Edwards Air Force Base
Edwards Air Force Base spreads across 470 square miles of California desert. Most of it lies in Kern County, with an eastern end in San Bernardino County and a southern arm in Los Angeles County.
Almost every United States military aircraft built since the 1950s has been at least partly tested here. The base has helped develop virtually every aircraft the Air Force has bought since World War II.
That raises some odd questions. How did a stretch of empty Mojave Desert become the place where the newest flying machines are pushed to their limits? Why do so many old records call the same spot Muroc? And who was the Edwards whose name the base carries?
The answers begin with a railroad water stop and a very flat lake that holds no water.
In 1882 the Santa Fe Railroad set up a water stop on the floor of the Mojave Desert, and for decades hardly anyone settled nearby. In 1910 Ralph, Clifford and Effie Corum built a homestead at the edge of Rogers Dry Lake. The family helped draw other settlers and bring services to the area. When the community won a post office, the Corums reversed their own surname to make Muroc, because California already had a town called Coram.
The military came in the 1930s. In August 1932 Lieutenant Colonel Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, commander of March Field and its 1st Wing, began acquiring land beside the dry lake. March Field sat in a growing part of Riverside County, and his units needed bombing and gunnery ranges far from populated areas. The last tract was not secured until 1939. The facility built to support the range was first called Mohave Field, after a nearby community, and then became Muroc Field.
In October 1935 five men under a Sergeant Folgleman were sent out from March Field. They laid circular bombing targets across the desert, and for two years aircraft shuttled between the dry lake and March Field for crew bombing practice.
Not far away, a woman named Pancho Barnes built the Rancho Oro Verde Fly-Inn Dude Ranch, the scene of many parties and celebrations. The dry lake itself was a hive of hot rodding, with cars racing across the flat surface. The runway that the Space Shuttle later used follows the route of those 1930s races.
In 1937 the entire Army Air Corps took part in a large-scale maneuver at Muroc, the first major aerial activity there. Arnold became Chief of the Air Corps in 1938, and the service turned a sharper eye toward research and development. He called the lake bed "level as a billiard table," which made it a giant natural runway for flight testing.
Over 120 million US dollars went into the base during the 1940s, and it grew to 301,000 acres. Its main runway, 15,000 feet long, was finished in a single pour of concrete. Soon it would host aircraft that few people were supposed to see.
On the afternoon of the 7th of December 1941, the 41st Bombardment Group and the 6th Reconnaissance Squadron arrived at Muroc from Davis-Monthan Army Airfield in Arizona. They brought Douglas B-18 Bolos, North American B-25 Mitchells and an A-29 Hudson. On Christmas Eve the 30th Bombardment Group and the 2d Reconnaissance Squadron followed from New Orleans for crew training.
Through the war years, Muroc's main job was final combat training for bomber and fighter crews just before they shipped overseas. Newly graduated pilots spent eight to 12 weeks learning to work as a team in the same type of aircraft they would fly in combat. Sub-bases and auxiliary fields spread across the region, among them Bishop, Blythe, Palmdale, Desert Center and Gary. In 1943 the 360th Fighter Group and 382d Bombardment Group were assigned permanently for P-38 Lightning and B-24 Liberator replacement training.
In the spring of 1942, however, the desert took on a second job. The Army wanted a secluded site to test America's first jet, the Bell Aircraft P-59 Airacomet. Heavy testing at Wright Field in Ohio had pushed planners to look for somewhere "away from prying eyes." They needed good year-round flying weather and a spacious landing field, because the radical technology carried real risk. After studying locations across the country, they chose a spot on the north shore of Rogers Dry Lake, about six miles from the training base.
The first XP-59 arrived on the 21st of September 1942, and ground tests began five days later. On the 30th of September it rose to 10 feet for half a mile during taxi testing. The first official flight came on the 1st of October 1942, watched by personnel from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, the Royal Air Force, the Army, Bell and General Electric.
Most of the flying was done by the contractor. A formal military evaluation did not begin until the fall of 1943, and it lasted about a month. By 1944 the Army Air Forces had decided the aircraft was unsuited to combat and would serve as a trainer instead.
Still, the P-59s were tested from October 1942 through February 1944 without a single accident. That record, plus the success of the Lockheed XP-80 program in early 1944, sealed the future of the remote installation. Muroc became tied to America's turbojet revolution.
Other wartime work followed. In the fall of 1944 the Eighth Air Force ran tests to see how conventional fighters fared against jets. A small detachment arrived in October 1944 to experiment with firing rockets and stayed through most of 1945. The Northrop JB-1 Bat also flew here.
