Page 8 - Aerospace Valley Hybrid Air Show Program - October 5-10, 2020.....

EDWARDS, from 7

Oct. 14, 1947: Capt. Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. At approximately 45,000 feet above
the desert, Yeager fired the rocket engines on the Bell X-1 he was piloting, nicknamed Glamorous
Glennis after his wife. The aircraft was carried aloft beneath a modified B-29 Superfortess, where
it was air launched. Accelerating to 700 mph, he became the first human to officially travel faster
than the speed of sound in level flight. The data from this and subsequent flights helped pave the
way for many more firsts in the supersonic era.

las test pilot Bill Bridgeman flew the skyrocket to a high plateau at Edwards, as aircraft such as the
a top speed of Mach 1.88 (1,180 mph) and a peak famed “Century Series” of fighters — the F-100
altitude of 74,494 feet. Then, in 1953, Marine test Super Sabre, F-102 Delta Dagger, the Mach 2
pilot Lt. Col. Marion Carl flew the same plane to F-104 Starfighter, F-105 Thunderchief and F-106
an altitude of 83,235 feet. Delta Dart — made supersonic flight seem almost
On Nov. 20, 1951, the National Advisory Com- commonplace.
mittee for Aeronautics’s Scott Crossfield became Incorporating many advances made possible
the first man to reach Mach 2 as he piloted the by the experimental research programs, each of
Skyrocket to a speed of Mach 2.005 (1,291 these aircraft was a technological achievement
mph). Less than a month later, Maj. Chuck Yea- and, indeed, as a group, they defined the basic
ger topped this record as he piloted the second- speed and altitude envelopes for fighters, which
generation Bell X-1A to a top speed of Mach 2.44 are still in effect to this day.
Jan. 15, 1943: The
first flight of the
XP-54 took place, June 25, 1946: The Northrop YB-35 Flying Wing made its first flight with company pilot Max Stanley
flown by Vultee flying the giant aircraft from Hawthorne to Muroc Dry Lake. The new bomber was powered by four
Aircraft Corporation large air-cooled radial engines, each driving a pair of coaxial counter-rotating pusher propellers.
test pilot Frank
Davis. Informally atmospheric flight in air-breathing, jet-powered systems.
nicknamed the
Swoose Goose, the aircraft such as the XB-70 Valkyrie and the YF- These planes more than bore out the prophecy
aircraft was a sleek 12 and SR-71 Blackbird. The 500,000-pound concerning the ever-increasing importance of
twin-boom, inverted Valkyrie proved itself capable of sustained triple- systems testing and integration. Moreover, an-
gull-wing aircraft with sonic flight operations at altitudes above 70,000 other major new element of complexity was soon
tricycle landing gear feet. introduced into the flight test process.
whose performance In the meantime, the mysterious Blackbirds, At a remote location in 1978 and 1979, an AF-
never lived up to its now described as first-generation “stealth” air- FTC test pilot and a pair of flight test engineers
appearance.
craft, provided even more dazzling performances were engaged in proof-of-concept testing with
as they routinely cruised at speeds in excess of Lockheed’s “low-observable” technology dem-
Mach 3 (about 2,250 mph) and at altitudes well onstrator, dubbed “Have Blue.” The successful
above 80,000 feet. conduct of these tests led immediately to the de-
With the decline of the military manned space velopment of a new subsonic attack aircraft that
mission in the early 1970s, the Aerospace Re- was designated the F-117A Nighthawk. Another
search Pilot School was re-designated the U.S. aerospace revolution — the stealth revolution —
Air Force Test Pilot School. This change was was underway.
(1,650 mph) and, just nine months later, Maj. The Space Age more than symbolic. Based on a survey of grad- The 1980s opened with one of the most dra-
Arthur “Kit” Murray flew the same airplane to a The 1960s ushered in a new emphasis on space uates still active in the flight test business, the matic episodes in all of Edwards’ history.
new altitude record of 90,440 feet. flight. The Test Pilot School, for example, was re- school completely revamped its curriculum to re- At 10:20 a.m. on April 14, 1981, the wheels
These records stood for less than three years. designated the Aerospace Research Pilot School flect major changes that had recently taken place of the Space Shuttle Columbia touched down
In September 1956, Capt. Iven Kincheloe became as it moved into the business of training future in the aerospace world. Experience had shown on Rogers Dry Lakebed. Astronauts John Young
that the proliferation of increasingly sophisticated
the first man to soar above 100,000 feet, as he astronauts. onboard avionics, sensor and fire-control systems and Robert Crippen had successfully landed the
piloted the Bell X-2 to a then-remarkable altitude High above the flightline, the X-15 was begin- would be a constant and that supervising modern first orbiting space vehicle ever to leave the Earth
of 126,200 feet. Flying the same airplane just ning to explore hypersonic and exoatmospheric test programs would increasingly require strong under rocket power and return on the wings of
weeks later on Sept. 27, Capt. Mel Apt became flight. Indeed, in July 1962, it became the first management skills. Thus, the school replaced its an aircraft. The era of reusable space vehicles
the first to exceed Mach 3, accelerating to a speed airplane to fly in near space as it soared above space-oriented phase of curriculum with a whole had dawned.
of Mach 3.2 (2,094 mph). His moment of glory 314,000 feet, winning astronaut wings for its pi- new battery of courses focusing on systems tests In the meantime, flight testing itself had
was tragically brief, however. Just seconds after lot, Maj. Robert M. White. With Maj. William and test management. evolved into a remarkably complex process that
attaining top speed, the X-2 tumbled violently J. “Pete” Knight at the controls on Oct. 3, 1967, led to a similar revolution in the Flight Test Cen-
out of control and Apt was never able to recover. the highly modified X-15A-2 ultimately reached The Modern Skies ter’s ability to acquire and process flight data.
With the loss of the X-2, the search for many a top speed of Mach 6.72 (4,520 mph), which New aircraft types arrived in the 1970s: the In fact, the extraordinary number of costly fly-
of the answers to the riddles of high-Mach flight remains the highest speed ever attained by a F-15 Eagle with its advanced engine and fire- ing hours required to test and integrate all of the
new systems under the traditional “fly-fix-fly”
had to be postponed until the arrival of the most manned airplane. control system; the single-engine F-16 Falcon method had forced the AFFTC to rethink its
ambitious of the rocket planes — the North While space-related activities captured the with its revolutionary, “fly-by-wire” flight control whole approach to the business of testing. Thus,
American X-15. public’s imagination, test pilots at Edwards system; and the B-1 Lancer with its multitude
Meanwhile, the turbojet revolution had reached were also continuing to expand the frontiers of of highly sophisticated offensive and defensive See EDWARDS, Page 10

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