This month in Edwards history

  • Published
  • By Air Force Flight Test Center History Office
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  For nearly seven decades, the men and women of Edwards AFB have been privileged to witness many of the most important milestones in aerospace history. This is the third in a monthly series that provides brief looks at some of the more significant events in the rich history of the base.

August 26, 1954 - After being launched from the bomb bay of a B-50, Air Force Flight Test Center test pilot Maj Arthur "Kit" Murray piloted the rocket-powered Bell X-1A to a new unofficial world altitude record of 90,440 feet (all speed and altitude records for the rocket planes were cited as unofficial because the aircraft were air launched). During his post-flight debrief, he laid claim to having become the first man to actually see the curvature of the earth. 18 August 1955 - In ceremonies presided over by Lt. Gen. Thomas S. Power, commander of the Air Research and Development Command, and AFFTC commander Brig. Gen. J. Stanley Holtoner, the new AFFTC headquarters building (Bldg 1) was dedicated. As the American flag was lowered at what we now call South Base, another was raised in front of the new building thereby signaling the transfer of all Center and base functions to the new main base complex. The new complex had had been built at a cost of $120 million. That year, the AFFTC reported an annual operating budget of $32 million and an inventory of 170 aircraft that averaged 2,000 flying hours per month.

August 20, 1955 - The AFFTC's Col. Horace A. Hanes established a new official world absolute speed record as he piloted an F-100C to an average of 822.26 mph during two runs over a new Antelope Valley speed course at an altitude of 41,000 feet. This was the first absolute world speed record to be achieved at high altitude and the first to exceed the speed of sound. He was awarded the Thompson Trophy for the feat, making him the third AFFTC pilot to win the prestigious award.

August 22, 1963 - NASA test pilot Joseph A. "Joe" Walker piloted the No. 3 X-15 to a peak altitude of 354,200 feet (67 miles above the earth's surface) and thereby became the second X-15 pilot and the first civilian in any vehicle qualify for astronaut's wings. This was the highest altitude attained during the X-15 flight research program.

August 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 confines of a conventional concrete runway had been attempted. Along with a subsequent flight by Maj. Michael Love, it demonstrated that these unconventional wingless lifting body shapes could make precision runway landings attaining touchdown accuracies of plus-or-minus 500 feet after high-speed gliding descents from high altitudes. These flights provided an important additional measure of confidence to those planning for the upcoming Space Shuttle program.

August 12,1977 - Flown by NASA's Fred Haise and USAF Col. Gordon Fullerton, the Space Shuttle Enterprise (the first, non-orbiting craft that was built to complete unpowered approach and landing tests to confirm the design's low-speed controllability and airworthiness) was launched from the back of a 747 carrier aircraft at 24,100 feet and successfully completed a five minute and 21 second descent to a landing and rollout on Rogers Dry Lake. This first flight -- along with four subsequent ALT flights -- demonstrated the soundness of the shuttle design and confirmed the approach and landing techniques that would subsequently be employed by astronauts returning from orbital space missions.

August 10, 2005 - In the final two missions of the X-45A Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) concept demonstrator program, the two UCAVs flew a pair of simulated preemptive destruction-suppression of enemy air defense (PD-SEAD) "graduation exercise" scenarios as they flew in formation autonomously and successfully identified, attacked and destroyed pre-identified ground-based threat systems before they could launch surface-to-air missiles. They also faced a simulated "pop-up" threat, used evasive maneuvers to avoid it, and autonomously determined which vehicle held the optimum position, weapons and fuel to attack it. Once the system operator authorized the attack, the designated X-45A simulated dropping weapons on the target and destroyed it.

August 8, 2007 - In a signing ceremony at the base, Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne announced completion of the service's certification of the Fischer-Tropsch synthetic fuel blend for use on all B-52H aircraft. Certification testing had commenced at Edwards on Sept. 19, 2006 and it had ended exactly three months later on Dec. 19 when the bomber was flown with all eight engines successfully running on the Fischer-Tropsch/JP-8 fuel 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 predicted that all Air Force aircraft would be certified to fly on a domestically-produced synthetic fuel blend by 2011.

August 10, 2009 - The Airborne Laser (ABL) test team successfully completed the system's first inflight test against an instrumented target missile. During the test, crew members aboard the YAL-1 (a highly modified Boeing 747-400F) used the system's infrared sensors to detect a target missile launched from San Nicholas Island, CA. The battle management system aboard the aircraft then issued engagement and target location instructions to the beam control/fire control system which acquired the target and fired its two solid state illuminator lasers to track the target and measure atmospheric conditions for disturbances. The system then fired a surrogate high-energy laser at the target, simulating a missile intercept. Instrumentation on the target missile then confirmed that the beam from the surrogate laser had successfully struck the target.