I was messing around with Google maps and I found Edwards AFB. I scrolled to the NASA hangers and look what was sitting on the ramp.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.953352,-117.883859&spn=0.006257,0.009927&t=k&hl=en
It’d be interesting to find out what NASA is doing with them . Thanks for the link. Very interesting.
[alien]
Those pics could be a couple of years old guys… As much as I love the Blackbird, I’m pretty sure the programme was terminated a while back [|(]. Also, the Roswell spaceship was a weather balloon and I don’t believe in [alien]s. [:-,][:D]
Oh, that link is too much fun. I have been goofing off with it for 30 minutes now. I found 2 aircrft carriers at Norfolk, but can’t get close enough to see my house[;)]
Holy Cow!!! Did you see that giant compass on the ground? Is that thing for real? I know Edwards is big, but I didn’t realize it’s big enough to fit compass on the ground with a mile long diameter (or more!). What’s with that?
I also saw a B-52, a C141, a couple KC135’s, aome F-15’s, some F-16’s and even what loioks to be Sea Knights or Chinooks and Super stallions. Lower down there is what appears to be an assembly for a museum, since there is what looks like a DC-3 a C-5, an F-111, an F-15, an A-10, and several other planes I can’t identify. This is cool!
That picture of Edwards is definately 2 to 3 years old. One of those SR-71 is #17980 and has been moved to the front of the NASA area as a static display. The other one is #17971 and has been trucked to the Evergreen Museum at McMinnville, Oregon.
I am not sure of the exact purpose of that big compass, but I think that it used for orientation of the pilots of high speed test aircraft. One glance at that thing and they know what direction they are headed and where they are at in relation to the dry lake runways. Another possibility is an oversize “compass rose” for aligning the navigation systems in the test aircraft.
Edwards is a very interesting place with lot of neat things going on there. I spent several TDY trips there in the 60s and 70s while I was with the SR-71 program. Most of the test programs are pretty tight with security and you have to guess at a lot of what is going on, but you sure get to see the latest, cutting edge technology in aircraft. I got to watch the take off and landing of the X-15, XB-70, F-107, etc.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Great link, thanks for posting it! Like Jason, I have been noodling with it for about an hour, and my hay field…er, lawn, really needs mowing!
Brian [bow]
I used to grumble about being sent out there to that godless desert to cover Space Shuttle landings years ago, staying in the only motel in Lancaster, CA, which is about as elegant as a bankrupt Motel 6. But then, when you enter the gate at Eduards, for an aircraft geek like me, it was as though I was entering the world’s biggest cathedral. It is holy ground, and just driving around it, passing the photo range, for example, where you can see an F-101A and a B-58 just sitting out in the middle of the desert. The place is magical to me.
The NASA SR-71 program was ended, at the same time most of the other important research was being gutted, ended after the Aerospike, which was to rely on the Blackbird, was determined to be too dangerous to be carried on the back of the SR. Also, most people are unaware that NASA is in the middle of a massive political upheaval that has left the Dryden Flight Research Center literally a shell of what it once was. As I said, gutted and grounded.
How this happened without anyone raising a cry is just a shame. Where were all these aircraft faithful with their letters to Congress and their votes as this fabled research institute, which gave us the X-1 and X-15, to name only two, was left with nothing to do and no funding. Most of the veteran test pilots have left in disgust, according to my friends at NASA Houston. It’s a shambles, and it’s apparently too late to fix it. Such pie in the sky, unformed ideas as the Mars mission, with its political attractiveness, took all the money away from the first A in the abbreviation NASA. And the sad thing? The result will be that air travelers will pay with their own blood. Our airliners are safe largely by the efforts of NASA. It’s not just the military that benefitted. In fact, they benefitted from NASA aircraft research less than the civilian aviation world.
TOM
I’ve asked this question before but in the photo containing the shots of the SR-71s, there is another aircraft on the ramp. It’s on the same ramp above (north???) of the 71s. It appears to be smaller, with a long nose, delta wings, twin tail booms (ala P-38) and is painted black. Anybody have any idea what it is?
You could be looking at the F/A-18A research and chase plane “Silk Purse” (apparently it was made from a “sow’s ear” of several other planes or something like that. Anyone know the story behind that plane?) I’ve mistaken that jet for other types because of it’s odd paint scheme. Also, it has been modified in various ways to change its looks from time to time, as has the NASA F-16XL, the latter another victim of the cutbacks, as were the two U-2/ER-1’s.
Even the famous C-135 Vomit Comet has just been replaced with using a greatly modified DC-9. The famous old zero-G simulator may by now be gone, but if not, it will be in coming months. A DC-9 is just not the same. But it is much more sophisticated as rebuilt by NASA. I have a friend who was a project director on that program, and he’s quite proud of it.
TOM
The last time I wa out there ('95?), I got a behind the scenes tour of the Dryden Center. A group of us were ex-B-52 crew chiefs and were there with the B-2 Program. We got to go inside the B-52B Mother Ship. We were in heaven on earth. That base just oozes with history, and unfortunately a lot of it is inaccesible. I tried to find the pit for the X-1, but couldn’t.[:(]
Great site, image the quality if these had been DoD satalite pictures