In 1943 crews built a replica of a Japanese cruiser in Rogers Dry Lake. Nicknamed "Muroc Maru," it served as a bombing target until 1950.
On the 14th of October 1947, Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager flew a small, bullet-shaped, rocket-powered Bell X-1 and became the first human to exceed the speed of sound. The X-1 had arrived in late 1946 as the first of a long line of experimental airplanes built to prove or disprove ideas about flight.
Four months later, on the 10th of February 1948, the field was redesignated Muroc Air Force Base, as the United States Air Force became its own service. Flight testing now had two identities. Programs like the X-3, X-4, X-5 and XF-92A were flown with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics to answer largely theoretical questions in a methodical way. The great bulk of testing, then and now, evaluated aircraft and systems proposed for the operational inventory.
The man whose name the base would carry was already gone. Glen Edwards was born in Alberta, Canada, and flew A-20 Havoc light attack bombers in the North African campaign. He completed 50 hazardous low-level missions against German tanks, convoys, troops, bridges and airfields. In 1943 he became a test pilot and spent much of his time at Muroc. On the 5th of June 1948 he died in the crash of a Northrop YB-49 flying wing near the base. In December 1949 Muroc was renamed in his honor, and records soon began to pile up.
The first-generation X-1 reached Mach 1.45 and 71,902 feet. In 1951 Douglas test pilot Bill Bridgeman flew the D-558-II Skyrocket to Mach 1.88 and 74,494 feet, and in 1953 Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Marion Carl took it to 83,235 feet. On the 20th of November 1951, Scott Crossfield of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics flew the Skyrocket to Mach 2.005. Less than a month later Major Yeager reached Mach 2.44 in the Bell X-1A, and nine months after that Major Arthur "Kit" Murray set an altitude mark of 90,440 feet in the same airplane.
Those marks lasted less than three years. In September 1956 Captain Iven Kincheloe became the first man above 100,000 feet, reaching 126,200 feet in the Bell X-2. Weeks later, on the 27th of September, Captain Mel Apt became the first to exceed Mach 3, reaching 3.2. Seconds afterward the X-2 tumbled violently out of control, and Apt could not recover.
The search for high-Mach answers then waited for the North American X-15. In 1961 Major Robert M. "Bob" White passed Mach 4 on the 7th of March, reaching 4.43. He topped Mach 5 on the 23rd of June, at 5.27, and later reached 6.04 on the first full-powered flight. On the 17th of July 1962 he climbed to 314,750 feet and became the first man to fly an airplane in space. NASA's Joe Walker reached the X-15's peak altitude of 354,200 feet on the 22nd of August 1963. On the 3rd of October 1967, Major William J. "Pete" Knight flew the modified X-15A-2 to Mach 6.72, still the highest speed ever reached in an airplane.
Meanwhile the Air Force and NASA tried something stranger: wingless lifting bodies such as the M2-F2, M2-F3, HL-10, X-24A and X-24B. They proved that a vehicle could make precision landings after a high-speed gliding descent from great height.
In 1944 Northrop built a 2,000-foot rocket sled track near what is now North Base. It was meant to help develop a weapon in the style of the V-1 flying bomb, which never left the drawing board. After the war the track found a new use testing V-2 rockets captured from Nazi Germany under Operation Paperclip.
Lieutenant Colonel John Stapp later took over the track for his MX981 project and installed what was believed to be one of the most powerful mechanical braking systems ever built. His deceleration tests earned him press nicknames: the "fastest man on earth" and the "bravest man in the Air Force."
The first track's results led the Air Force to build a second in 1948, just south of Rogers Lake. Its 10,000-foot length could support supersonic speeds, and its first project was the SM-62 Snark cruise missile. Success brought an extension, and the full 20,000-foot track opened on the 13th of May 1959. After the Navy used it for research on the UGM-27 Polaris ballistic missile, engineers turned it to ejection seats that could work at supersonic speeds.
The program worked, but a budget review judged the track too expensive to maintain. It was decommissioned on the 24th of May 1963. Before closing, a trial run set a world speed record of Mach 3.3 before the test car broke up. The rails were later pulled up to help straighten Lancaster Boulevard.
Rocket engines needed a home of their own. In 1946 the Power Plant Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base imagined a static facility for testing high-thrust missile engines. Planners decided it should be government-owned, so no single contractor would gain an edge on Air Force contracts. They also wanted to avoid duplicate facilities at different manufacturers. In 1947 they picked Leuhman Ridge, east of Rogers Dry Lake, and construction of the Experimental Rocket Engine Test Station began in November 1949.
