Named for General Henry "Hap" Arnold, the father of the U.S. Air Force, AEDC is the most advanced and largest complex of flight simulation test facilities in the world.

[3] Several areas of the facility are contaminated by substances including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and volatile organic compounds and spills of jet and rocket fuel, chlorofluorocarbon solvents, nitric acid and other materials.

[5] The Air Engineering Development Center was authorized by an act of the 81st Congress, Public Law 415, approved 27 Oct. 1949 (Appendix 2).

The complex is a part of a master unitary wind tunnel plan that is designated to provide the testing "tools" required to assure the United States continued air and space supremacy.

The necessity for an aeronautical test complex of this type was recognized by a number of different agencies of the government, as well as by expert technical groups from the industrial-scientific world.

At one time or another, the center has operated 58 aerodynamic and propulsion wind tunnels, rocket and turbine engine test cells, space environmental chambers, arc heaters, ballistic ranges and other specialized units.

While AEDC's primary location is in Tennessee, it also operates two geographically separated facilities—the Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9 in Maryland, and the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex (NFAC), in California.

As a consultant to General Arnold, Theodore von Kármán first called for the center: The center operates more than 68 aerodynamic and propulsion wind tunnels, rocket and turbine engine test cells, space environmental chambers, arc heaters, ballistic ranges, and other specialized units.