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Every year during Spring Break, Professor Doryland takes his Flight Test Course to a few interesting places in Southern California.  In 1998, AIAA members were fortunate enough to be invited.

Air Force Test Pilot School

The Air Force Test Pilot School is where many test pilots and NASA astronauts learned to fly "pushing the envelope."  Of the many aircraft available to the facility, an F-16D and a T-38 were on the ramp for us to look at.  Click here to go to the  official AFTPS website.
 

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Although only 14 aircraft were on display that day, there are big plans for this museum.  The most impressive aircraft was an early model B-52 showing its age with stress-wrinkled skin. In the photo at right, someone had found a panel on the underside of the aircraft and was claiming to move some of the control surfaces.  Click here for more information about this museum.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Dyden Flight Research Center

We took the standard public tour at Dryden (unlike the previous year).  Jump to the Dryden Flight Research Center website.

This HL-10 lifting-body research vehicle at the entrance to Dryden.  This aircraft was developed at Langley Research Center under the direction of Eugene S. Love and built by Northrup.  It first flew in 1966 and went supersonic (with the help of an XLR-11 rocket engine) in 1969.  This aircraft made 37 flights and was considered the most successful of NASA's lifting-body designs.
 
 
 

This full-scale X-15 mock up was installed at Dryden in 1995.  The three X-15 vechiles made a total of 199 flights between 1959 and 1968, reaching an altitude of 67 miles and a speed of 6.72 Mach.
 
 

Two X-29 aircraft made 436 flights between 1984 and 1992 to test compsite construction, forward-swept wing with variable camber and supercritical airfoil, strake flaps, close-coupled canards; and a computerized fly-by-wire flight control system.  The spin-recovery chute at the base of the rudder reveals that this is aircraft No. 2.
 

NASA used several F-104s for chase vehicles during various flight test programs until they were replaced by the current F-18 chase planes.  This particular aircraft '826' was used as a flight experiments testbed.  Externally, this aircraft is very similar to the Dryden F-104 that sits in front of our campus.
 

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Lockheed Martin Skunk Works
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works

This was Embry-Riddle's first tour of Skunk Works and hopefully not the last.  Photography was not allowed inside the security gates at Skunk Works.  Although most of the interesting stuff was classifiied and off-limits, we were able to see a few static display aircraft (F-80, U-2 SR-71, and F-117) and a A-4 Skyhawk cockpit upgrade simulator.

The photos here were taken at the Blackbird Airpark a few miles from the Skunk Works facility.  The Airpark is part of the Air Force's Production Flight Test Installation at Plant 42 and was dedicated in 1991.  We had the privilage of having a reitred SR-71 pilot as a tour guide at this site.
 

This SR-71A (#973) flew missions between 1968 and 1987.  Underneath the aircraft is one of the dual big-block V8 "Buick" engine starting carts.  The inlet spikes (not true cones) provide about 80% of the thrust at cruise and are positioned within the inlet by a hydraulic ram.  The spikes are full forward for take-off and landing and retract 26 inches into the inlet and camber inward toward aircraft centerline for cruise.
 

This A-12 (#924) was the first built and the first to fly (in 1962).  It was used as a flight test vehicle and never saw operational duty.  There is a D-21 drone on the right (never used).  Two A-12s (#s 940 and 941) were modified to carry the 42-foot 11,000 lb. titanium drone and were thereafter re-designated M-12s.  After only 3 successful launches of the D-21, a fatal accident involving the fourth drone and M-12941 forced all further D-21 flights to be launched from B-52s.  The only remaining M-12 can still be seen mated to a D-21 at Boeing's Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.
 

Here is another shot of the A-12 along with one of the powerful Pratt & Whittney J-58 engines that powered the SR-71/A-12/YF-12 fleet.  At cruise, the engine becomes 6 inches longer and grows 2.5 inches in diameter (due to the heat) while producing more horsepower than the Queen Mary ocean liner! 

For more information read SR-71 Revealed: The Inside Story by Richard H Graham, Col. USAF (Ret)

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National Test Pilot School

Find out more at the National Test Pilot School website.
 

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Scaled Composites, Inc.

Just down the street from the National Test Pilot School at the Mojave Airport we found Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites.  Unfortunately, photography was not allowed here.  We did see the first Proteus airframe under construction.  A VisionAire Vantage small business jet,  the Boomerrang asymmetrical twin, and a few unrecognized aircraft were also there.  Scaled builds the wings for Orbital's Pegasus rocket and fabricated the X-38 Crew Return Vehicle test airframes.  Jump to Scaled Composites website to learn more.

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