Eiffel and Aviation: The limited capacity of the available measuring instruments, led M. Eiffel to a more sophisticated knowledge in aviation and, eventually, to wind tunnel experiments. He built a wind tunnel on the Champ de Mars, which was in use from 1909-1911. The tunnel was sufficient for lab experiments bit inadequate for the study of airplanes. However, with the help of several other engineers, Leon Rith, Lapresle, and Eiffel made over 5,000 tests in this lab. Almost all the pioneers of aviation tested in this wind tunnel.
In 1911, a better wind tunnel which is still in use was built and between 1912-1914, Eiffel began experiments with military equipment for WWI fighter planes. In 1917, the Eiffel Laboratory designed a very advanced monoplane chaser of which two prototypes were built in Breguet. One crashed due to pilot error. M. Eiffel was a contemporary of Samuel Langeley, the president of the Smithstonian Institute, for whom the NASA field center Langely Research Center was named. Much of Eiffel's work had gone on to help expand the science of aerodynamics. NASA used many propeller and wind tunnel experiments in their trainer planes for astronauts.