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Milestones in Aerospace History at Edwards AFB
Air Force Flight Test Center History Office
During the past six decades, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., has arguably
been the
scene of more major milestones in flight than any other location in
the world. The following
list briefly summarizes just some of the significant
milestones which have taken place at
Muroc Field or Edwards AFB, or which involved
Edwards-based test pilots or technical
personnel since the 1940s:
Oct. 1, 1942 - As Bell test pilot Bob Stanley
was completing the final series of highspeed
taxi tests with the XP-59A Airacomet, the craft's
wheels lifted off from the surface of
Rogers Dry Lake and, for the first time, an American
turbojet-powered airplane became
airborne. The "official" first flight of the
airplane actually occurred the next day when all of
the program officials were on hand to witness
it.
Dec. 15, 1943 - Bell test pilot Jack Woolams
established an unofficial U.S. altitude
record when he climbed to 47,600 feet in a YP-59A
Airacomet.
Jan. 8, 1944 - First flight of the Lockheed XP-80,
the first American aircraft to
exceed 500 mph in level flight and the concept-demonstrator
for the nation’s first operational
jet aircraft--the P-80 (later F-80) Shooting
Star. The F-80, which was the first American
aircraft capable of speeds approaching 600 mph,
went on to record the first all-jet aerial
victory in history when it downed a MIG-15 in
Korea on Nov. 7, 1950.
June 19, 1947 - The world's absolute speed record
was returned to the United States
for the first time in 24 years, as Col. Albert
Boyd (then Chief of the Flight Test Division at
Wright Field, Ohio) piloted a highly modified
Lockheed P-80R to an average speed of
623.608 mph as he flew less than 100 feet above
a speed course laid out on Rogers Dry Lake.
This was the first of 12 absolute world speed
records that would be accomplished at
Muroc/Edwards or by base test pilots over the
next 18 years.
Aug. 20, 1947 - Navy Commander Turner Caldwell
established a new official world
absolute speed record as he piloted the Douglas
D-558-I Skystreak to an average speed of
640.743 mph during four passes over the speed
course at Muroc.
Aug. 25, 1947 - Marine test pilot Maj. Marion
Carl broke Caldwell’s five-day old
record, as he flew the Skystreak to an average
speed of 650.796 mph over the same course.
Oct. 14, 1947 - Air Force Capt Charles E. "Chuck"
Yeager piloted the rocketpowered
Bell X-1 to a speed of Mach 1.06 (approximately
700 mph at 42,000 feet) and
thereby became the first man to penetrate the
so-called "sound barrier." Though few people
could comprehend its full implications at the
time, Yeager's supersonic flight that morning
marked the first step in a chain of events that
would ultimately vault man beyond the
atmosphere and into space.
Sept. 15, 1948 - Air Force test pilot Maj. Richard
L. “Dick” Johnson extended the
official world absolute speed record to 670.981
mph as he piloted a North American F-86A
Sabre during four low-level passes over the lake
bed.
Jan. 5, 1949 - Capt Chuck Yeager completed the
first—and, to this date, only—
ground takeoff of an experimental rocket plane
in the Bell X-1 as he lifted off from Rogers
Dry Lake and climbed to an altitude of 23,000
feet before exhausting his propellants
approximately 100 seconds after engine ignition.
Aug. 8, 1949 - Air Force Maj. Frank K. "Pete"
Everest piloted the Bell X-1 to a peak
altitude of 71,902 feet. This was an unofficial
world record and the highest altitude achieved
by the first generation of X-1 research aircraft
(all speed and altitude records for the rocket
planes were cited as "unofficial" because the
airplanes were air launched).
June 1, 1951 - Air Force aeromedical researcher
Maj. John P. Stapp was strapped
into a rocket sled which was poised on a 2,000-foot
deceleration track at North Base.
Moments later, 4,000 pounds of rocket thrust
blasted him down the track and into the braking
system (from 88.6 mph to a full stop in 18 feet).
For a brief instant, he endured 48 "g's," with
a rate of onset of approximately 500 "g's" per
second. In other words, his body had
absorbed an impact of more than four tons. Prior
to Stapp’s sled experiments, conventional
medical wisdom had maintained that the human
body could probably survive no more than
17-18 instantaneous g’s.
July 27, 1951 - With company test pilot Jean
“Skip” Ziegler at the controls, the Bell
X-5 became the first variable-geometry aircraft
in history to “swing” -- or sweep forward or
back -- its wings while in flight.
