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...For several nights, military personnel had reported a mysterious breach of restricted airspace over a stretch of land that has one of the largest concentrations of national-security facilities in the U.S. The first drone arrived shortly. Kelly, a career fighter pilot, estimated it was roughly 20 feet long and flying at more than 100 miles an hour, at an altitude of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Other drones followed, one by one, sounding in the distance like a parade of lawn mowers. The drones headed south, across Chesapeake Bay, toward Norfolk, Va., and over an area that includes the home...

A leak in a fuel pipeline facility in California forced a shutdown of deliveries of gasoline and diesel from the Los Angeles area east to areas including Las Vegas and Phoenix, but officials said Friday they believed supplies would not immediately be affected. Pipeline operator Kinder Morgan told The Associated Press the leak was discovered Thursday afternoon at a company station near Los Angeles and that its CALNEV and SFPP West pipelines were shut down while the Houston-based pipeline operator worked to resolve the issue. It did not say how much fuel leaked or when service would be restored. The...

In his address made on March 3rd, 2018 at the Antelope Valley Board of Trade and Business Outlook Conference, which was covered closely by the Antelope Valley Press, General Schaefer made the B-21's future basing crystal clear once and for all: "For the first time ever, I would like to publicly announce that the B-21 will be tested at Edwards Air Force Base... Edwards has been the home of bomber test and now we also can publicly release that the B-21 is coming to Edwards and we will be testing it here in the near future." Shaefer went on to...

For the past ten years, the Sierra Nevada Corporation and NASA have been developing and testing this next-generation space vehicle. When it is ready, this vehicle will not only provide a more cost-effective way of servicing the ISS, it will also help restore domestic launch capability to the United States. On Saturday, November 11th, the Dream Chaser passed an important milestone by conducting a successful free flight test. This took place at Edwards Air Force Base in California, and verified the spaceplane’s ability to glide and land autonomously. This, in addition to verifying several key avionic and flight systems, is...

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Test pilots and engineers from the 416th Flight Test Squadron had the chance to meet face-to-face with one of the squadron’s success stories Aug. 25. The group met with an allied nation pilot trainee who returned home alive after he experienced a g-force-induced loss of consciousness and his F-16’s Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System activated, executing a ground-avoidance maneuver, just as the system was designed to do. The 416th tested and proved the F-16’s Auto GCAS. The pilot, whose call sign is Ocho, and his instructor pilot came to Edwards at NASA’s request. Both...

/10/2016 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Explosive Ordnance Disposal Airmen from the 812th Civil Engineering Squadron blew up 20 gallons of a hazardous chemical at an on-base range June 6. The chemical was determined to be a nitrocellulose-dope lacquer, which was found at a drop-off point for hazardous materials waste in Lancaster, California. The city was able to track it back to General William J. Fox Airfield. "Nitrocellulose-dope lacquer was originally used to harden the flight surfaces of fabric-based aircraft," said Staff Sgt. Christopher Severe, 812th CES, EOD. "We knew from our research that this particular lot could...

Under contract to the U.S. Air Force, Northrop Grumman's B-2 Spirit stealth bomber has completed its first 18.5-hour sortie over the North Pole to validate new flight management software. The computer upgrade system, which is the cornerstone for all future B-2 upgrades, is now ready to enter low-rate initial production. The Extremely High Frequency (EHF) Increment 1 system verification review demonstrated the computer upgrade program successfully satisfied the government's requirements. The sortie also included air-refueling to and from the North Pole from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The verification reviews and flight test were the culmination of over two years...

The first night refueling in the history of the Lockheed Martin F-35 program was completed Thursday at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Piloted by U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Peter Vitt, AF-4, an F-35A conventional takeoff and landing variant, rendezvoused with an Air Force KC-135 tanker and successfully received fuel through the F-35’s boom receptacle. Vitt’s sortie lasted more than three hours. In addition to qualifying with the KC-135, the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards AFB will also conduct night refueling tests with the KC-10.

The US Marine Corps hopes to start F-35B local area flights at Eglin AFB, Florida, in early April with operational student pilots starting to train in the autumn, a service senior official says. "We anticipate flying at Eglin to start in the next month," the official says. "And our first student pilots to start training next fall to coincide with the delivery of the operational squadron aircraft at MCAS [Marine Corps Air Station] Yuma [Arizona]." But before training operations can begin, the Marines and other services need to be confident that the F-35 is robust enough to withstand the rigors...

US Air Force operational testers will start receiving their first Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighters at Edwards AFB in California in late June, a service official says. According to the official, the 31st Test and Evaluation Sqn will initially receive four aircraft, with more to follow later. If flight operations at Eglin AFB, Florida - scheduled to start on 6 March - ramp-up quickly to begin pilot training, the official says he is optimistic the operational testers can start flying by the end of June. The unit will initially start with local area flight operations designed to familiarise pilots...

