In 1901, as part of a pioneering aeronautical laboratory, Zahm built a wind tunnel with financing from Hugo Mattullah. It operated until 1908. It has been described as "America's first significant wind tunnel."
Zahm's 1911 book Aerial Navigation described the historical development of experimental aircraft that led to functional airplanes.
Testimony in Wrights vs. Curtiss
Zahm testified as an aeronautical expert in the 1910-1913 patent lawsuits by the Wright brothers who alleged patent infringement against inventor and manufacturer Glenn Curtiss. His testimony took over a month. He testified on behalf of the Curtiss after declining to testify for the Wrights, possibly because the Wrights refused to pay Zahm to appear as an expert witness whereas the Curtiss interests did. Zahm had been on friendly terms with both sides previously but became a long term adversary of the Wrights during and after the trial. He worked closely with Glenn Curtiss on the controversial 1914 flying tests of the Langley Aerodrome in an attempt to show that Langley's machine had been capable of powered flight with a man aboard before the Wrights' glider was. Zahm testified that earlier experimental gliders and glider designs and publications, before those of the Wrights, had included a variety of monoplane and biplane designs, with horizontal and vertical rudders, and steering concepts of ailerons and wing warping. There were complex technical issues, notably whether Curtiss's airplanes used a vertical rudder and ailerons in ways that closely matched the patented design of the Wrights. Experts testified on both sides and sometimes contradicted one another on matters of fact. In the end judge John R. Hazel ruled in Feb. 1913 for the Wrights, and on appeal a higher court agreed with this decision in 1914.
Later years
Zahm became the chief research engineer of Curtiss Aeroplane Company in 1914-1915 and then the director of the U.S. Navy's Aerodynamical Laboratory, 1916-1929. Zahm became the chief of the Aeronautical Division at the Library of Congress from 1929 or 1930 until 1946, and held the Guggenheim Chair of Aeronautics there. Zahm died in 1954, and was buried in the Community Cemetery, Notre Dame, Indiana.
Daniel Guggenheim Chair of Aeronautics in the Library of Congress, 1929-1946.
Publications, bibliography and archival information
More than 100 of his articles and papers were collected in Aeronautical papers 1885-1945 of Albert F. Zahm, volumes I and II. He wrote the book Aerial Navigation, and a booklet called Early Powerplane Fathers. His papers are kept by the University of Notre Dame.