Aug. 7, 1951 - Douglas test pilot Bill Bridgeman
piloted the rocket-powered D-558-II
Skyrocket to a record speed of Mach 1.88 (1,180
mph) at an altitude of 66,000 feet.
Aug. 15, 1951 - Bill Bridgeman piloted the Skyrocket
to a new altitude record of
74,494 feet.
Nov. 19, 1952 - Air Force Flight Test Center
test pilot Capt J. Slade Nash set a new
official world absolute speed record as he piloted
an F-86D to an average speed of 698.511
mph over a speed course laid out adjacent to
the Salton Sea in southern California’s Imperial
Valley.
May 18, 1953 - With Maj. Chuck Yeager flying
chase, famed aviatrix Jacqueline
Cochran became the first woman to exceed the
speed of sound flying a Canadian-built
(Canadair) F-86 Sabre. That same day, she established
a new women’s absolute speed
record of 652.337 mph over a low-level course
at Edwards.
May 25, 1953 - The prototype North American YF-100A
Super Sabre became the
first aircraft in history to fly supersonic on
its maiden flight. Though earlier fighter-type
airplanes had attained supersonic speeds in dives,
the Super Sabre was America's first true
supersonic fighter.
Aug. 21, 1953 - Marine test pilot Lt. Col. Marion
Carl piloted the D-558-II Skyrocket
to a new unofficial altitude record of 83,235
feet, the peak altitude achieved by this airplane.
Oct. 29, 1953 - AFFTC test pilot Lt. Col. Frank
K. “Pete” Everest established a new
official world absolute speed record as he piloted
the YF-100A to an average speed of
755.149 mph during four runs over a new 9.3-mile
speed course laid out at the Salton Sea.
This record, which approached the speed of sound
(0.96 Mach) at sea level, was the last
world absolute speed record to be achieved at
low altitude (within 330 feet of the ground).
Nov. 20, 1953 - NACA test pilot A. Scott Crossfield
piloted the Douglas Skyrocket to
a speed of 1,291 mph (Mach 2.005) in a dive at
an altitude of 62,000 feet and thereby became
the first man to fly at twice the speed of sound.
Dec. 12, 1953 - Maj. Chuck Yeager shattered Scott
Crossfield's recent record in the
D-558-II when he piloted the Bell X-1A (second
generation of the X-1 series of rocket
aircraft) to a speed of Mach 2.44 (1,650 mph)
in level flight at an altitude of 74,700 feet. It
was on this flight that Yeager first encountered
inertia coupling (then called "high-speed
instability") as, shortly after attaining top
speed, the craft tumbled violently out of control.
Even though the X-1A was literally tumbling about
all three of its axes simultaneously as he
plummeted downward for more than 40,000 feet,
Yeager somehow managed to recover to
level flight and bring the craft in for a safe
deadstick landing on Rogers Dry Lake.
Aug. 26, 1954 - AFFTC test pilot Maj. Arthur
"Kit" Murray piloted the Bell X-1A to
a new altitude record of 90,440 feet and thereby
reportedly became the first man to actually
see the curvature of the earth.
Aug. 20, 1955 - AFFTC test pilot Col. Horace
Hanes established a new official world
absolute speed record as he piloted an F-100C
to an average speed of 822.266 mph during
four runs over a new Antelope Valley speed course
at an altitude of 41,000 feet. This was
the first world absolute speed record to be achieved
at high altitude.
Sept. 7, 1956 - AFFTC test pilot Capt. Iven C.
Kincheloe became the first man to fly
above 100,000 feet, as he piloted the rocket-powered
Bell X-2 to a peak altitude of 126,200
feet. Though newspaper reporters were incorrect
when they hailed him as "the first of the
spacemen," he had, indeed, flown above 99 percent
of the earth's atmosphere.
Sept. 27, 1956 - AFFTC test pilot Capt. Mel Apt
became the first man to exceed
Mach 3, as he piloted the rocket-powered Bell
X-2 to a top speed of 2,094 mph (Mach 3.2 at
65,000 feet). Unfortunately, the craft tumbled
violently out of control (a victim of the same
inertia coupling that had almost claimed Yeager's
life in the X-1A) while Apt was still above
Mach 3 and he was unable to recover it. He was
killed in the ensuing crash.
