Edwards Air Force Base
Thursday, 7th April 2005 by Alex Turnbull
Edwards Air Force Base has this giant compass-thing scraped into the desert. I assume it's to help pilots orientate themselves when landing or taking off.
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Thursday, 7th April 2005 by Alex Turnbull
Edwards Air Force Base has this giant compass-thing scraped into the desert. I assume it's to help pilots orientate themselves when landing or taking off.
Someone should find Area 51.
I dunno if there’s more than one Andrews Air Force Base, but the only one I know of is the home of Air Force One, & it’s in Maryland; so this photo ain’t of that one.
Typo: It’s actually “Edwards Air Force Base”
Cheers IvyMike, fixed that.
Area 51: View Placemark
Scroll to the south-west and find that pock-marked stretch of desert. That’s where our gov’t tested nuclear weapons.
Interesting, it even shows up on topographical maps (this one from 1994):
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=2&S=12&Z=11&X=525&Y=4835&W=3
Its probably so the space shuttle can land there.
I thought that north was straight up on topo maps and rectified aerial and satellite imagery. I wonder whether this compass rose points to magnetic north instead…
even if it was magnetic north… this is off by a good 15-20 degrees…
Many aircraft tests were accomplished over the high desert of the Antelope Valley, and the dry lake bed serves as a huge airstrip.
it’s magnetic north, alright, according to the guide on topozone:
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=34.953&lon=-117.873&datum=NAD83&u=5
It’s Burning Man. Or at least, the setup for it.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,67190,00.html#
Edwards AFB is used as the west coast landing location for the Space Shuttle, should landing in Florida not be an option.
It could be taht the compass is there to help the pilots of the space shuttle get oriented correctly, since its visible from such a great distance.
Could have been used for swinging (calibrating) the compasses in aircraft. They’re usually not that big but maybe they just wanted to be really really really accurate.
If you go to look at the base a little to the south west, theres a group of 4 buildings, 3 that have grey roofs and one that is L-shaped and has a white roof. You can see two F-22’s, ones right in the middle of the grouping
if you zoom in all the way and put the 225 and 270 marks in the right corners of the viewabe space you can see two SR-71 Blackbirds….freakin’ cool!!!! They’ve still got those hanging out there…
I locate one Blackbird probably on permanent display from the looks of it along Lilly Ave. I see no sign of a second. I believe NASA still has a flying Blackbird at Dryden, but I don’t see it.
Apparently the large (ok, massive) white plane just by the zero on the 270 compass point is the 747 used for giving the shuttle a piggy back on return to Florida…
Just to the northwest of the compass you can also make out a triangle. Wonder what that’s about.
The large white plane to the left of the compass is probably a B-52 that NASA uses as an air-launch platform for experimental aircraft. It’s equipped with a collar under its wing that will clamp hold of an X-plane until they’re airborne, then the X will be released to fly on its own. The 747 piggy-back plane will only be at Dryden in the unlikely event that a shuttle has to make a California landing. The red contraption just to the northwest is the rack used to hoist the shuttle onto the 747.
afaik that’s a bombing range.
If you zoom out and look south of the main concrete runway, you will see the “South Base” complex. Zoom in again and you will see a concrete patio between two building that looks like a B-2 bomber (South Base was originally constructed to flight test the B-2). You will also see several B-1 bombers parked there.
I would just link to the right map, but I haven’t figure out how to do that yet.
The space shuttle pilots dont really use that many external aids when flying an approach. They follow a track on a video screen produced by microwave scanning beams directed into the air. They follow a wide circular track that leads down to the runway. And they only take over flying manually 2 minutes before touchdown. Most likely this is for normal aircraft.
More info: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/orbiter/avionics/gnc/msbls.html
Check out the runway of the base to the left you can see some intresting planes, including but not limited to B1 bombers plus this midair aircraft: View Placemark This link also shows the B1s on the lower right and some image mending weirdness on the bottom (I dub it the black wave :p)
interesting that there are 2 SR’s (SR-71), since “allegedly” there are none flying today..
Nasa uses sr-71s for testing and training. If I rember corectly..
The large white plane is definitely a 747, that silhouette is unmistakeable. It’s probably one of the two shuttle piggyback planes (I believe 1 used to belong to American and the other to PanAm, so it would be the PanAm one, number 905). The compass is aligned to true north, as evidenced by the runway numbers (The adjacent runway 15 points SSE at 150deg, as this is the numbering system for runways worldwide).
Edwards Air Force Base is situated on the edge of a Rogers Dry Lake Bed, the surface of which is excellant for runways. The complex near the compass is NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, the west coast landing site for the space shuttle.
The 747 clearly visible is the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. This can be confirmed by noting the shadow of the aft end of the aircraft reveals two vertical extensions to the wingtips, the distinctive feature of the aircraft. If the nose of the 747 is 12 o’clock, at the 2 o’clock position the red steel structure is the Shuttle Mate-Demate Device used to place the Shuttle on the back of the 747.
Heading south on the taxiway are a pair of aircraft NASA uses to test different types of avionics/flight system (a black F-18 Fighter and an F-15 Fighter). Of course the pair of Blackbirds leap off the runway. Google Earth has several Blackbirds at different Air Force bases.
At an angle that bisects the 270 and 180 degrees on the compass behind a hangar is a pair of F-22 Raptor aircraft.
Looks like everyone’s done with this, but if anyone else visits look on the tarmac of the small airfield about 3.5 miles due south of the giant compass. You’ll see a great collection, looks like a dc-3, f-111, f-4, a-10 and some others. And a little west, the scaled composite ATTT- http://www.scaled.com/projects/ATTT.html
there are also F-22’s on the base if you look hard enough found 3 so far. The military says they dont use the SR-71 for ‘reconisance’ but they do say they use them for research.
also there are a few F-16’s and i think i saw a few F-15’s… hard to tell but the pic is recent and those would be the most likely sitings.
If you look at this picture from the now scrapped X-33 program, you will see the compass and the same runways on the simulator picture the technichian is flying, so this could be for the benefit of aligning this space plane(why should it else be on the simulator picture ?)
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/X-33/Medium/EC97-44008-2.jpg
If you look out in the brush on the very south side of the lake bed there are 4 planes just sitting out in the weeds, one is busted into pieces, two of them have a weird pattern on the ground next to them. It takes a while to find them. Does anybody know why they are there?
Wow! I was looking for a runway number. Saw so many brilliant comments. So now I want to say thank you to all for reinstilling my faith in the human race. Well done. Nice to know that there are still decent smart guys left in the world.
I was there when Discovery landed a few years ago and I think you guys might be on to something. The longest runway is for the displaced shuttles. A beautiful sight to see.
Marisol
there is a great edwrds airforce base on microsoft flight sim X which displays all the lines in the above mentioed. its quite unique, and at the same time takes aviation back to its roots. I am currentley building a 737 throttle and posts like this remind me that there is still exellence in the world