Aerospace Valley Air Show makes debut at Edwards Air Force Base

After a 13-year hiatus, Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) held an open home on Oct. 15 to 16, 2022, to showcase the very best of aviation — which included the utterly new Aerospace Valley Air Show. A big hangar was full of hands-on reveals, audio system, educators, contractors, maintainers, and navy personnel presenting all facets of air and area exploration. A Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) truthful was additionally built-in into the occasion to introduce the following generations to the fields of aviation, engineering, and flight.

The famend Edwards AFB is steeped in historical past. It was named after Canadian-born Glen Edwards, who moved along with his household from Medicine Hat, Alberta, to the Sacramento space of California when he was 13. He joined the Army Air Corps 5 months earlier than Pearl Harbour at the age of 25. He was a prodigious pilot in the course of the Second World War, flying 50 fight missions in North Africa and incomes 4 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 6 Air Medals. Returning to the U.S. in late 1943, he turned a Flight Standards Officer, then a graduate of Test Pilot School, and ultimately carried out Bomber testing at Muroc AFB (now Edwards AFB).

Edwards labored on the XB-35, XB-42, and XB-46 packages. He was on the shortlist to fly the X-1, solely to lose out to Capt Chuck Yeager, which prompted Edwards to return to school in 1946. After graduating in 1947 from the Princeton Aeronautics program, Edwards turned one in all a brand new breed of engineer check pilots. He returned to Muroc in 1948, and through a June 5 check flight of a Northrop YB-49 flying wing, Edwards crashed together with 4 others. He was solely 32.

On Dec. 8, 1949, Muroc AFB was formally redesignated as “Edwards Air Force Base.”

Edwards AFB can hint its roots again to pre-Second World War (1932) as a bombing vary away from populated areas. In the excessive desert of California, north of Los Angeles and over the San Gabriel Mountains, lies a big, dry salt flat that’s a part of the Mojave Desert. Nearly completely flat and having an space of 170 sq. kilometres (65 sq. miles), the pure lake mattress floor is difficult sufficient to resist the heaviest of recent plane. During the Second World War, the Muroc Army Airfield offered bomber crew coaching and, due to its secluded location, shortly turned a testing and improvement facility “away from prying eyes.” The first jet plane developed within the U.S., the Bell XP-59 Airacomet, made its first flight there on Oct. 1, 1942.

As custom at the Aerospace Valley Air Show, the occasion opened with a BOOM! — a sonic growth created by fighter plane flying excessive overhead, diving barely, breaking the sound barrier, and sending a sonic pulse that takes over a minute to succeed in the unsuspecting crowd beneath. More than 100,000 guests over three days almost certainly received to expertise their first sonic growth — an actual present opener.

The flying began with parachute jumpers from a C-17; the sort had its preliminary check flights at Edwards in 1991. The jumpers had been from the USAF parachute crew and later used Special Forces parachutes. The Special Forces parachutes had been examined at Edwards for such elements as sturdiness, controllability, quietness, glide ratio, sensor signatures, and cargo capability. Test jumps had been carried out from an altitude over 30,000 toes and allowed the parachutists to fly over 50 km from the drop plane to a touchdown zone.

The present then demonstrated the tactical use of the present USAF belongings by simulating the restoration of a captured airfield. F-35s and F-22s established air superiority by chasing away aggressor F-16s. Then, pleasant F-16s had been known as in to neutralize particular floor targets, all whereas the F-22s and F-35s flew high cowl.

The high cowl plane demonstrated air-to-air refuelling by hooking up with a KC-135 tanker, and simulated “passing gas.” Lastly, the closely fortified enemy targets had been laser focused, and a B1-B was despatched in to get rid of the menace. That resulted in a number of pyro “walls of flame” and a “victory roll” by the B1-B — a lot to the viewers’s pleasure.

The flying schedule modified tempo and took the viewers on a wartime pilot cadet improvement journey.

Vicky Benzing flew her Nineteen Thirties Stearman biplane, often called a PT-17 within the Army Air Corps — with “PT” standing for “Primary Trainer.”

Next was an AT-6 Texan coach, “War Dog,” owned and flown by John Collver. The “AT” stands for “Advanced Trainer.” This specific AT-6 has the tail code designation “WD,” which pays homage to Walt Disney who offered this particular unit’s MCAS El Toro — a mascot caricature of Ferdinand the Bull — in 1943.

Last was the P-51D Mustang “Man-O-War” piloted by Ken Gottschall, which was the top of wartime flying to a profitable cadet. Gottschall, a Reno Air Race pilot, flew a sleek demonstration whereas utilizing the management tower as a flip pylon.

Jet age coaching was represented by Greg Colyer flying his Canadair-built T-33 “Ace Maker.” The T-33 was developed from the Lockheed P-80 and carried out its flight testing at Edwards in 1948.

Several civilian aerobatic acts rounded out the flying program, together with Bob Carlton and his jet-powered Salto sailplane; Chuck Coleman in his Extra 300; Rob Holland, the a number of U.S. and world aerobatic champion, in his custom-built MXS; and, lastly, six homebuilt RVs in a formation demonstration as “Dawn Patrol.”

NASA and the German Space Agency SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) — a cellular infrared telescope — made a once-and-only look at a public occasion. A big engineering feat, SOFIA carried a 17-tonne glass reflector telescope in a extremely modified Boeing 747-SP to an altitude of 45,000 toes to flee 99 p.c of the Earth’s atmospheric water vapour. After greater than 730 missions, SOFIA was retired from energetic service on Sept. 30, 2022.

NASA flew a number of passes of their Gulfstream G-3, F/A-18, and F-15B Eagle. They additionally offered sonic booms from excessive above. Today, the onsite Armstrong Space Center makes use of the civilian registered fighters as chase planes and check beds.

The Lockheed Skunk Works “Darkstar” film prop from Top Gun: Maverick and an Edwards static SR-71 Blackbird had been additionally on show.

The USAF Thunderbirds, that are celebrating their seventy fifth anniversary this 12 months, concluded the flying show with their regular finesse, pace, and the occasional sneak cross to get the viewers’s adrenaline pumping.