Today the Air Force Research Laboratory's Propulsion Directorate still keeps a rocket engine test facility on and around that ridge.
On the 5th of January 1972, President Richard M. Nixon announced the Space Shuttle program, and Edwards was picked to test the orbiter. The prototype, Enterprise, was carried aloft by the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and released. In all, 13 test flights with Enterprise and the carrier checked their flight characteristics and handling.
Columbia became the first shuttle launched into orbit on the 12th of April 1981, and it came home to Edwards. Two things drove the choice. The base had immense lakebeds, and it sat near Plant 42, where the shuttle was serviced before its next launch. Edwards served as the primary landing area until 1991. After that, Kennedy Space Center in Florida was favored, which saved the considerable cost of moving the shuttle from California back to Florida.
Edwards and White Sands Space Harbor stayed on as backups for the rest of the program, and they were used. Rain and cloud ceilings at the Kennedy landing facility sent shuttles to Edwards on the 9th of August 2005 (STS-114), the 22nd of June 2007 (STS-117), the 30th of November 2008 (STS-126), the 24th of May 2009 (STS-125) and the 11th of September 2009 (STS-128).
STS-126 was the only mission to land on temporary runway 04, because the refurbished main runway was not yet ready. From STS-119 until the shuttles retired, the main runway was back in service.
Plant 42 sits at Palmdale, California, a remote facility of Edwards. It is government-owned and contractor-operated, one of four Air Force plants in the country. It lies close to the Los Angeles aerospace industry and to the high-speed corridors of the test wing at Edwards. Production, modification, depot maintenance and flight testing all happen there, with civilian defense contractors working alongside Air Force personnel.
By June 1951, when the base was officially designated the U.S. Air Force Flight Test Center, more than 40 different aircraft types had first flown at Edwards. The North American F-86 Sabre, already finished, was dominating the skies over Korea. The 1950s brought the first true supersonic fighters, the Century Series: the F-100 Super Sabre, F-101 Voodoo, F-102 Delta Dagger, F-104 Starfighter, F-105 Thunderchief and F-106 Delta Dart. Their testing defined the basic speed and altitude limits for fighters that still hold today.
The center also tested the B-52 Stratofortress, the C-133 Cargomaster and the KC-135 Stratotanker. It tested the YC-130 Hercules, which led to a classic family of tactical transports, and supported the U-2 and the B-58 Hustler, the world's first Mach 2 bomber.
On the 1st of May 1965, the Lockheed YF-12A, a precursor to the SR-71 Blackbird, shattered nine records in a single day of testing. They included a sustained speed of 2,070 miles per hour and an altitude of 80,257 feet. The full capabilities of the SR-71 remain classified.
In 1978 and 1979, at a remote location, a test pilot and two flight test engineers carried out proof-of-concept work on Lockheed's low-observable demonstrator, called Have Blue. Its success led straight to the F-117A Nighthawk. Then in the late 1980s the B-2 Spirit appeared, the first giant flying wing over the base in nearly 40 years. It was third-generation stealth technology, after the SR-71 and the F-117.
The decade also brought a space-age demonstration. A highly modified F-15 Eagle launched an ASM-135 anti-satellite missile at a dead satellite, P78-1, also called Solwind, and destroyed it. In 1986 Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager took off in the Rutan Voyager and flew the first non-stop trip around the world on a single tank of fuel.
The end of the Cold War arrived with the YF-22A and YF-23A, the first prototypes to combine stealth with agility and supersonic cruise. The YF-22A won and became the F-22A Raptor, which is still tested at Edwards. In February 1998 the unmanned Global Hawk made its first flight there. In September and October 2000 the X-35A and X-32A, rivals for the Joint Strike Fighter program, took their first flights. The X-35A won the competition in 2001.
Rogers Lake covers 44 square miles of desert, and the neighboring Rosamond lake bed covers 21. Seasonal water collects on both, and desert winds push it around and polish the surface smooth again. Rosamond's bed was once measured to deviate by only 18 inches over 30,000 feet, about one millimeter in every 20 meters. Because of Rogers' role in the space program, it was declared a National Historic Landmark. Painted on the lakebed is the world's largest compass rose, 2,000 feet in radius, built in 1956.
The desert is also a habitat. The desert tortoise lives on the base, and it is illegal to touch, harass or harm one. Joshua trees, the tall members of the species Yucca brevifolia, grow here as well.
