
Tony Kambic Tony Kambic is offline
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Re: Air Technical Index documents

I have a copy of a spreadsheet but no room to upload. Not sure if this is what you seek. description:

ADI (k) Microfilm Index
National Air and Space Museum-Garber Archives

NOTE: This compilation of ADI(k) was made as a quick guide to the type and quantity of material contained on the Navy ADI(k) reels held by NASM archives at Paul Garber facility. The German documents were filmed in Paris during 1945. A quick scan was made to identify the subject matter. Items are not listed by title, most items related to equipment are identified by the German type number. Each item number may contain several documents.
Note that some items are skipped because during the rapid visual scanning, dividers between items were difficult to locate. Also note that the items are not always in sequence. Most of the scanning was done by myself with help from Richard Eger. Thanks to all NASM archive personnel for their help and espcially Larry Wilson.
William A. Medcalf "Artie Bob" 12/20/04
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Old 6th May 2019, 23:46
edwest2 edwest2 is offline
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Re: Air Technical Index documents

Looking into this further, I found the following:


Air Technical Information/Index Documents accession numbers start at ATI- 000 001 and go up to 210 999. So whatever you have found should fit somewhere in this range. The series was announced in 1947 and continued till 1953. I recommend checking with the Library of Congress since one source does mention it.
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Old 7th May 2019, 07:55
HypersonicAero HypersonicAero is offline
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Re: Air Technical Index documents

Hi Tony! The ADI (k) microfilm index appears to be online. Thank you for pointing this out. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be related to the ATI document series but it could be useful for someone else's research.

I appreciate the links and additional info, Ed. Richard Eger's webpage was partially archived by the Internet Archive fortunately, but I don't see anything related to this potential ATI index, I'm afraid. I'll check with the Library of Congress. It appears that they may have some more information based on their technical reports and standards web page. Thanks!
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Old 8th May 2019, 03:05
ArtieBob ArtieBob is offline
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Re: Air Technical Index documents

Captured German Documents in the USA
050719

Hope that this may be of some help with the ATI documents, although it is not just about those. My visits to the USAF
Museum began in 1953 and continued for about the next 50 years. When going through the files, the index to
the captured document microfilms was one of the items encountered. The index was about 5000 pages, IIRC 10 or 12
entries per page, printed from IBM punch cards. Each entry consisted of the name of the document in German and English,
author. date, no. of pages, a brief synopsis, descriptors for searching the files and the microfilm reel and frame no.
The documents were mostly German, but also some Japanese and Italian. The microfilms were not at the museum, having
already been transferred to the Smithsonian. Most, BUT NOT ALL of the original documents had also been returned to Germany
and appear to be at BAMA. The residue was at one time mostly at either: the USAFM archives or Smithsonian (now USA NASM).
The Smithsonian also received a 3x5 card index based on the microfim index.

During the first 20 years or so the USAFM archive operated as a lending library, and would loan original documents,
photos, etc. This was really a boon for researchers, especially in the days before copying machines. The down side
was some material had appreciable value and was stolen, eventually ending the loan system. I was fortunate to have
borrowed and copied the entire microfilm index as soon as low cost copying was available. Since I am not working
actively in that area, I gave the index away a few years ago, it is probably one of very few copies available.

So, my guess is about 50,000 of the captured 110,000 documents were microfilmed and indexed before return to Germany.
Working in the files it was pretty obvious there were a lot of documents that had not been microfilmed or indexed. Now
to the films; the numbering is complex, the sequence random, there are documents not where they are supposed to be
and documents on film, not indexed. My technique was to scan each reel completely and if there was significant content,
to make a crude reel index. In the 30 or so years of researching the films, probably went through about 1500 reels,
or about a million document pages. My primary interest was in Junkers, but if I saw something that seemed interest-
ing, I printed it. These items will hopefully get future posting on my Ju 88 website, which is several years behind
schedule.

Understand, when people make noise about using European sources that the provenance of a considerable amount of Luft-
waffe material includes its time in the USA and in addition, some material that has come here and never left.

This post has gotten pretty long so will stop here for tonight. If there is any interest in the USNavy film, US National
Archives holdings, AHRA, Paris, etc., I will continue this thread later.

Best Regards,

ArtieBob
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Old 8th May 2019, 10:44
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ouidjat ouidjat is offline
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Re: Air Technical Index documents

I recommand you to look in FRENCH archiv, especially in Ecole Supérieure de L'Aéronautique Archives aka Sup'Aéro ...
They have: Me262 Boundary layer studies ... and much more
Good hunt.
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Old 8th May 2019, 18:48
edwest2 edwest2 is offline
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Re: Air Technical Index documents

Yes, the French were testing advanced German aircraft until 1947 at least.
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