SOARING TO NEW HEIGHTS FLIGHT TEST TEAM HONORED.Byline: Daily News 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. -- The Society of Flight Test Engineers honored the joint NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. , Air Force and contractor team that conducted the flight test program for the X-43A hypersonic research aircraft. The X-43A researchers are the first recipients of the James S. McDonnell Team Award, presented recently at the Lancaster-based society's 37th annual International Symposium awards banquet in Reno, Nev. The award was established to honor team achievement in flight test engineering. It is named for the founder of McDonnell Aircraft Corp., now part of the Boeing Co. The award was presented by SFTE SFTE Society of Flight Test Engineers SFTE Storm From The East (Tokyo, Japan web magazine) President John Minor. It was accepted on behalf of the team by Paul Reukauf, former deputy project manager of the X-43A flight testing and currently hypersonics associate project manager at NASA 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. , and Charles Nichols, also of NASA Dryden; David Warner of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base; and Lowell Keel, Dale McKill and Edward Poole from ATK GASL, Inc., of Tullahoma, Tenn. The X-43A, developed under NASA's Hyper-X program managed by the Langley Research Center Langley Research Center (LaRC) Oldest of NASA's field centers, LaRC is located in Hampton, Virginia and directly borders Poquoson, Virginia and Langley Air Force Base. LaRC focuses primarily on aeronautical research, though the Lunar Lander was flight-tested at this facility and a , Hampton, Va., tested a supersonic-combustion ramjet ramjet: see jet propulsion. ramjet Air-breathing jet engine that operates with no major moving parts. It relies on the craft's forward motion to draw in air and on a specially shaped intake passage to compress the air for combustion. (``scramjet'') engine during two research flights off the coast of Southern California in 2004. The first sustained speeds approaching Mach 7, or seven times the speed of sound, the second reached almost Mach 10. ``The SFTE created this new award in 2006 to honor major accomplishments of outstanding flight test teams,'' said Minor, who is also the technical director for the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards. ``This award carries with it national level recognition; the winners will have their team name engraved en·grave tr.v. en·graved, en·grav·ing, en·graves 1. To carve, cut, or etch into a material: engraved the champion's name on the trophy. 2. on a trophy displayed in the Smithsonian 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. in Washington D.C.'' Reukauf noted that the X-43A project was the first flight of a scramjet scramjet: see jet propulsion. engine, a technology that had been explored for almost a half-century. ``Scramjet engines had been operated in wind tunnels since the 1950s, but had never been flown in free flight, fully integrated to a hypersonic-shaped airframe,'' he said. NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center led X-43A flight testing, with assistance from NASA Langley, the Air Force Flight Test Center, the Naval Weapons Center's Pacific Missile Test Range and contractor partners. ATK-GASL built the airframe and the integrated scramjet engine, while Boeing's Phantom Works developed the flight control software. Orbital Sciences Corp. provided the modified first-stage Pegasus rocket that boosted the X-43A to test conditions after launch from NASA's now-retired NB-52B mother ship. The X-43A / Hyper-X program had previously been honored with an Aviation Week and Space Technology Laurels Award and NASA's internal Turning Goals into Reality Administrator's Award. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (color) The scramjet powered X-43A hangs beneath the wing of a B-52 jet before a November 2004 flight test. NASA |
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