The Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD) was an agency of
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
that existed from 1952 to 1996.
AGARD was founded as an Agency of the NATO Military Committee. It was set up in May 1952 with headquarters in
Neuilly sur Seine,
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
.
In a
mission statement
A mission statement is a short statement of why an organization exists, what its overall goal is, the goal of its operations: what kind of product or service it provides, its primary customers or market, and its geographical region of operation ...
in the 1982 ''History'' it published, the purpose involved "bringing together the leading personalities of the NATO nations in the fields of science and technology relating to aerospace".
[ Frank Wattendorf & Rolland A. Willaume editors (1982) ''The AGARD History 1952 — 1981'', AGARD Publishing]
The Advisory Group was organized by panels:
:Aerospace medical, avionics, electromagnetic wave propagation, flight mechanics, fluid dynamics, guidance and control, propulsion and energetics, structures and materials, and technical information.
[
In 1958 Theodore von Kármán hired Moe Berg to accompany him to the AGARD conference in Paris. "AGARD's aim was to encourage European countries to develop weapons technology on their own instead of relying on the U.S. defense industry to do it for them."
]
Activities
There were annual meetings, frequently in Paris, but also in Delft
Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...
, Turin
Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
, Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
, Washington DC.[
The Advisory Group administered a consultant and exchange program including lecture series and technical panels.
The AGARD publishing program included a multilingual aeronautical dictionary, about ninety titles per year, with a normal run of 1200. An ''Agardograph'' is a work prepared by, or on behalf of, AGARD's panels.][ For example, an agardograph on the AGARD-B wind tunnel model was prepared.
Later examples of AGARD studies include such topics as non-lethal weapons, theatre ballistic missile defence, protection of large aircraft in peace support operations, and limiting collateral damage caused by air-delivered weapons. AGARD was also one of the first NATO organizations to cooperate with Russia in a mutual exchange of information dealing with flight safety.
AGARD merged with the NATO Defence Research Group (DRG) in 1996 to become the NATO Research and Technology Organisation (RTO).][Keith L. Gardner and Terry A. Franks (January 1997]
NATO's new Research and Technology Organization
, ''NATO Review'' 45(1): 20,1
See also
*Aeronautics
Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design process, design, and manufacturing of air flight-capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere.
While the term originally referred ...
Notes
Further reading
* Theodore von Kármán with Lee Edson (1967) ''The Wind and Beyond: Theodore von Kármán Pioneer in Aviation and Pathfinder in Space'': Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries, it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emil ...
*
The AGARD History 1952-1987
' (1999), Advisory Group for Aerospace Research & Development,
External links
Science and Technology Organization (STO)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Agard
Aeronautics organizations
Aerospace engineering organizations
Military technology
NATO agencies
Scientific organizations based in France