USAF Engineering Division Finding Aid
Instructions
for Searching the Organization Files
R&D Project Case Files are organized by the USAF Engineering
Division Originating Organization.
Click here for a History of Certain
USAF Engineering Division Organizations (101K PDF).
NOTES:
1) The following instructions are for locating records from the Power Plant Laboratory. The other organizations are very similar. Some fields that appear in the Power Plant Laboratory records may be absent from the records of other organizations.
2) Conventions for the dates take several different forms, which are detailed
below.
a) yy -- a single year with the leading "19" omitted.
(50 = 1950)
b) yy yy yy yy -- a string of years separated by spaces.
(36 38 39 41 = 1936, 1938, 1939,
1941)
c) yymm -- year and month
(4803 = March of 1948)
d) yymm-yymm -- a range starting and ending with year and
month
(4803-4902 = March of 1948 thru
February of 1949)
e) yymmdd -- year, month and day
(480618 = June 18, 1948)
f) weyymmdd -- week ending year, month and day
(we480618 = week ending June 18,
1948)
g) yymmdd-yymmdd -- a range of dates
(390726-390915 = July 26, 1939 thru
September 15, 1939)
3) The results produced by searching the organizations may include abbreviations for the designers and manufacturers of aircraft, engines and propellers. Click here for a current list of abbreviations.
Instructions for Searching the Power Plant Lab Organization
The Power Plant Lab Organization Search consists of a Search Form and a Results Form.
Below is a portion of an example Search Form:
Clicking the "Search" button with no search criteria specified produces a Results Form, an example portion of which appears below:
The Results Form
In order to specify useful search criteria, one must understand the items on the Results Form, so we will cover it first and then return to the Search Form.
Please remember that the object of this finding aid is to tell one where the records are located at the National Archives II (hereafter Archives). One must still travel to the Archives in order to view the records. The finding aid makes a visit to the Archives much more productive. All fields contain information that can be searched and are further explained below.
RD #
Every record that is in this collection is part of Record Group 342. The
Record Group, in conjunction with the four-digit RD # displayed in the
Results Form, is required to actually get the physical document box containing
the desired record when one visits the Archives. Members of the Archives staff
can help to correctly fill out the paper forms required to retrieve records for
viewing. Note that multiple records may exist in the same box.
Project/EO #
In the early days of McCook Field, R&D projects were apparently assigned project
numbers and the contractual, technical and financial data associated with a
project was stored under its project number. Early project numbers appear to
have been assigned sequentially. As the Engineering Division grew and various
projects were spread across multiple organizations, a more complex numbering
system seems to have evolved. With the new system, numbers were apparently
assigned to projects based on the budget line item that funded the project. Work
on a project was authorized by an "Expenditure Order" (EO) that was charged to a
budget item. Project data was now filed under these EO numbers. This scheme is
confusing and troublesome to researchers, because the budget numbers changed
from year to year, meaning that a certain EO number in 1921 was not necessarily
the same kind of work in 1941. Despite its apparent problems and
inconsistencies, it is by Project/EO number that technical data was filed. These
numbers are referenced in reports, memoranda and correspondence, so they are of
great importance in their ability to tie all the disparate elements of a project
together. If anyone knows more about the history and use
of EO numbers in the US Air Force from 1920 through 1950, we would LOVE to hear
from you!!!
Report #
Most projects produced one or more reports. In cases where the numbers of
these reports are known, they are listed by Report #. Also listed are
reports that may have been referenced in project correspondence. Like the EO
number, the Report #s help tie the raw data, correspondence and
other project material together. Like the Project/EO #, the Report #
structure evolved over time. We are still trying to understand the structure of
report serial numbers. If anyone knows more about the
structure of Report # used by the Engineering Division, we would LOVE to
hear from you!!!
Date
This field specifies the date or date range during which a project was
active. See the notes above for details about the date format.
Title
A searchable Title field is the whole point of this
Finding Aid. For the first time, one can rapidly locate the records that are
applicable to a specific subject. The titles were assigned by the AEHS
volunteers who produced the box lists for Power Plant Lab projects. They are as
descriptive as practical and include key words that will make searching easier.
Remarks
This expands on the Title to provide additional information, such as
the type and quantity of data.
Search Again
Clicking on Search Again returns to a CLEARED Search Form.
If you desire to return to the search form and preserve the search criteria, use
the browser's "BACK" button.
The Search Form
The Search Form allows one to specify criteria that govern the number of "hits" returned by the search. Note that one does not have to specify anything in any of the fields. The purpose of any search specification is to simply reduce the number of search hits to those meeting the specified criteria. When search criteria are specified, the search will return results matching ALL of the search criteria that are specified. Clicking the Search button with all of the fields blank returns as many "hits" as is specified by the Max Records pull-down menu located under DISPLAY OPTIONS.
One can search for specific RD #, Project/EO #, Report # and Date
by entering the appropriate search criteria.
The _ wild card character may be used within the RD #, Project/EO #,
Report # and Date
specification to match any single character.
The text of either the Title or Remarks fields can be searched
by selecting either the Title or Remarks radio button and entering
words or phrases into the next series of menus, which produce results as
outlined below:
all of the words: results containing ALL of the words in this field
(separated by spaces, in any order) are returned.
the
exact phrase: results containing the exact phrase specified in
this field are returned.
at least one of the words: results containing one of the list of
specified words.
none of the word(s): results that contain any of the words in this
field (separated by spaces), in any order, are returned.
The _ wild card character may be used within the Title or
Remarks
specification to match any single character.
DISPLAY OPTIONS
Sort by allows one to select which column on the Results Form will be used
to sort the results The
Sort by pull-down menu allows selection of either RD #, Proj/EO #,
Report #, Date, Title or
Remarks. Results will be sorted in ascending order within the selected
column. If no sort criteria is entered, results are returned in RD #
order.
Max Records allows one to limit the maximum number of results that will be returned. The default is 25.
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