How is it possible that a senior aerodynamicist at NASA in February 1999 was not aware of Vincent Burnelli and his superior lifting body principle of design? Surely, Mr. Wood and his colleagues graduated from distinguished Universities in order to hold high positions at NASA, but they clearly were never taught about Burnelli or his principle of design. Their lack of knowledge on this subject is particularly shocking, since all the wind-tunnel tests [752K PDF] conducted both by New York University and by NACA during the 1930s and 1940s on Burnelli aircraft are in the NASA archives at Langley Field (where Mr. Wood works).

Last fall, we sent out an email entitled SKEPTIC which was sent in six parts. The SKEPTIC email series dealt with a Boeing engineer. It was evident from his statements that he, too, had never learned of Burnelli in school or at Boeing (despite the fact that Boeing was then deeply involved with Burnelli's 1940s technology in the much touted Boeing/NASA BWB [Blended Wing Body]).

It is an outrage that people, such as Mr. Wood and the Boeing engineer, were not only maleducated but, as in Mr. Wood's case, prevented from carrying out his research and advising the public of his findings, resulting in "many re-creation activities within the Industry and the waste of large amounts of tax dollars," as Mr. Wood stated in his email of February 24, 1999.

This clearly shows that government, industry, and, incredibly, universities have all worked simultaneously since 1941 to prevent the timely evolution of safer, more efficient aircraft at an unacceptable cost to taxpayers and the flying public, both in lives and in money.