Janet L. McCoy (mccoyjl@mail.auburn.edu)

AU HISTORIANS TO LEAD NATIONAL AEROSPACE CONFERENCE

AUBURN -- A group of Auburn University historians will lead a national conference on the history of flight in the United States, which is scheduled for Oct. 1-3 in Dayton, Ohio.

The conference -- the kickoff event for the "Century of Flight Celebration" of the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers inaugural flight -- will be at Wright State University. The theme will be "The Meaning of Flight in the 20th Century."

Jim Hansen, an AU history professor who will serve as one of three chairs of the meeting, says the AU group will present papers and lead discussions. Auburn will have the single largest contingent at the conference, even outnumbering representatives from the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.

Conference presentations will focus on flight and public policy; flight, science, and technology, which will be chaired by Hansen; and flight, society and culture. Other topics will include airline regulation, aircraft engineering and the public perception of pilots.

Three of the 12 invited speakers are AU history faculty. In addition to Hansen, Distinguished University Professor David Lewis and Professor William Trimble will participate in the conference. Also, attending will be AU history doctoral students Jeremy Kinney, Larry Lee and Brian Taylor, and Air Force Maj. Roy Houchin, a faculty member at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery. Houchin has a Ph.D. from AU's history department.

"We believe that the fact that so many Auburn people have been asked to attend this conference is a fairly dramatic indication of how strong our aerospace history program is," says Hansen. "We don't have airplanes hanging down from our roof, but Auburn's department is significant."

"Auburn has become a national center of excellence in the area of aerospace history," says Tom Crouch, head of the Aeronautics Department of the National Air and Space Museum. "Professors David Lewis, Jim Hansen, Bill Trimble and Steve McFarland are international leaders in the field. The very high quality of the staff ensures that Auburn attracts a considerable number of the most able graduate students interested in aspects of aerospace history."

During the conference, academicians, historians, professionals and enthusiasts will discuss how flight has changed the world. More than 80 presenters will examine the first 100 years of flight and where it will go in the future.

"An event like this has never taken place before," Hansen says. "Coming as it does near the end of the century and the millennium, it will give us a chance to think back on how the airplane has changed society and how it might continue to do so in the 21st century."

Hansen says another indicator of AU's strong program is that the Air Force has recommended that its interested officers enroll in AU's history doctoral program.

"When the Air Force has someone they are sponsoring for a Ph.D., they send them to Auburn, " he said.

Meanwhile, Hansen is in the second year of a two-year contract from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to prepare a history of American aerodynamics.

The $260,000 contract will allow Hansen to collect more than 150 key documents, to date unpublished, from libraries, government repositories, industry archives and other private and public records centers to chronicle the development of aerodynamics in the United States from the Wright brothers to present.

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CONTACT: Hansen, 334/844-6628 (hansejr@mail.auburn.edu). For more information on the conference, contact the Wright State University Office of Conferences and Events at 937/775-5512 (tmilo@wright.edu). Click here for more information about the conference.