Page "Aerodynamics" Paragraph 16

A more precise way to measure resistance is to place an object within an artificial, uniform stream of air where the velocity is known.

The first person to experiment in this fashion was Francis Herbert Wenham, who in doing so constructed the first wind tunnel in 1871.

Wenham was also a member of the first professional organization dedicated to aeronautics, the Royal Aeronautical Society of the United Kingdom.

Objects placed in wind tunnel models are almost always smaller than in practice, so a method was needed to relate small scale models to their real-life counterparts.

This was achieved with the invention of the dimensionless Reynolds number by Osborne Reynolds.

Reynolds also experimented with laminar to turbulent flow transition in 1883.