The administration of President Woodrow Wilson created an advisory "Aircraft Production Board" in May 1917, consisting of members of the Army, Navy and industry, to study the Europeans' experience in aircraft production and the standardization of aircraft parts. The Board dispatched Major Raynal C. Bolling, a lawyer and military aviation pioneer, together with a commission of over 100 members, to Europe in the summer of 1917 to determine American aircraft needs, recommend priorities for acquisition and production, and negotiate prices and royalties. Congress passed a series of legislation in the next three months that appropriated huge sums for development of military aviation, including the largest single appropriation for a single purpose to that time, $640 million in the Aviation Act (40 "Stat". 243), passed July 24, 1917. By the time the bill passed, the term "Air Service" was in widespread if unofficial usage to collectively describe all aspects of Army aviation.