Hugh Dryden: The Man and His Legacy

Ames then placed Dryden in a full-time job at the National Bureau of Standards testing munition gauges as the First World War wound to a close. Despite a long commute by train each day, Dryden simultaneously worked in the Bureau’s laboratory while completing his doctoral degree at Johns Hopkins. A year later, at the age of 20, Dryden was granted a doctorate in applied physics, making him the youngest person ever to receive a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. His doctoral dissertation “Air forces on circular cylinders” broke new ground on the scale effects of air flows and won him the post of Chief of the Aerodynamics Section of the National Bureaus of Standards. 

In charge of one of the country’s most advanced wind tunnels, Dryden quickly won grants from the fledgling NACA and conducted research on the problems of wind tunnel turbulence and boundary layer flow that earned him international recognition.  Working closely with his research partner and mentor, Dr. Lyman J. Briggs, Dryden produced a series of path-breaking NACA Technical Reports and other publications that dealt with supersonic flight at a time when the top speed of airplanes was just over 200 miles per hour.

Dryden’s keen mind was accompanied by a self-effacing sense of teamwork that not only won him research success, but rapid promotion to management positions at the Bureau of Standards and recognition by national and international professional societies. It also brought him to the attention of the leading scientific minds of the time, including Theodore von Kármán. Although their personalities could not be more different, von Kármán and Dryden developed a close relationship and would, together, have a huge impact on the course of U.S. science and technology policy.

During World War II Dryden led the development of the U.S. Navy’s BAT radar homing missile, which was used to great effect in the final phases of the war in the Pacific. Von Kármán then recruited Dryden to serve as his deputy on the Army Air Force’s Scientific Advisory Group. After inspecting European science facilities (dressed as an Army Colonel), including intense debriefings of German rocket scientists, Dryden served as the general editor for the seminal “Toward New Horizons” Scientific Advisory Group report to General Hap Arnold. The report set the agenda for post-war research for both military and civilian efforts in air, and space, flight.