This month in Edwards History

  • Published
  • By AFFTC History Office
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  

Nov. 12, 1941 - The first flight of the GB-4 radio controlled glide bomb took place. The GB-4 was a basic GB-1 designed to be guided in flight by radio signals from an observer in the launch aircraft who tracked a magnesium flare mounted on the weapon's dorsal surface.

Nov. 8, 1943 - Army Air Base, Muroc, Calif. was redesignated Muroc Army Air Field, 4th Air Force.

Nov. 1, 1946 - Ryan Aeronautical Corporation's experimental XF2R-1 Dark Shark made its first flight, piloted by Al Conover. The single XF2R-1 was a reworked Navy FR 1 Fireball composite fighter, with a 1,700 hp XT31-GE-2 turboprop engine substituted for its radial piston engine.

Nov. 9, 1946 - Lockheed test pilot Joe Towle completed the first flight of the Lockheed XR60-1 Constitution, a 45-minute flight from the Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank, Calif., to Muroc. Ordered by the Navy but never put into production, the XR60-1 was a very large, double-deck transport powered by four 3,000 hp P&W Wasp radial engines.

Nov. 20, 1953 - National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics test pilot A. Scott Crossfield piloted the Douglas D-558-II 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.

Nov. 18, 1955 - Lt. Col. Frank K. "Pete" Everest completed the first powered flight of the rocket-powered Bell X-2 flight research airplane. Powered by a throttleable 15,000-pound thrust Curtiss-Wright XLR25 engine, the X-2 was designed to explore high-speed aerodynamics and the still mysterious "thermal thicket" (the area above Mach 2.5 where heat generated by aerodynamic friction causes extraordinary surface temperature increases). The X-2 would become the first aircraft to exceed Mach 3 and climb above 100,000 feet.

Nov. 5, 1959 - Following launch from its B-52 carrier on the program's fourth powered flight, the No. 2 X-15 (s/n 6671) suffered an in-flight explosion and fire during engine ignition. Its pilot, North American's Scott Crossfield, made a successful emergency landing on Rosamond Dry Lake, but the fuselage of the fuel-heavy aircraft buckled just aft of the cockpit as its nose gear slammed down onto the lake bed. Crossfield was uninjured and the No. 2 X-15 was repaired and returned to flight status a year later.

Nov. 10, 1960 - Popular singer and comedian "Tennessee Ernie" Ford taped a half-hour episode of his NBC television program from the ramp in front of the maintenance and modification hangar (Bldg. 1600) at Edwards AFB.

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 (the original designation of the F-4 Phantom II) to an average speed of over 1,606 mph.

Nov. 13, 1968 - NASA test pilot John A. Manke made the first successful powered flight of the HL-10, attaining Mach 0.80 at 43,000 ft. This was the first rocket-powered flight of a lifting body air vehicle.

Nov. 12, 1970 - A Boeing 747B completed its FAA certification program by establishing a world heavyweight takeoff record of 820,000 lbs at Edwards. This surpassed the unofficial record of 798,200 pounds set by a C-5A Galaxy at the AFFTC on Oct. 14, 1969.

Nov. 17, 1972 - The Airborne Warning and Control System Joint Test Force completed an airborne tracking demonstration three months ahead of schedule. The demonstration involved using Westinghouse "Brassboard" radar components mounted on a prototype E-3 AWACS aircraft to track some 84 sorties flown by F-106 and F-4 target aircraft.

Nov. 27, 1979 - A B-52 from Blytheville AFB, Ark., made a successful emergency landing on the lakebed. The bomber's landing gear had been damaged on takeoff, leaving the landing gear cocked 20 degrees to the right and unable to be raised or straightened. Center personnel parked a pickup truck in the landing area as a visual reference. Immediately after touchdown the aircraft veered 1,000 ft off the lakebed runway but stopped safely. The crew of seven was uninjured and the B-52 was repaired and returned to service.

Nov. 23, 1994 - The first test of a GPS-Aided Munition was successfully carried out by an F-4 over the nearby China Lake NAS weapons range. The precision bomb, intended for deployment on the B-2, impacted 44 feet from its target, well within the predicted range.

Nov.10, 1998 - AeroVironment's Centurion solar-powered technology demonstrator UAV made its first flight, a low altitude check flight under battery power. Part of NASA Dryden's ERAST program, the unpiloted vehicle was configured with solar power arrays across its 206-ft. wingspan. The program's goal was to develop an aircraft capable of performing long duration environmental science and telecommunications relay missions at altitudes up to 100,000 ft.

Nov. 2, 2000 - The sole remaining EC-135E Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft was excessed and flown to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. The ARIA was one of eight modified C -135s developed by NASA in the 1960s. Originally named Apollo Range Instrumentation Aircraft, they had tracked lunar missions, unmanned orbital, and ballistic missile re-entry programs. The Center divested the ARIA vehicles due to diminishing requirements for their unique mission capabilities.

Nov. 10, 2004 - The Airborne Laser program successfully fired all six modules of the system's megawatt-class Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser system during a ground test at its Systems Integration Laboratory on South Base at the AFFTC. The test, dubbed "First Light," lasted less than one second, but verified the physics design of the new laser system and its subsystems.

Nov. 16, 2004 - In the final flight of the program, the unmanned 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. The mission also marked the final operational flight of NASA's venerable B-52 (s/n 52-008) launch vehicle.

November 2008 - Lockheed Martin, partnering with the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB, conducted a successful demonstration of an autonomous landing in the F-16 aircraft. This signified the first occurrence of an F-16 landing performed entirely under computer control. The success of this "Autoland" system laid the foundation for consistent, repeatable and controlled automatic landings of the F-16 in various wind conditions and airfield situations. The technology, moreover, had broad applications for both manned and unmanned aircraft.

Nov. 22-23, 2010 - The Global Vigilance Combined Test Force completed a 32-hour RQ-4 Block 20 Global Hawk flight test during which the UAV was powered by the Fischer-Tropsch Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene fuel along with regular JP-8 fuel. The Global Hawk became the first UAV to fly using the Fischer-Tropsch Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene fuel. Specifically, the aircraft flew on a mixture of 25 percent coal-to-liquid fuel, 25 percent natural gas-to-liquid fuel, and 50 percent JP-8.