Tri-partite Coalition Party the Socialist Left (SV) has called for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter price not to exceed the defence budget of 40 billion kroner. Labour (Ap) wishes to allocate extra money, whilst the Centre Party (Sp) will not comment. Bård Vegar Solhjell, SV’s parliamentary leader, believes that an aging population, climate and education are more important. He told Aftenposten, “Few would argue that military threats are among our most important challenges. We cannot live with the fact that the armed forces and national insurance being the only major initiatives forward, without caring about education and the climate.” Decisions...

In the 1970s, the Air Force launched a Minuteman ICBM launched from a C-5 Galaxy. Hold on, what!?!? That was my reaction upon learning that the above sentence is true. In 1974, the Air Force decided that it could turn C-5 Galaxy airlifters into flying SSBNs. Yup, Air Force planners thought the missile would be tougher for the Soviets to take out with a preemptive strike if it was already aboard a moving target like a C-5 versus sitting in a stationary missile silo. So, they loaded a Minuteman into a C-5 that parachute-dropped the 60-foot tall missile out of...

Northrop Grumman’s X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS-D) demonstrator successfully completed its long-delayed first flight at Edwards AFB, Calif on Feb 4. The stealthy, single-engine UCAS took off early in the afternoon Pacific time and landed some 29 mins later, having achieved an altitude of 5,000-ft. Aimed at gathering air vehicle management system data, the first flight also marks the start of a roughly 50-flight, year-long Block 1 envelope expansion test campaign at Edwards AFB. Initial flight rate is expected to be once per week, rising to twice a week later in 2011. Northrop and U.S. Navy officials passed the...

Raytheon's Advanced Combat Radar, the latest Active Electronically Scanned Array radar, has successfully completed a series of flight trials on a U.S. Air Force F-16 at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The radar demonstration flights were conducted in partnership with the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin. The RACR team highlighted the multirole capabilities RACR could bring to the F-16 Fighting Falcon, which included executing a range of air-to-air and air-to-ground modes. RACR is the product of company-funded development, leveraging Raytheon's proven capability in providing active electronically scanned array radar technology for multiple platforms. The RACR team completed development in...

Sierra Nevada is emerging as the likely front runner to use the former NASA X-34 reusable launch vehicle demonstrator as a flying testbed for its Dream Chaser orbital space vehicle. The two surviving Orbital Sciences-built X-34s were moved by road to Mojave, Calif., on Nov. 16 from Edwards AFB, Calif., where they had been in storage since the program was canceled in 2001. The two 58.3-ft. vehicles, now stored inside a hangar belonging to the National Test Pilots School, were developed under a NASA program begun in 1996 to provide a low-cost advanced technology flight demonstration testbed vehicle for space...

An RQ-4 Global Hawk completed a 32-hour flight test using an alternative fuel mixture, Nov. 23. The 412th Test Wing's Global Vigilance Combined Test Force's Block 20 Global Hawk took off at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 22 and became the first remotely piloted aircraft to fly using the Fischer-Tropsch Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene fuel and regular JP-8 jet fuel blend. The Fischer-Tropsch process is a set of chemical reactions that converts carbon-based materials into liquid hydrocarbons. Typically utilizing coal, natural gas, or biomass as a feedstock, the resulting synthetic liquid is utilized as a petroleum substitute. "The RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft is...

The aviation and space press buzzed last week with the news that NASA had quietly moved its two long-grounded X-34 space planes from open storage at the space agency's Dryden center - located on Edwards Air Force Base in California - to a test pilot school in the Mojave Desert. At the desert facility, the mid-'90s-vintage, robotic X-34s would be inspected to determine if they were capable of flying again. It seemed that NASA was eying a dramatic return to the business of fast, cheap space access using a reusable, airplane-style vehicle - something the Air Force has enthusiastically embraced...

The Joint Strike Fighter under development to replace many aircraft in all branches of the U.S. military appears to be landing late for training. The first delivery of F-35s was expected this month at Eglin Air Force Base, where pilot and support training squadrons were formed for Air Force, Navy and Marines in April 2010. But the first two aircraft are now destined for Edwards Air Force Base in April 2011. Joint Strike Fighter program officials told the Northwest Florida Daily News that Lockheed Martin needs additional time to make aircraft modifications to support testing.

Engineers with the 418th Flight Test Squadron are currently testing a C-130H3 cargo plane equipped with Hamilton Sundstrand NP 2000 propellers. The new eight-bladed composite propellers are shaped to provide additional thrust in the takeoff and low airspeed range while using the current C-130 engines. Regular C-130 "legacy" planes use four-blade propellers. With eight blades, the NP 2000 props are designed to perform with more power and efficiency. "A major limitation propellers have is the wave drag generated by shockwaves when the propeller tips go supersonic," said Dustin Marschik, a 418th FTS performance and flying qualities engineer. "Newer propeller designs...

.: Northrop Grumman Corporation has begun flight testing the new computing hardware and communications infrastructure that will eventually allow the B-2 stealth bomber to send and receive battlefield information by satellite more than 100 times faster than today. Since Sept. 1, the company has conducted a series of test flights using a B-2 test aircraft stationed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The flight test program is part of Increment 1 of the U.S. Air Force's B-2 extremely high frequency (EHF) satellite communications program. Northrop Grumman is the Air Force's prime contractor for the B-2 Spirit, the flagship of the...