Melvin N. Gough Papers (1919-71)

Ms87-057, 22.0 cu. ft.

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Introduction:

Melvin N. Gough was born in Washington, D. C., in 1906. He received a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 1926. In the same year he began a long career with the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (N.A.C.A.) in Hampton, Virginia. From 1926 to 1958, Gough was successively an engineer, a test pilot (he was commissioned as a naval aviator in 1929), Chief Test Pilot, and Chief of Flight Research at N.A.C.A.-Langley.

When the N.A.C.A. became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958, Gough transferred to Cape Canaveral, where he was Director of NASA Operations at the Atlantic Missile Range for two years. In 1960, he became Director of the Bureau of Safety for the Civil Aeronautics Board. From 1962 to 1964 he was Director of Aircraft Development of the Federal Aviation Agency, retiring from government service in 1964. He died on March 6, 1994.

Gough's professional organization memberships include the Society of Experimental Test Pilots (of which he was a Fellow) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (also a Fellow). He served on the Board of Governors of the Flight Safety Foundation and was a charter member of the Society of Air Safety Investigators. He received the Octave Chanute Award for Test Pilots from the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences in 1941 for "outstanding contributions in the field of aeronautics"; the Distinguished Service Award from the Flight Safety Foundation in 1956 for "distinguished service in achieving safer utilization of aircraft"; and the Flight Safety Foundation's Laura Taber Barbour Award in 1960 for championing "through unstinting personal activity the cause of flight safety." For his contributions to aeronautical history, Gough was elected to the Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame.

The Melvin N. Gough collection spans from 1919 to 1971 and includes a wide variety of materials reflecting Gough's career as a test pilot, N.A.C.A. administrator, and flight safety investigator. It is especially rich in materials from his years at Langley and equally rich on the topics of aviation safety and accident investigation procedures.

The papers are organized largely according to Gough's own filing system, and there is some degree of overlap in the contents of folders. Many of the folders include manuscript materials and other items such as magazine articles and newspaper clippings. The N.A.C.A. reports and other documents that are individually listed include manuscript annotations, correspondence, or other items that make them unique. Documents published before 1930 are also listed individually, whether they have manuscript items associated with them or not. Other N.A.C.A. reports and miscellaneous publications are arranged chronologically. N.A.C.A. reports are usually grouped by year; other publications are grouped by decade.

The arrangement of the collection is chronological, with all the files within a given year arranged alphabetically. Where the contents of folders span two or more years, they are subarranged by period, with all the entries for 1941-43 (for example) before the entries for 1941-44.

The Gough collection was donated to the Archives of American Aerospace Exploration in the Special Collections Department of the University Libraries of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1987. The collection was donated by Mr. and Mrs. Melvin N. Gough of Melbourne Beach, Florida. Processing of the collection was completed in July 1990 by Glenn L. McMullen.

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Contents list of the Melvin N. Gough Collection

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