Lawsuit against Edwards AFB insourcing

According to the article in the link, a lawsuit has been filed by Rohmann Services against Edwards AFB. The lawsuit seeks to stop the insourcing of the visual services contract at the base.

Edwards AFB in Amusement Park's

The Six Flags Great Adventure amusement park in New Jersey has a ride called the "Parachute Training Center: Edwards AFB" it is described as providing a " breathtaking view of the naturally wooded park from a 25-story-high parachute drop."

Disney's California Adventure park in Anaheim California created an Edwards AFB themed area called Condor Flats. In 2001, the laughingplace.com website interviewed the Disney imagineers that worked on Condor Flats

Temps at Edwards today: High 104 deg F, Low 72 deg F.
Airplane Watch: A 747 flew low over Rosamond CA about 730pm Thursday.
Car Watch: None today...

Global Hawk Hard Landing Explained

Maj. Gen. Eichhorn tells the story of the Global Hawk's hard landing at Edwards...

Commentary by Maj. Gen. David Eichhorn Commander, Air Force Flight Test Center 6/2/2009 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Men and Women of the Air Force Flight Test Center, Actually, it all started while you were probably watching prime time television or perhaps you were having dinner. You may have even been reading your kids a bedtime story. It started for me at the civ-mil dinner at Club Muroc. We had just gotten our food on Thursday night, 28 May when the Test Wing Commander pulled me aside for a word. The word was that an aircraft that had been flying for hours had a spoiler malfunction. It was Global Hawk and a spoiler problem is a major problem for that aircraft. So some of you are asking, what are you talking about? Here it is. Spoilers exist on virtually all modern jet aircraft. Just as the name suggest, they're there to "spoil" the lift of the wings and cause more drag. They're needed so aircraft can slow down and descend efficiently. Modern, very slick aircraft really need spoilers or they will float for a long, long ways just as any glider floats. (Contrast this with the F-4 which "floated" like a brick - now before the Phantom drivers come after me, understand, I loved that aircraft too but engine out, we all agree, it could fly formation with a brick.) Back to the sick Global Hawk, what to do, what to do? Letting the aircraft land "normally" would result in failure of the landing gear. Why? Because the lack of spoilers would cause the aircraft to touch down too fast and then bounce back into the air. It's the next landing that's extremely nasty. The aircraft would float up and up and then nose over to come back down. The subsequent landing would be hard enough to fail the gear and crunch some very, very expensive sensors on board. The team at Edwards worked for hours with company engineers in Rancho Bernardo to find some way to safely recover what had never been safely recovered. They decided a lakebed landing was the better way to go. Now this would not be an option with a manned aircraft since the lakebed runways are unlit but the unmanned Global Hawk wouldn't know the difference. About 11:30 o'clock p.m., to get the aircraft to shed the extra airspeed, it was also decided to shut off the engine. So Global Hawk landed the same way the Shuttle landed on Sunday with no go around capability - dead stick. We committed 100% (all in) to landing for good or ill. It was a daring plan! It worked! The 452FLTS/UAV CTF did fantastic, as well as the entire 412OG team! What a scramble in the dark to make this all work! Kudos! Only Edwards could have recovered the aircraft safely that night. The aircraft floated (without spoilers remember) far further than anyone expected. Anywhere else and it would have been past any sort of proper landing service. But not at Edwards and on Rogers Dry Lakebed. It landed about 6 maybe 7 miles down the runway. The right main gear hit an obstacle and was badly damaged, but I must say, I was impressed with how well it withstood the damage. It didn't collapse for several more thousand feet. This saved the sensors. The most expensive part of the aircraft. So instead of a multi-million dollar mishap, (no threat to life but a lot of money is a lot of money) we are keeping our fingers crossed that this one will be less than a million dollars worth of damage and we gained a wealth of information on how to safely recover the aircraft when this happens again. Priceless! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Edwards is here -- talent tightly coupled with natural resources.

TPS Pilot Memorial Service

Link to a story on the Edwards web page about the memorial service for Test Pilot School T-38 Pilot held about a week ago

Global Hawk Hard Landing

5/29/2009 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- An Edwards RQ-4A UAS made an emergency landing just after midnight here May 28 on Rogers Dry Lake bed, adjacent to the airfield.

The block 20 Global Hawk, AF-9, experienced flight control problems while on a local flight test sortie.

Pilots performed a unique series of flight control maneuvers and managed to land the aircraft on the lakebed.

The RQ-4A sustained damage to its right wing and main landing gear but pilots were able to maintain the UAS's structural integrity and spare its ISR mission systems.

Edwards officials are assessing the damage and have appointed a board of officers to formally investigate the incident.

Aviation Week's ARES Blog also had this story

X-51

X-51 article in Flight International.

T-38 Crash At Edwards

5/22/2009 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- An Air Force test pilot student died yesterday when his jet trainer crashed north of Edwards Air Force Base.

Captain Mark P. Graziano, 30, died when the T-38A he was piloting crashed approximately nine miles north of Edwards AFB, near California City. Graziano was assigned to the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards, where he was undergoing training to become a test pilot.

His crew member, Major Lee V. Jones, was injured upon ejecting from the aircraft. He was transported to Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, where he is listed in stable condition. Jones, a senior navigator, is also assigned to the USAF Test Pilot School, undergoing test navigator training.

"We are shocked and saddened by this sudden loss and our hearts and prayers go out to Mark's family and loved ones," said Col. Terry M. Luallen, commandant of the USAF Test Pilot School. "We are doing all we can to support Mark's family during this trying time."

At approximately 1:15 p.m. yesterday Edwards AFB was notified that a TPS aircraft had gone down near California City. Emergency responders from the base and Kern County arrived at the scene where they found Jones near the crash site, and transported him to Kern Medical Center. Graziano was pronounced dead at the scene.

A board of officers is investigating the accident. Base officials stress that the accident site may contain hazardous materials released from the crash, and ask that individuals refrain from entering the area until the investigation has been completed, and debris removed from the scene.

Byron "BB" Biscoe

Byron "BB" Biscoe retired last week from the Range at Edwards. BB has been a pillar of the Range as Operations Duty Officer since I have been at Edwards (1989). BB performed real-time resource deconfliction for test projects at Edwards. The 900 gorilla project would have the priority to tie up all the resources available at Edwards and then sit in a maintenance hold. BB would negotiate with that project to free things up for the other projects. BB was also a car guy, I last saw him in a nice Caddy CTS. 

Reggie Cyrus

I attended a memorial service today for Reggie Cyrus, an icon in the Edwards Air Force Base Range and Instrumentation community. Reggie passed on New Years Day, 1 Jan 08. Reggie worked at Edwards for 38 years. During this time Reggie worked on real-time telemetry processing systems, instrumentation support systems, and a variety of other projects. For a brief time I was also Reggie's supervisor in the Range before I moved on to another area. He also worked for my father Walter Lipe. Reggie was a person who always tried to help. He treated people with the utmost respect.  I will sure miss him. And I have sure learned a lot from him over the years.

NASA Global Hawks

This AV press article talks about the Air Force transferring Global Hawks 6 and 7 to NASA. Here is the link to the story and photos on the Edwards AFB website.