Page 5 - Aerotech News and Review, April 30, 2021

On this date ...

May 4, 1950: The prototype reconnaissance platform
Northrop YRB-49A, made its first flight from Hawthorne,
Calif., to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. After only 13
May 5, 1961: U.S. Navy flights, testing ended April 26, 1951. It was then flown
Cmdr. Alan Shepard, Jr., back to Northrop’s headquarters from Edwards Air Force
became the first American and Base, Calif., on what would be its last flight. There, this
second man in space when he remaining flying wing sat abandoned at the edge of
May 1, 1960: A CIA Lockheed U-2A, flown by Francis rides his Mercury Freedom 7 Northrop’s Ontario airport for more than two years. It was
Gary Powers is shot down by a missile near Degtyarsk capsule to 115 miles above finally ordered scrapped on Dec. 1, 1953. The YRB-49A
May 1, 1951: The Experimental Flight in the Soviet Union during an overflight codenamed the Earth. Shepard’s mission was a reconnaissance version of the YB-49 Flying Wing
Test Pilot School, newly transferred from Operation Grand Slam, the 24th and most ambitious was a 15-minute suborbital that had been cancelled on March 15, 1950. Secretary of
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, deep-penetration flight of the U-2 program. Powers flight with the primary objective the Air Force Stuart Symington ordered the YB-49s chopped
and renamed, opened its first classes at parachuted down and was captured. Powers is later of demonstrating his ability to up and the materials smelted down. Symington turned
Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The TPS produced in a “show trial.” In this photograph, Gary withstand the high g-forces of down a request from the Smithsonian for the Air Force to
shared its facility with the Base Transient Powers (right) is shown with U-2 designer Kelly launch and atmospheric re- donate one of these big wings to its collection of pioneering
Maintenance Hangar, Bldg T-1011. Johnson in 1966. entry. Northrop aircraft.

May 2, 1988: The 100th May, 7, 1991: Space Shuttle Endeavour
and final B-1B Lancer was arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in
delivered to the U.S. Air Florida, after being flown on the Shuttle
Force. The B-1B was built Carrier Aircraft from NASA’s Dryden
at the Rockwell International (now Armstrong) Flight Research Center,
facility at Air Force Plant 42 Edwards Calif. In 1987, Congress approved
in Palmdale, Calif. The Air the construction of Endeavour to replace
Force currently has 62 B-1Bs the Challenger that was destroyed in 1986.
in its inventory. Endeavour rolled out of the Rockwell facility
at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif., on
April 25, 1991.

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