April 11, 1957 - The Ryan X-13 Vertijet, an experimental
testbed designed to prove
that vertical takeoff and landing, or VTOL, flight
could be achieved on jet thrust alone,
became the first jet aircraft in history to takeoff
vertically, transition to conventional level
flight, and then transition back to the vertical
for landing.
Dec. 12, 1957 - Air Force Maj. Adrian Drew established
a new official world
absolute speed record when he piloted a McDonnell
F-101A Voodoo to an average speed of
1,207.60 mph at Edwards.
May 16, 1958 - AFFTC test pilot Capt. Walter
Irwin set a new official world absolute
speed record when he piloted a Lockheed F-104A
Starfighter to an average speed of 1,404.09
mph.
Dec. 14, 1959 - With AFFTC test pilot Maj. Joe
Jordan at the controls, a Lockheed F-
104C became the first jet-powered (i.e., air-breathing)
aircraft to climb above 100,000 feet as
it soared to a peak altitude of 103,389 feet
high above Edwards AFB.
Dec. 15, 1959 - AFFTC test pilot Maj. Joseph
Rogers set a new official world
absolute speed record at Edwards when he piloted
a Convair F-106A Delta Dart to an
average speed of 1,525.065 mph.
Feb. 10, 1961 – Rocketdyne engineers at the Rocket
Propulsion Laboratory atop
Leuhman Ridge at Edwards AFB conducted the first
captive firing of the whole F-1 Saturn
rocket engine. The Saturn engine would be the
launch vehicle for Project Apollo, the
missions to the moon. The F-1 prototype engine
was capable of producing 1.55 million
pounds of thrust within a few seconds of firing.
March 7, 1961 - AFFTC test pilot Maj. Robert
M. “Bob” White became the first man
to exceed Mach 4, as he piloted the rocket-powered
(57,000-pound thrust XLR99) North
American X-15 to a speed of 2,905 mph (Mach 4.43).
June 23, 1961 - Major White became the first
man to exceed Mach 5, as he piloted
the X-15 to a speed of 3,603 mph (Mach 5.27).
Aug. 24, 1961 - Jacqueline Cochran claimed a
new official world absolute speed
record for women when she piloted a Northrop
T-38 Talon to a speed of 844.202 mph.
Oct. 11, 1961 - Maj. Bob White became the first
man to fly an airplane above
200,000 feet as he piloted the X-15 to an altitude
of 217,000 feet.
Oct. 12, 1961 - Jacqueline Cochran established
a new official altitude record for
women as she climbed to 56,071 feet in a T-38
Talon.
Nov. 9, 1961 - Maj. Bob White became the first
man to exceed Mach 6, as he piloted
the X-15 to a speed of 4,094 mph (Mach 6.04).
Nov. 22, 1961 – U.S. Marine Corps pilot Lt. Col.
R.B. Robinson established a new
official world absolute speed record at Edwards
when he piloted a McDonnell F4H-1
(original designation of the F-4 Phantom II)
to an average speed of 1,606.505 mph.
July 17, 1962 - Maj. Bob White became the first
man to fly an airplane above
300,000 feet—and the first to fly an airplane
in near space (above 50 miles)—when he
piloted the X-15 to an altitude of 314,750 feet.
He was the first of eight X-15 test pilots at
Edwards who would earn their astronaut's wings
by flying an airplane in space.
Sept. 18, 1962 - Long-time Edwards test pilot
Maj. Fitzhugh L. “Fitz” Fulton piloted
a Convair B-58 Hustler, carrying an 11,023-pound
payload, to an altitude record of
85,360.84 feet, a record for this category which
still stands.
May 14, 1963 – The Northrop X-21A recorded a
significant aeronautical milestone
by achieving laminar airflow control over its
wings with a measurable reduction in parasitic
(friction) drag for the first time.
Aug. 22, 1963 - NASA test pilot Joe Walker piloted
the X-15 to its peak altitude,
354,200 feet (67 miles above the earth's surface).
May 11, 1964 - Jacqueline Cochran established
a new official world’s absolute speed
record for women when she piloted a Lockheed
F-104G Starfighter to an average speed of
1,429.3 mph.
May 1, 1965 - The exotic Lockheed YF-12A (a stablemate
of the SR-71 Blackbird)
set no less than seven official world absolute
speed and altitude records on a single day at
Edwards without, in any way, taxing its full
-- and classified -- potential. Among the
records, were an absolute top speed of 2,070
mph and a sustained altitude of 80,257 feet with
AFFTC test pilot Col. Robert L. “Fox” Stephens
at the controls.
