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EDWARDS AFB LOOKS TO THE FUTURE

A sole F-16 carves complex-looking figures in the deep blue sky high above Edwards AFB. You can hardly hear its engine, and apart from the smoke trails the only visible sign is the occasional flash as the fuselage catches the brilliant sunlight. On the ground the air shimmers above the huge salt lake and the low-lying hangars along its "bank". There is not a human being to be seen for far and wide. Inside, the air-conditioning is working flat out, and no one exposes himself to this heat unless he really has to. Were it not for the row of legendary aircraft from the "good old days" immaculately lined up by the entrance to the Flight Test Center, beneath the limply hanging flag with the eagle on the mast, one might easily be deluded into thinking this was just any old dozy desert airfield.

"The good old days" were the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, when the scorching air above the base still stank of unusual fuels of all kinds, when the deep drone of engines or the first whistling sound of jets were to be heard, when rocket aircraft tore through the atmosphere high up and the sonic boom signalled the advent of new milestones in aviation history. It was not that rare a sight to catch an explosion in the distant sky above the salted crust, followed by the swirling black clouds of smoke marking the descent of some unfortunate test aircraft, until finally the bang from the impact reached the tensely waiting observers far away.

This would be followed by the siren alarm of the fire services and rescue vehicles, only to give way later on to what was literally a deathly silence. In the evenings the test pilots would drink to the memory of their mates in the wooden shack which served as a bar, and pin up a new face on the wall where so many others already hung. Then the next morning they themselves would climb back into the tight-fitting cockpits of their unpredictable furnace machines and attempt once more to fathom out the secrets of future aeronautical engineering. The path on which the adventurers climbed to the sky was stony and strewn with victims, so that many who did not succeed in keeping a cool head in the heat of the desert never returned.

The makeshift bar burned down one night in a singularly unspectacular fashion, and with it all the photos of the smiling young men from those pioneering times. The flames were like a torch which heralded in a new era at Edwards, even if today there are still some veterans who miss the adventure. Most of today's aircraft still look exotic, but their engines make different noises or sometimes cannot be heard at all any more. The explosions too have become extremely rare in recent years, but these nobody misses.

In one of the huge flat hangars of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center the heroic past, the no-nonsense present and the unusual future of American aviation are depicted next to each other, apparently representing the change of generations in test flight operations. A Lockheed SR-71, which as space launcher had carried the revolutionary Aerospike engine for the future VentureStar space transport system high up into the sky, sheds sad tears of oil into flat catch containers.

The engineers who work here caress the black bird, which bears traces of past missions for all to see on its skin, as they walk past it and continue to hope that it will fly again one day. But the prospects of this happening are not very good. "Too expensive," someone sighs, "Nowadays such tests are simulated on computers." Who knows when the aircraft will finally end up in the museum?

Next to it is a fully fitted F/A-18 which is being prepared for new system tests. Countless sensors which on the next flight will spew out endless quantities of data, which in turn will be processed by high-performance computers, have to be installed. There is nothing adventurous about this; it is more like a surgical intervention in an operating theatre.

There is more to inspire the imagination in a different corner of the hangar, where the X-37, X-40A and X-43 experimental orbital vehicles are standing by to make their contribution to the task of developing future, reusable launch vehicles for NASA - faster, better and above all cheaper than the long established Space Shuttle.

But here again the trials are not very spectacular. At some point the test vehicles will be transported to altitude by some space launcher and released high up. From there they will somehow wend their way back to Earth, noiselessly and at speed. Then they will disappear once more into the hangars, be disembowelled and linked up by hundreds of cables to the same number again of computers. There is no place here any more for adventure.

A similar picture is offered to the observer at the USAF Flight Test Center, which has opened up its hangars only a few hundred metres away. In one of these the gates have been opened wide, allowing the light and heat to enter. Inside once again there is an operating theatre atmosphere, except that this time it is one of the very latest test vehicles that has been laid bare of all its protective covers - the X-32A JSF contender from Boeing.

Even without all its outer protection, the aircraft still looks like a thick toad, and this image is fitting in turn for Edwards.

Today the mechanics are not wearing oil-smeared dungarees any more, but sport white overalls as they bustle around in the insides of the ungainly-looking bird and follow the results of their actions on dozens of flickering monitors.

In the USAF test pilot school next door a few hopefuls are sweating over their test papers despite the air-conditioning. Only a relatively small number still get trained these days, and anyone in search of a big adventure has virtually no chance of entering the circle of the elite. All the same, the illustrious circle today includes some women, and it was here that many a famous astronaut earned his silver wings.

Malicious tongues, however, maintain that in 20 years no more pilots will be trained, nor test pilots either, as all aircraft will fly unmanned then. Yet it was right here that the triumphal march of computer technology into American aviation first got under way, before the modern aircraft had even entered full production. The testing and experimental work at Edwards always was years in advance of becoming everyday flying reality, and every time a pilot goes out on a test flight he is actually bringing forward slowly but surely the day when his own professional group becomes extinct. A strange thought indeed at, of all places, the air base which is more closely linked to the history of aviation than any other in the world.

From page 8 of FLUG REVUE 2/2001