VALLEY ENGINEER HONORED ARMSTRONG LANDS KUDOS FROM FLIGHT TEST SOCIETY.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. - Johnny Armstrong, 412th Test Wing Hypersonic Flight Hypersonic flight Flight at speeds well above the local velocity of sound. By convention, hypersonic flight starts at about Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) and extends upward in speed indefinitely. Test Team chief engineer, is the winner of the Society of Flight Test Engineers' ``Kelly'' Johnson Award for Excellence in Flight Test Engineering. A flight planner A flight planner usually works for an airline or airport. The flight planner must carefully plan all flight paths for any number of flights, taking into account wind speed and conditions. He also must advise the pilot if conditions or paths change. on the historic X-15 rocket plane rocket plane n. 1. An aircraft powered by one or more rocket engines. 2. An aircraft designed to carry and launch rockets. tests in the 1960s, Armstrong said his current assignment allows him to foster his passion for scram-jet technology testing. ``To find out I was being recognized and placed in the same light as these men was like finding out I had won the Academy Award for flight test engineering,'' Armstrong said. ``This award is that prestigious in my line of work.'' The official presentation of the award will occur at the society's 36th annual symposium awards banquet Oct. 6 in Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas, 18th-largest city in the United States[1], and voted one of "America’s Most Livable Communities. . ``I can't think of a more deserving person to win this award,'' said John Minor, the society president and Air Force Test Pilot School technical director. ``He, in my mind, is right up there with all of the other flight test engineering greats.'' The award is named for Lockheed designer Clarence L. ``Kelly'' Johnson, famous for aircraft, including the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes. Past award winners from the Antelope Valley This article is about the Los Angeles County region. For the census-designated place in Wyoming, see Antelope Valley-Crestview, Wyoming. The Antelope Valley include Burt Rutan Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (born June 17, 1943 in Estacada, Oregon) is an American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft. of Scaled Composites in 2004; Col. George Ka'iliwai III of the Air Force Test Pilot School in 2001; Richard Hildebrand of the Air Force Flight Test Center in 1997; Charles Van Norman of the Air Force Flight Test Center in 1996; and Frederick Stoliker of the Air Force Flight Test Center in 1986. Armstrong was nominated for the award by Ka'iliwai, now a Flight Test Center technical adviser. Armstrong started his 49 years of government service as a second lieutenant in the Air Force in 1956 and he participated in the testing of the YB-58 bomber and the F-104 interceptor. He then left military service to work with NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. as part of the flight evaluation team for the first launch of the Saturn rocket. He returned to Edwards as a civil servant in 1962 and was assigned as the Air Force flight planner on the X-15 program for seven years. He planned the record-setting 1967 flight during which W.J. ``Pete'' Knight, later Antelope Valley's state senator, flew the rocket plane to Mach 6.7. Armstrong went on to become the flight planner for the X-24A and X-24B ``lifting body'' wingless experimental aircraft, and was the Flight Test Center project manager for the X-24B, the Department of Defense evaluation of the space shuttle, the National Aerospace Plane, the X-33 and others. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Johnny Armstrong, chosen by the Society of Flight Test Engineers, discusses ideas with Lt. Col. Mary McNeely at the base. |
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