The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School (located on Edwards Air Foce Base) is the training site of many of the world's best test pilots, engineers, and navigators.  Not all the students are from the Air Force and many are from other countries.  The year-long program exposes students to a wide variety of aircraft and flight test areas of concentration.
 
 

Here we snack on some complimentary doughuts and juice before the introductory presentation in the nearby auditorium.  The man in the flight suit on the right is Capt. Fred Fugere, a USAF TPS instructor and our guide for the morning.
 
 
 

Our tour coincided with the only cloudy couple of days this part of California gets all year long.  The canopy of this F-16D was opened so we could peek inside.
 
 
 
 

The USAF TPS has many more aircraft than can be seen in these photographs.  We were just shown the fastest jets (read: most interesting to budding aerospace engineers) on our tour.
 
 
 

Our tour also involved a telemetry-recording room where real-time flight information and video are recorded for analysis of student performance and critique of aircraft handling qualities.