The base now hosts half of the Edwards and Sanborn Solar and Energy Storage Project, which has 875 megawatts of solar power and 3,287 megawatt-hours of battery storage. Over 35 years the base receives 75 million dollars from the plant.
The 412th Test Wing runs the testing mission and the base's daily operations. Its Operations Group flies an average of 90 aircraft of upwards of 30 designs, flying more than 7,400 missions a year, including more than 1,900 test missions. The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, which moved to Edwards from Wright Field in 1951, trains pilots, navigators and engineers in how to fly tests. Inside the base, NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center traces its roots to late 1946, when 13 engineers arrived from the Langley laboratory in Virginia to support the last X-1 supersonic flights. In 2012 the 95th Air Base Wing was folded into the 412th as part of a five-center consolidation that saves taxpayers approximately 109 million dollars a year.
In the 2020 census, Edwards counted 2,135 residents, with a median age of 24.4. Of the 589 households, 71.8 percent included children under 18. The base's children attend schools run by the Muroc Joint Unified School District, which still carries the old name of the place.
Updated
Common questions
Why was Edwards Air Force Base originally called Muroc?
The Corum family homesteaded beside Rogers Dry Lake in 1910. When a post office was commissioned, they reversed their surname to Muroc, because another California town was already named Coram.
Who was Edwards Air Force Base named after?
It was named for Captain Glen Edwards, a test pilot from Alberta, Canada, who flew 50 low-level missions in North Africa. He died on the 5th of June 1948 in the crash of a Northrop YB-49 flying wing. The base took his name in December 1949.
Why was the site chosen for flight testing?
Rogers Dry Lake is so flat that Hap Arnold called it level as a billiard table, and it works as a giant natural runway. The area also offers good year-round flying weather and a spacious, isolated landing area.
What was the first jet tested at Muroc?
The Bell Aircraft P-59 Airacomet, America's first jet, was tested there in secret from October 1942 through February 1944 without a single accident.
Who first broke the sound barrier at Edwards?
Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager did so on the 14th of October 1947, flying the rocket-powered Bell X-1.
What speed record from the X-15 program still stands?
On the 3rd of October 1967, Major William J. "Pete" Knight flew the modified X-15A-2 to Mach 6.72. It remains the highest speed ever attained in an airplane.
Does the Space Shuttle still land at Edwards?
The shuttle program has ended. Edwards was the primary landing area until 1991, then served as a backup. The last of those landings listed in the history was STS-128 on the 11th of September 2009.
All sources
62 references cited across the entry
- 1Origins of NASA Names: VI—NASA INSTALLATIONSHelen T. Wells et al. — Scientific and Technical Information Office National Aeronautics and Space Administration — 1976
- 2NewsFlying Machine15 April 1982
- 4Coram was a smelter town established on the Sacramento River in 1906 about 1.6 km below what is today Shasta Dam, in northern California. It was abandoned around 1911 when the Balaklala Mine was close
- 6Hq Fourth AF G0 No. 83, 23 July 1942
- 7Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units of World War II. Maxwell AFB, AL: Office of Air Force History. .
- 8BookArchitects of American Air Supremacy: General Hap Arnold and Dr Theodore von KármánDik A. Daso — Air University Press — September 1997
- 9Hq Fourth AF G0 No. 188, 26 November 1943
- 10Rogers Dry LakeNational Park Service
- 11Ford, Daniel: Glen Edwards: The Diary of a Bomber Pilot (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998)
- 12Air Force Systems Command, Delivering The Future (1989). Compiled by Lt. Col. Beverly S. Follis, USAFR HQ AFSC/Office of History
- 14Endeavour lands at Edwards to conclude STS-126Chris Bergin — NASASpaceflight.com — 30 November 2008
- 19UnitsUS Air Force
- 20JournalAircraft and Squadrons of the US Air ForceKey Publishing — 2018
- 21MagazineAircraft of the US Marine CorpsTom Kaminski — Key Publishing — 2020
- 22UnitsUS Air Force
- 23Aircraft Flown at Armstrong Flight Research Center19 April 2017
- 26The biggest solar-plus-storage project in the US just came online25 January 2024
- 29Solar energy project extending onto Edwards Air Force Base becomes Kern's largestJohn Cox — 8 February 2023
- 342020 U.S. Gazetteer Files - CaliforniaUnited States Census Bureau
- 592010 Census Interactive Population Search: CA – Edwards AFB CDPU.S. Census Bureau
- 60Edwards Air Force Base EducationU.S. Department of Defense
- 62BookCarrying the Fire: An Astronaut's JourneysMichael Collins — Cooper Square Press — 2009