May 5, 2015     M15-070

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will be at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, Friday, May 8 to participate in a ceremony recognizing Langley's decades of contributions to improving helicopters and other vertical flight aircraft.

Media are invited to attend the ceremony, which starts at 10 a.m. EDT

During Friday's ceremony, the American Helicopter Society (AHS) International will formally name Langley a Vertical Flight Heritage Site. Bolden and Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate in Washington, will accept the designation on behalf of the agency. Hampton Mayor George Wallace and AHS International executive director Mike Hirschberg also will attend.

Media interested in covering the ceremony should contact Kathy Barnstorff at 757-864-9886 orkathy.barnstorff@nasa.gov no later than 4:30 p.m. Thursday, May 7, and arrive at the Langley gate at 2 Langley Blvd. by 9:40 a.m. on the day of the event.

AHS International will present Langley with a plaque that states: "Since its establishment in 1917 as the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, the Langley Research Center has performed groundbreaking research to advance the state of the art in vertical flight."

Image: NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, has done research on helicopters and other vertical flight aircraft almost since the laboratory was founded in 1917, including this Sikorsky HNS-1 that was tested in the Langley Full-Scale Tunnel in 1944.