Replies

I was in ROTC summer camp at Holloman AFB in 1976. We got to visit the RATSCAT facility. As I remember, I saw models of B-1B aircraft among others. There was another Flight from our ROTC camp that went to visit the RATSCAT on a different day - I was told that when they showed up, they had to wait in their bus for a while as technicians scrambled to cover up some models. I believe there was a scheduling mistake. Only years later did it occur to me that they were testing early models of Stealth designs at that facility while I was there.

Yeah - many models tested at RATSCAT were visually classified. I heard they had info from NORAD that provided schedules for when soviet satellites were overhead, so for highly classified testing, they could cover up the model. About the time I was there, I found out after the fact that a new facility was under construction named, I think RAMS (another acronym for which I can not remember the meaning). I heard it described as a real James Bond type facility with a massive elevator that dropped the testing model and 80 ft mounting (they called it a sting) device underground with the push of a button. Would have like to see that.

You likely also passed the "Sled" - a high acceleration device used to test pilots exposure to high acceleration. It was pretty awesome, though we never saw it under operation.