Oct. 14, 1965 – With North American’s Al White
and copilot Col. Joe Cotton at the
controls, the No. 1 XB-70 Valkyrie accelerated
to a speed of Mach 3.02 at 70,000 feet
(approximately 2,000 mph) and thereby achieved
the design speed for the mammoth,
500,000-pound prototype long-range bomber for
the first time. In doing so, it became the
first (and, so far, only) bomber-type aircraft
to ever come even close to triple-sonic speeds.
Oct. 3, 1967 - AFFTC test pilot Maj. William
J. "Pete" Knight piloted the modified
X-15A-2 to a speed of Mach 6.7 (4,520 mph) and
thereby recorded the top speed achieved in
the X-15 program. The speed attained on this
flight remains, to this day, the fastest that
anyone has ever flown in an airplane.
Aug. 16, 1969 – Civilian racing pilot Darryl
Greenamyer established a world absolute
speed record for piston-engine aircraft of 482.462
mph while flying a modified Grumman
F8F-2 Bearcat over a measured course at Edwards
AFB. In doing so, he broke a record that
had been on the books since April of 1936 when
German test pilot Fritz Wendel flew the
Messerschmitt Me-209V-1 to a speed of 469.224
mph.
Oct. 1, 1969 – A C-5 Galaxy lifted off the main
Edwards runway at a total weight of
790,100 pounds (395 tons), establishing an unofficial
world record for weight.
Feb. 18, 1970 - AFFTC test pilot Maj. Pete Hoag
piloted the rocket-powered
Northrop HL-10 lifting body to a speed of Mach
1.86 (at 67,310 feet), the highest speed
attained by any of the experimental lifting body
designs throughout the multi-phase test
program. The lifting body aircraft were designed
and tested to determine whether or not
these wingless body shapes could make precision
landings, after powerless, high-speed
gliding descents from high altitudes. They pioneered
many of the approach and landing
techniques which were later employed by the Space
Shuttles at the end of their orbital flights.
Feb. 27, 1970 - NASA test pilot Bill Dana piloted
the rocket-powered Northrop HL-
10 to an altitude of 90,303 feet, from which
it made a successful, powerless descent to a
deadstick landing on Rogers Dry Lake. The altitude
attained during this flight was the
highest recorded throughout the entire lifting
body test program.
Oct. 27, 1970 – After flying the X-24A lifting
body to its peak altitude of 71,400 feet,
NASA research pilot John Manke completed the
first simulated space shuttle-type approach
and landing with a vehicle that was roughly similar
in subsonic performance and handling
qualities.
March 9, 1971 - Flying an extensively modified
F-8, NASA test pilot Tom
McMurtry completed the first flight of an airplane
configured with a supercritical wing.
Flattened on the upper surface and tapering downward
at the trailing edge, the thin wing was
shaped to modify shock-wave formation and associated
boundary-layer separation, thereby
delaying the typically sharp increase in drag
that occurred as an aircraft approached the
speed of sound. The successful results from this
program would lead to the incorporation of
fuel-saving/range-extending supercritical wings
on a number of future transport designs.
Dec. 14, 1971 – A television-guided AGM-65 Maverick
missile was launched from a
Teledyne Ryan BQM-34A remotely piloted vehicle,
or RPV, against an obsolete radar
control van (serving as simulated a surface-to-air
missile launch site) on the Edwards Flight
Test Range and scored a direct hit—reportedly
the first launch of a guided weapon from an
RPV ever to score a direct hit.
May 25, 1972 - Flying the highly modified F-8
Digital Fly-by-Wire research
airplane, NASA test pilot Gary Krier completed
the first flight of an aircraft which was
completely dependent upon an electronic flight
control system.
Aug. 5, 1975 - NASA test pilot John Manke brought
the rocket-powered X-24B
lifting body in for a near-perfect landing on
Edwards' main concrete runway after an
unpowered descent from 57,050 feet. This was
the first time a landing, within the limited
confines of a conventional concrete runway, had
been attempted and (along with a
subsequent flight by Maj. Michael Love) it demonstrated
that these unconventional lifting
body shapes could, indeed, make precision runway
landings, attaining touchdown accuracies
of plus-or-minus 500 feet.
