This month in Edwards history: January 2012

  • Published
  • By Dr. Stephanie Smith
  • AFFTC History Office
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  January 12, 1936 - A delegation of officers from Headquarters, Pacific Coast Air Force, inspected the Muroc Field Bombing and Gunnery Range. At that time, the housing facilities consisted of tents for up to 65 men and a permanent kitchen building. The bombing range west of the lake bed included outline targets of various aircraft types, a battleship, and several buildings. Some 3,000 practice bombs had been dropped during the preceding 20-day period.

January 8, 1942 - The Army Air Corps leased the Palmdale Airport from the Palmdale Irrigation District, and Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers began construction on a
9,000 ft concrete runway, a 5,000 ft auxiliary runway and a hangar. Within three years the 412th Fighter Group, precursor to the 412th Test Wing, used the hangar, later known as Bldg. 531, in the testing of jet aircraft. In 1953, it became Air Force Plant 42.

January 1, 1943 - The first official base newspaper, the Muroc Mirage, began publication at the Muroc Army Air Field. Shortly, it grew to a four-page, five column tabloid-sized weekly.

January 15, 1943 - The first flight of the XP-54 took place flown by Vultee Aircraft Corporation test pilot Frank Davis. Informally nicknamed the Swoose Goose, the aircraft was the second of three pusher fighter aircraft designs to come out of the Army Air Corps' Circular Proposal R 40C for a highly advanced fighter plane. The others were the XP-55 and XP-56, none of which went into production. The XP-54 was a sleek twin-boom, inverted gull-wing aircraft with tricycle landing gear whose performance never lived up to its appearance.

January 27, 1950 - A ceremony was held in connection with Armed Forces Day to rename the base in honor of Capt. Glen W. Edwards. The plaque initially struck misspelled his first name as Glenn.

January 20, 1959 - Brig. Gen. Marcus F. Cooper relinquished his dual function as Commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center, and Commander of Edwards AFB. General Cooper retained command of the Flight Test Center, but command of the base itself passed to the Commander of the 6510th Air Base Group, Col. Frank H. Mears.

January 17, 1963 - NASA X-15 test pilot Joseph A. Walker reached an altitude of 271,000 ft or 67 miles, becoming the first civilian X-15 pilot to exceed 50 miles altitude in the vehicle. However, no astronaut wings were awarded him at the time, which was NASA policy, and he was only awarded them posthumously along with other NASA X 15 pilots William H. Dana and John B. "Jack" MacKay, in an August 2005 ceremony at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.

January 28, 1964 - The X-15 flew for the 100th time since June 8, 1959, piloted by Air Force test pilot Col. Robert A. Rushworth.

January 3, 1966 - Col. Ray Vandiver, the vice commander, succeeded Maj. Gen. Irving L. Branch as Air Force Flight Test Center commander after General Branch was killed when his T-38 supersonic jet trainer crashed in Puget Sound, Washington. General Branch was making a flight from Edwards AFB to Boeing in Seattle.

January 10, 1974 - General Dynamics' YF-16 Fighting Falcon made an unplanned first flight. During the course of a high-speed taxi test, General Dynamics test pilot Philip F. Oestricher took the aircraft into the air after it developed a sudden roll oscillation and scraped its right horizontal stabilizer on the runway. A wobbly takeoff was followed by a six-minute flight to a normal landing.

January 31, 1977 - The first Space Shuttle orbiter, Enterprise, arrived at Edwards AFB. It was conveyed via road at 3 mph from Rockwell International's assembly facility at Palmdale aboard a 90-wheel transporter. The unpowered version of the shuttle was housed at Dryden Flight Research Center in preparation for a series of ground, captive- and free-flight tests prior to the space launch program.

January 1, 1982 - A new commissary, Bldg. 6000 at the corner of Kincheloe and Fitzgerald Avenues, was completed.

January 21, 1987 - Ms. Lois McCallin pedaled the human-powered aircraft Michelob Light Eagle from the Rogers Dry Lake bed and flew ten miles in 37 minutes, 38 seconds. This feat established Class I, Man-Powered Airplanes United States records for straight distance (6.86 km - 4.24 mi), distance in a closed circuit (15.44 km - 9.60 mi) and duration (37 min 38 sec).

January 17, 1990 - NASA selected Air Force Maj. Eileen M. Collins, a student in Class 89B of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, as a Space Shuttle pilot candidate. Major Collins was the first woman to be selected for the job.

January 25, 1991 - A series of X-29 high angle-of-attack (AoA) agility test sorties began. The forward-swept wing experimental jet exhibited better flying qualities in the high angle of attack range than many current operational fighters, and without the weight and complexity of special flaps, slats, or thrust vectoring systems.

January 17, 2010 - The Global Power Bomber Combined Test Force (CTF) successfully conducted a 3-hour first test flight of a B-52H bomber outfitted with a new communication upgrade, the Combat Network Communications Technology (CONECT) upgrade. CONECT would enable B-52H crews to receive and send real-time digital information during their missions.

January 6, 2011 - The Global Observer UAV completed its first hydrogen-fueled flight, marking the beginning of high altitude, long endurance testing of the aircraft. With this successful demonstration, the 412th Test Wing's Global Vigilance Combined Test Force (CTF) planned to expand the altitude and duration of flight tests to validate the aircraft's high-altitude and long-endurance potential.