Edwards Air Force Base Tour

Located in the Mojave Desert and spreading out over Kern, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino Counties, Edwards Air Force Base impresses visitors with just its numbers ...

• It covers over 300,000 acres or 470 square miles, larger than the City of Los Angeles.
• It has has a workforce of over 12,500.
• If its nearly two dozen runways were laid end-to-end, they would cover over 68 miles.
• The longest paved runway is 15,000 feet long, 300 feet wide, and three feet thick.
• The Rogers Dry Lakebed, the largest in North America, provides an unpaved runway that is seven-and-a-half miles long.
• The aircraft assigned to the base represent the best of the Air Force: B-1, B-2, B-52, C-5, C-12, C-17, C-130, C-130J, KC-135, CV-22, F-16, F-22, F-117, F-35, MQ-1, MQ-9, YAL-1 and RQ-4.
• The fastest manned-airplane flight to date was achieved on the base at Mach 6.72.

But beyond these numbers Edwards AFB also boasts some of the finest Librarians in the SLA Southern California Chapter. Led by Darrell Shiplett of the Air Force Flight Test Center Technical Library, and Karl Bender of the NASA-Dryden Flight Research Center's Research Library, SLA Southern California members and their guests were treated to a full-day tour of Edwards AFB on October 23, 2009.

Beginning at 0845, the first stop on the tour was the Flight Test Center Museum featuring a replica of Chuck Yeager's sound barrier breaking Glamorous Glennis and a wall featuring models of aircraft that had all been tested at Edwards. Along the way we saw the amenities that make the base home to its military and civilian personnel, including a high school, gas station, medical clinic and commissary. Our bus tour moved onto the Edwards flight line where we saw an enormous KC-10 tanker moving along the tarmac readying for take-off. We also came across F-16 fighter jets, F-22 Raptors, unmanned drones, and the T-38 jets that trail the Space Shuttles when they land at Edwards.

Following lunch, we toured NASA-Dryden Flight Research Center facilities, visiting Karl's Research Library and then made our way to the very impressive Mission Control where we viewed a playback of a morning test run of a modified 747 carrying the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy - or SOFIA - an airborne observatory that will complement the Hubble telescope. From Mission Control, we meandered among the NASA T-38 jets in Dryden's hanger and then boarded one of the two specially-equipped 747s that transport the Shuttle back to Florida after it lands at Edwards. Afterwards, we had an up-close-and-personal look at the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft before heading to Darrell's Air Force Flight Test Center Technical Library which supports the base's Masters Degree programs for test pilots and navigators, as well as any research needs related to flight testing.

This was the Chapter's second tour of Edwards AFB and it was even more exciting than the first because Karl was able to include a tour of NASA-Dryden's Research Library. Thanks to Darrell and Karl for hosting us; to Cheryl and Freddy for assisting us; and, to Winette for her tour of NASA-Dryden.