July 27, 1976 - Air Force Capt Eldon Joersz established
a new official world absolute
speed record when he piloted a Lockheed SR-71A
to an average speed of 2,193.64 mph at
Edwards.
Aug. 12, 1977 - The Space Shuttle Enterprise
(the first, non-orbiting craft which was
built to complete unpowered approach and landing
[ALT] tests to confirm the design's lowspeed
controllability and airworthiness) was launched
from the back of a 747 carrier aircraft
at 24,100 feet and successfully completed a five
minute 21 second descent to a landing and
roll out on Rogers Dry Lake. This (along with
four subsequent ALT tests) demonstrated the
soundness of the shuttle design and confirmed
the approach and landing techniques that
would subsequently be employed by shuttle astronauts
returning from orbital space missions.
July 11, 1979 - AFFTC test pilot Lt. Col. N.K.
“Ken” Dyson completed the final
flight of the highly classified Lockheed Have
Blue low-observables concept demonstrator
flight test program. Over the previous year,
he had completed more than 50 flights during
which the airplane had convincingly demonstrated
its very low observability against a wide
array of the most sophisticated air- and ground-based
air defense systems. The successful
conduct of these tests led immediately to the development of the F-117A
Nighthawk in the
early 80s and the “stealth” revolution was underway in earnest.
April 14, 1981 - The Space Shuttle Columbia landed safely on Rogers
Dry Lake
following its first orbital mission. This marked the first time in
history that an orbital vehicle
had left the earth under rocket power and returned on the wings of
an aircraft.
Nov. 14, 1981 - The Space Shuttle Columbia touched down on Rogers Dry
Lake
following its second orbital spaceflight mission. During the re-entry
through landing phase,
Shuttle commander Col. Joe Engle had manually flown the profile—performing
29 flight test
maneuvers—from Mach 25 through landing roll out. This was the first
and, so far, only time
that a winged aerospace vehicle has been manually flown from orbit
through landing. With
this flight, the central concept of the shuttle test program had been
clearly demonstrated; the
era of reusable spacecraft had dawned.
July 4, 1982 - For the first time, the Space Shuttle Columbia landed
on the main
concrete runway at Edwards at the end of its fourth orbital spaceflight.
This marked a major
milestone in the shuttle program because it demonstrated that vehicles
could be safely
recovered on conventional runways such as the one at the Kennedy Space
Center in Florida.
July 29, 1983 - With AFFTC test pilot Col. Michael D. Hall at the controls,
the
McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle passed 10,000 hours of accident-free flight
testing time.
This was the first time in the history of fighter development that
such a milestone had been
achieved.
Sept. 5, 1983 - Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-8)
landed at Edwards at 12:40 a.m. for
the first night landing of a space vehicle.
Dec. 14, 1984 - Veteran Grumman test pilot Chuck
Sewell lifted the wheels of the
No. 1 X-29A off the main runway and, for the
first time in over a decade, an experimental--
"X-series"--test program got underway at Edwards.
As Sewell pulled up from the runway
that morning, it also marked the first time in
history that an aircraft had taken to the air on
blade-thin, forward-swept wings made of composite
materials.
Sept. 13, 1985 - AFFTC test pilot Maj. Wilbert
D. "Doug" Pearson pulled into a nearsupersonic,
65-degree climb in a highly modified F-15 which
had been aptly nicknamed the
Celestial Eagle. Flying an extraordinarily precise
profile, he climbed through 38,000 feet
and launched a 17-foot long, three-stage missile
toward Satellite P78-1 orbiting 340 miles
overhead. In a feat which must be compared to
“finding a needle in a haystack,” the fighterlaunched
anti-satellite missile scored a direct hit. It
was a first in history and a technological
display which may never again be duplicated.
Dec. 13, 1985 – The No. 1 Grumman X-29A became
the first forward-sweptwing
aircraft in history to exceed the speed of sound
in level flight when NASA’s Steve Ishmael
flew it to a speed of Mach 1.03 (690 mph) at
40,000 feet altitude.
Dec. 23, 1986 - With Dick Rutan at the controls
(and Jeanna Yeager serving as copilot),
nine days, three minutes and 44 seconds after
taking off from Edwards, the
experimental Voyager aircraft touched down on
Rogers Dry Lake after completing the firstever
non-stop, unrefueled flight around the world.
