HIGH-FLYING AIRCRAFT PUT ON DISPLAY PATHFINDER-PLUS AT SMITHSONIAN.Byline: JIM SKEEN Staff Writer EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE Edwards Air Force Base, U.S. military installation, 301,000 acres (121,805 hectares), S Calif., NE of Lancaster; est. 1933. It is one of the largest air force bases in the United States and has the world's longest runway. -- A record-setting unmanned flying wing tested at NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. Dryden Flight Research Center The Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC), located inside Edwards Air Force Base, is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. On March 26, 1976 it was named in honor of the late Hugh L. is enshrined in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., United States, and is the most popular of the Smithsonian museums. It maintains the largest collection of aircraft and spacecraft in the world. . Part of a program that set altitude records for propeller aircraft, the solar-powered Pathfinder-Plus is now on display at the museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM)'s annex at Washington Dulles International Airport in the Chantilly area of Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. at Dulles Airport in Virginia. The aircraft was flown at NASA Dryden in the 1990s. "It's certainly a valuable artifact," museum spokesman Peter Golkin said. "The Pathfinder-Plus represents great progress in solar power and in the ability to do research in high altitudes." Built by Monrovia-based AeroVironment, the aircraft originally was used for a classified government program in the early 1980s that was aimed at developing a high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft for surveillance purposes. It originally was powered by batteries. After that program was canceled, the aircraft was stored for 10 years before being brought back briefly in the early 1990s for use in developing a long-duration aircraft as part of a ballistic missile defense system Noun 1. missile defense system - naval weaponry providing a defense system missile defence system naval weaponry - weaponry for warships . In the mid-1990s, the aircraft became part of a NASA Dryden-led effort to develop high-altitude, long-duration research aircraft. In September 1995, Pathfinder set an altitude record of 50,500feet for solar-powered aircraft in a flight near Edwards and then set another record by flying to 71,500feet in 1997 in a flight over the Hawaiian Islands. james.skeen@dailynews (661) 267-5743 |
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