CNET -
MOJAVE
DESERT, Calif.--Although aviation history started in North Carolina and
is carried out -- often at a high level -- throughout the world,
there's likely no place on Earth more devoted to -- or accomplished at
-- the craft than the communities and facilities, both civilian and
military, of this huge, arid, mostly flat, often sweltering desert north
and east of Los Angeles.
Whether it's Edwards Air Force Base, NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center,
the Mojave Air and Space Port, the Southern California Logistics
Airport, or elsewhere in the area, the desert almost seems to breathe
aviation. This summer on Road Trip 2012, and during previous forays to
the area, CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman took in some of the best the
area has offered the world -- and it is a world-class list.This is the Lockheed SR-71, a Mach 3 reconnaissance aircraft, located at the Air Force Test Flight Center Museum, at Edwards Air Force Base. According to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, "No reconnaissance aircraft in history has operated in more hostile airspace or with such complete impunity than the SR-71 Blackbird. It is the fastest aircraft propelled by air-breathing engines. The Blackbird's performance and operational achievements placed it at the pinnacle of aviation technology developments during the Cold War. The airplane was conceived when tensions with communist Eastern Europe reached levels approaching a full-blown crisis in the mid-1950s. U.S. military commanders desperately needed accurate assessments of Soviet worldwide military deployments, particularly near the Iron Curtain," and the existing U-2 was too slow to do the job.
This is a B-52 Stratofortress at the
Air Force Test Flight Center Museum, at Edwards Air Force Base.
According to the museum, the first B-52 first took flight in 1952.
Eventually, nearly 750 were build. "Records set by B-52s include the
world's first nonstop round-the-world flight by a jet aircraft and the
first hydrogen bomb drop. B-52s began flying combat missions in
Southeast Asia...(in) 1965." Eventually, B-52s flew 126,615 combat
sorties, during which 17 were shot down.
This is an X-48C, a prototype of a
hybrid wing body airplane currently located at NASA's Dryden Flight
Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. The goal of a plane like this
-- which is an 8.5 percent scale version of an eventual full-sized
plane -- is to show the the genre of plane has potential. NASA and its
corporate partners, Boeing, and Cranfield Aerospace, have already
conducted 92 test flights with the X-48C's predecessor, the X-48B.
The team has yet to fly the X-48C, and the expect it may be 10 years or more before the full-sized version flies.Hybrid wing body airplanes are hoped to offer a wide range of utility, from being bombers, tankers, cargo transporters, command and control planes, or commercial airliners. Some think that since the design can't support windows, paying passengers won't fly on them. But seem think the solution is to build in virtual windows.
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