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During World War II the US Army Air Force (AAF) Material Command Armament Laboratory at Wright Field developed an underwater rocket-propelled projectile to be launched from aircraft flying at high speed. It was called a hydrobomb, to contrast it from Navy torpedoes which were propeller-driven.

GALCIT Project #1 (the forerunner-organization to JPL) built the facility shown above, which was referred to as the Channel. It included a 500 foot long hydrodynamic tank, a rocket-driven towing carriage, and test instruments to measure hydrodynamic forces on half-scale test models of the hydrobomb. This June 1945 photograph shows the rocket carriage raised to its service position, with the Channel extending behind it.

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