Christening of the first Boeing 737 at the Boeing
corporate headquarters in Seattle, Washington.

This book is the story of a very unique airplane and the contributions it has made to the air transportation industry. NASA's Boeing 737100 Transport Systems Research Vehicle was the prototype 737, acquired by the Langley Research Center in 1973 to conduct research into advanced transport aircraft technologies. In the twenty years that followed, the airplane participated in more than twenty different research projects, evolving from a research tool for a specific NASA program into a national airborne research facility. It played a critical role in developing and gaining acceptance for numerous significant transport technologies, including "glass cockpits," airborne windshear detection systems, data link for air traffic control communications, the microwave landing system, and the satellitebased global positioning system (GPS). Because of its unique research equipment, which included a complete second cockpit in the cabin, the airplane also served as a magnet for joint NASAindustry research efforts as well as joint projects with other government agencies.

The first filght of this airplane took place on April 9, 1967, shown here in flight test at Seattle, Washington.

The chapters that follow offer more than a simple, biographical history of a single research plane, however. Since the airplane played a role in such a wide variety of research programs, its story also provides an enlightening study of the many factors that influence the selection, development, and application of new technologies. Contrary to popular myth, technology neither drives nor sells itself. Successfully transferring governmentsponsored research into operational systems or commercial products can be difficult, but NASA's use of the 737 showed that strategies such as cooperative research efforts and flight demonstration can have a significant impact on the acceptance of new procedures or technology.

Ever since 1915, the United States government has supported aeronautical research and technology because it was considered important to the welfare of the nation. Although the initial focus was on building and maintaining a strong air commerce system and national defense, increasing international competition in the aerospace market has added a new concern. Innovation, research and technological advancement are considered critical elements to the competitiveness of the U.S. aeronautics industry, which has become one of the few remaining fields in which the U.S. still has a positive balance of trade. As a result, maximizing the effectiveness of governmentsponsored research and the transfer of that information to users has become the topic of much discussion in recent years. The history of NASA's Boeing 737 Transport Systems Research Vehicle offers some valuable insights that can make future aeronautical research efforts more effective, which, in turn, can help the United States maintain that critical competitive edge.

The first two chapters of this book contain background information on the 737 airplane and the technology research and transfer process. Chapter One provides an overview of the role the U.S. government has played in researching aeronautical technology and the complex process involved in transferring that knowledge to industry or other users. Chapter Two covers the history of NASA's Boeing 737 airplane and the Langley Research Center program it was purchased to support. While these chapters do not focus on particular research projects that involved the airplane, they provide a historical and theoretical context that helps explain the challenges the Terminal Configured Vehicle (TCV)/Advanced Transport Operating Systems (ATOPS) program researchers faced and the significance of their accomplishments.

The next three chapters describe three of the most significant research efforts conducted with the airplane: electronic flight display technology, the microwave landing system/global positioning system (GPS) research, and the development of an airborne windshear detection system. The remainder of the research projects that involved the 737 are grouped thematically in the following three chapters. Chapter Six discusses technology research that was geared toward improving systems in individual aircraft; Chapter Seven covers research efforts designed to improve the operation of aircraft within the air traffic control system; and Chapter Eight looks at a variety of research projects that used the 737 research aircraft because of its special capabilities.

Although the chapters focus on the research the 737 conducted, the story of this unusual research vehicle has a human element, as well. Twenty years after the aircraft was purchased, quite a few of the people who helped bring the airplane home to Langley and conducted its first research projects are still involved with the airplane. The NASA researchers, technicians and office personnel who have worked with the airplane also possess a fierce sense of loyalty to the airplane and pride in what it has done that is echoed in the offices of industry engineers who worked with the airplane in its early days at NASA. One executive at the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company even keeps two large prints of the airplane and its unique aft research cockpit on the wall above his desk.

The Boeing 737 at Langley Research Center in 1980 with the staff working on the Advanced Transport Operating Systems (ATOPS) Program.

It would be easy to lose sight of these engineers, technicians, and office workers in assessing the airplane's accomplishments. Indeed, this book focuses much more on the technology the airplane helped to research and why those technologies were, or in some cases were not, developed into commercial applications. Yet without the efforts of those individual people, the airplane could not have achieved what it did. The TCV/ATOPS program was both technically and organizationally challenging, and it was not always popular. It involved political pressure and deadlines foreign to many NASA researchers. The engineers who worked with the TCV/ATOPS program were trying to research and transfer aeronautical technology in a new and more complex industrial climate, where published research papers were no longer sufficient to win the support of airlines or manufacturers. With hindsight, it is easy to see how the program's cooperative research efforts, personal connections and flight demonstrations helped gain acceptance for many research concepts, but the researchers at the time were breaking new ground. They had no manuals or guidelines on how to successfully transfer complex, systemsoriented transport technology to its many users. They had only their own experience of what seemed to work, a collective creativity and resourcefulness, and a conviction that the technology they were researching needed to be put to use. These researchers, technicians, and office workers may not be as visible as the 737 airplane or its accomplishments, but the program never would have succeeded without them. Their names are too numerous to list, but in recognition of their years of loyalty, dedication, late nights, early mornings, patient efforts, and perseverance, this book is respectfully dedicated to the NASA professionals who made the contributions of the 737 and the TCV/ATOPS program possible.