Dec. 18, 1989 - The first “self-repairing” flight
control system was demonstrated on
NASAs F-15 HIDEC (Highly Integrated Digital Electronic
Control) research aircraft with
test pilot Jim Smolka at the controls. The system
identified control surface failures or
damage and then automatically repositioned other
control surfaces to allow the pilot to
continue the mission or land the aircraft safely.
Nov. 3, 1990 - With Lockheed test pilot Dave
Ferguson at the controls, the YF-22A
Advanced Technology Fighter, or ATF, prototype,
configured with General Electric YF120
prototype turbofans, became the first fighter
aircraft in history to achieve sustained
supersonic flight without employing afterburner.
The aircraft attained a “supercruise” speed
of Mach 1.58 at 40,000 feet.
April 21, 1993 - Employing a computerized propulsion
control system to turn, climb
and descend in the F-15 HIDEC research aircraft,
NASA test pilot Gordon Fullerton
completed the first fully successful approach
and landing ever to be accomplished without
using flight controls.
April 29, 1993 - Employing thrust vectoring,
the X-31 executed a minimum-radius
180-degree turn--the “Herbst Maneuver”--while
flying at more than 70-degrees angle of
attack, well beyond the limits of any previous
aircraft in history.
Aug. 29, 1995 - Using a computerized propulsion
control system similar to that
employed on the F-15 HIDEC aircraft, NASA test
pilot Gordon Fullerton completed the
first-ever fully successful landing of a widebody
transport using only engine power for
control as he landed a McDonnell Douglas MD-11
on the main Edwards runway.
Sept. 11, 1995 - The AeroVironment Pathfinder,
an all-wing, remotely piloted, solarpower
aircraft achieved a new record altitude for solar-powered
aircraft as it climbed to
50,567 feet while being controlled from a ground
station at the NASA-Dryden Flight
Research Facility at Edwards. The previous record
had been 14,000 feet.
Aug. 25, 1999 – Lockheed Martin test pilot Jon
Beesley was at the controls of the
No. 2 F-22 Raptor when, for the first time, the
pre-production fighter aircraft flew at 60-
degrees angle-of-attack and demonstrated post-stall
controlled flight with thrust vectoring.
July 20, 2000 – The X-35B, Lockheed Martin’s
short takeoff and vertical landing, or
STOVL, concept demonstrator in the Joint Strike
Fighter competition achieved a milestone
when it completed what the company called a “Mission
X” flight profile—a short takeoff,
level supersonic dash, and vertical landing all
in one flight. Piloted by U.S. Marine Corps
test pilot Maj. Art Tomassetti, the mission included
a short takeoff at 80 knots, followed by
conversion from the STOVL mode to conventional
flight, a climb to 25,000 feet and
acceleration to Mach 1.05, conversion back to
the STOVL mode and deceleration to a hover
150 feet above ground level, followed by a vertical
landing. The company reported that this
was the first time in history that such a flight
profile had been successfully accomplished.
April 22-23, 2001 – The No. 5 Northrop Grumman
RQ-4A Global Hawk
successfully completed a record non-stop trans-Pacific
flight from Edwards AFB, Calif., to
the Royal Australian Air Force Base at Edinburgh,
Australia. Renamed “Southern Cross II”
in honor of the first manned trans-Pacific flight
by Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith and his crew
in 1928, the vehicle completed the mission in
23 hours and 23 minutes and, reported
Northrop Grumman, was the first UAV to cross
the Pacific Ocean.
Oct. 11, 2001 – The F-15 Combined Test Force
at the AFFTC achieved a major
milestone when Lt. Col. Bill Thornton landed
his Eagle on the main Edwards runway. With
the landing, the CTF had surpassed a remarkable
40,000 flight hours without incurring a
single serious mishap (Class A or B mishap) since
the onset of the F-15 program more than
29 years earlier. No other fighter-type aircraft
had ever come close to this extraordinary
safety record.
June 7, 2002 – An RQ-1 Predator UAV launched
an Inserted Detector Expendable
for Reconnaissance (FINDER) mini-UAV while in
flight at 10,000 feet over the Edwards
Flight Test Range. The FINDER successfully completed
a 25-minute preprogrammed
mission before a flight technician took control
and landed it on Rogers Dry Lake. This was
the first time that an operational UAV demonstrated
the capability to carry and successfully
launch another such craft.
