LACAS, Team Edwards combine forces to bring
world-class air shows to Aerospace Valley
by Paul Kinison
publisher

   With a slap on the table and an emphatic “This is happening!”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Navy photograph
Brig. Gen. E. John “Dragon” Teichert, 412th Test Wing command-
er, made official the partnership between Edwards Air Force Base       March 21-22, 2020, the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels will be the headliner at the LA County Air Show. The air show will be the kick-off
and the Los Angeles County Air Show, Inc. board of directors,          show for the Blue Angels’ 2020 season.
which will bring a major STEM Expo to the Antelope Valley Fair
in 2019 and two air shows to the Valley in 2020.

   As announced last October, the LACAS board and Edwards’
senior leadership continue to work toward solidifying a formal,
multi-year partnership to conduct air shows within “Aerospace
Valley.” This unique partnership paves the way to resume air shows
at Edwards AFB. The last public air show on the base was in 2009.

   With Edwards’ long history of on-site air shows, and the recent
establishment of the popular and successful Los Angeles County
Air Show at Lancaster’s General William J. Fox Air Field, the
question for leaders on base and those serving on the civilian show
committee became, “How can we work together to do the show?”

   The answer, according to LACAS President Mike VanKirk, is
mutual teamwork and cooperation. “Every other year, the commu-
nity will host an air show and we’ll roll out the carpet for all the
military and service members in our back yard. (Then) Edwards
will have the opportunity to host an air show and roll out the carpet
for all of us. It’s as real as it gets.”

   The previously announced October 2019 air show dates for the
LACAS event have been moved to March 2020, in order to ac-
commodate the U.S. Navy Blue Angels flight demonstration team.
The year 2020 will feature “doubleheader” events, with air shows
scheduled for March 2020 at General William J. Fox Air Field, and
October 2020 at Edwards Air Force Base.

   According to VanKirk, “Last December, at the ICAS convention,
the Blue Angels communicated their desire to kick off their 2020

                                           See AIR SHOW, Page 3

NASA captures first air-to-air images of
supersonic shockwave interaction in flight
   “We never dreamt that it would be this clear, this   out,” said Heineck. “With this upgraded system,
beautiful.”                                             we have, by an order of magnitude, improved both
                                                        the speed and quality of our imagery from previous
   Physical Scientist J.T. Heineck of NASA’s Ames       research.”
Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley gets
his first glimpse at a set of long-awaited images, and     The images were captured during the fourth phase
takes a moment to reflect on more than 10 years of      of Air-to-Air Background Oriented Schlieren flights,
technique development — an effort that has led to       or AirBOS, which took place at NASA’s Armstrong
a milestone for NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mis-        Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif. The flight
sion Directorate.                                       series saw successful testing of an upgraded imaging
                                                        system capable of capturing high-quality images of
   NASA has successfully tested an advanced air-to-     shockwaves, rapid pressure changes which are pro-
air photographic technology in flight, capturing the    duced when an aircraft flies faster than the speed of
first-ever images of the interaction of shockwaves
from two supersonic aircraft in flight.                                                 See NASA, Page 4

   “I am ecstatic about how these images turned                                                                             NASA photograph

One of the greatest challenges of the flight series was timing. In order to acquire this image, originally
monochromatic and shown here as a colorized composite image, NASA flew a B-200, outfitted with
an updated imaging system, at around 30,000 feet while the pair of T-38s were required to not only
remain in formation, but to fly at supersonic speeds at the precise moment they were directly beneath
the B-200. The images were captured as a result of all three aircraft being in the exact right place at
the exact right time designated by NASA’s operations team.

March 15, 2019 • Volume 33 Issue 4                                     Serving the aerospace industry since 1986                             Use your smartphone to connect to
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