Eastman Jacobs

He was responsible for advancing many fields in aerodynamics, dealing particularly with wind tunnels, airfoils, turbulence, boundary layers, and Schlieren photography.

Eastman Jacobs joined NACA in 1925 after earning a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

[1] He quickly became one of the leading scientists at the Langley Research Center due to his work with optimizing airfoils using a variable density wind tunnel that could operate with high Reynolds numbers.

He and his colleagues were able to significantly reduce the turbulence in the wind tunnel, which led to a better understanding of boundary development around airfoil sections.

This optimization scheme produced the NACA 4-digit[2] airfoils that led to faster aircraft like the P-51 Mustang in World War II.