Sept. 10, 2003 – A B-2 test crew from the AFFTC
successfully released a full load of
80 independently targeted, Global Positioning
System-guided 500-pound GBU-38 Joint
Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, against 80
different targets in a single pass over the
Utah Test and Training Range and thereby achieved
a milestone in the development of
precision-guided weapons capabilities as all
80 JDAMs scored either direct hits or impacted
within lethal range of their targets.
March 20, 2004 – An X-45A Joint Unmanned Combat
Aerial System or J-UCAS,
performed the first-ever weapons release from
the internal bay of a high-speed, stealthy
unmanned aircraft when it released an inert unguided
small smart bomb from an altitude of
35,000 feet and at a speed of 495 mph over the
Edwards Flight Test Range. The inert
weapon impacted within inches of its target,
a truck parked on the range.
March 27, 2004 – The supersonic-combustion ramjet
(scramjet)-powered X-43A
unmanned hypersonic research aircraft (HYPER-X)
attained a speed of Mach 7 during its
first successful flight. It not only became the
first scramjet-powered vehicle to achieve free
flight, it also set a speed record (approximately
5,000 mph and 95,000 feet altitude) and
thereby easily surpassed all previous records
for aerospace vehicles powered air-breathing
engines.
Aug. 1, 2004 – A pair of X-45A UCAVs became the
first unmanned air vehicles ever
to be autonomously flown in formation throughout
their pre-programmed mission while
being monitored by only a signal system operator.
This represented a major step in the
development of multi-ship UAV combat capabilities.
Nov. 16, 2004 – In the final flight of the program,
the X-43A Hyper-X attained a
speed of Mach 9.6 (approximately 6,500 mph) at
110,000 feet altitude for nearly 12 seconds
and thereby far surpassed its own record (set
on March 27, 2004) for a vehicle powered by an
air-breathing propulsion system.
Feb. 20, 2006 – No. 3 pre-production RQ-4 Global
Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle
advanced concept technology demonstrator aircraft
returned to Edwards AFB after extended
deployments overseas that totaled more than four
years of operations in support of the Global
War on Terror. Despite the fact that it was still
undergoing testing at the Air Force Flight
Test Center, it was deployed after the terrorist
attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, to fly in support of
Operation Enduring Freedom. All told, it acquired
tens of thousands of high-resolution
target images while logging 4,245 flying hours
in all-weather conditions during 191 combat
missions in support of Operations Enduring Freedom
and Iraqi Freedom.
Aug. 30, 2006 – In a joint Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency and NASA
Dryden Flight Research Center effort, a significant
milestone was achieved when the firstever
fully autonomous airborne refueling operation
was successfully completed by a tanker
and an F/A-18 modified to operate as an unmanned
air vehicle, or UAV. Though safety
pilots were aboard the F/A-18, they kept their
hands off all controls as the airplane
successfully hooked up with the tanker’s probe-and-drogue
receptacle.
July 24, 2007 – The YAL-1 Airborne Laser or ABL
demonstrator aircraft, a highly
modified Boeing 747-400F, successfully demonstrated
an engagement sequence for the first
time when its infrared sensors acquired an instrumented
target board on the Air Force’s
NKC-135E aircraft, the system tracked it with
a Target Illuminator Laser, employed its
Beacon Illuminator Laser to compensate for atmospheric
disturbances, and fired its Surrogate
High-Energy Laser at the target board to simulate
a missile shootdown. The event was a
milestone in preparation for the eventual firing
of the ABL system’s high-powered chemical
oxygen-iodine laser against an in-flight ballistic
missile projected for 2009.
Aug. 8, 2007 – In a signing ceremony at Edwards
AFB, Secretary of the Air Force
Michael W. Wynne announced the completion of
the service’s certification of the Fischer-
Tropsch synthetic fuel blend for use in all B-52H
aircraft. Certification testing had
commenced at Edwards on Sept. 19, 2006 when a
B-52H was flown with two engines
running on a half-and-half blend of standard
JP-8 jet fuel and Fischer-Tropsch synthetic fuel
and the six remaining engines on JP-8 fuel. The
demonstration had been completed three
months later, on Dec. 19, 2006, when the bomber
was flown with all eight engines running
on the Fischer-Tropsch/JP-8 blend. Calling it
a “great day for the United States Air
Force…and another milestone for the Flight Test
Center,” Secretary Wynne described the
certification process as “the tip of the spear
for national energy independence” and he
announced that all Air Force aircraft would be
certified to fly on a domestically-produced
synthetic fuel blend by 2011.
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