Antelope Valley Road Trips, CA; April/June 08

North of Los Angeles, and beyond the bowl of the San Bernardino mountains lies the Mojave Desert, known as the High Desert due to it's height above sea level. The area immediately North of LA is termed the Antelope Valley region, and is packed with aviation history, and still a centre for cutting edge research and technology.

These photos are from 2 road trips in the area, and give a small sample of some of the interesting places and aircraft which can be seen.

First stop is the city of Palmdale, who's airport is the home of the legendary Lockheed Skunk Works, and Air Force Plant 42. At this airfield, some of the most advanced and secret projects have been conceived and produced, including the F-117 Nighthawk and B-2 Spirit stealth aircraft.

There are 2 aviation collections on the perimeter of this very secret airfield, the first being the excellent Blackbird Air Park. The Park is home to 4 of the Skunk Works most famous products - the U-2, A-12, SR-71 and a recently acquired F-117. For more info on this fascinating collection, see the full report here.

Next door to the Blackbird Air Park is the relatively new Joe Davis Memorial Air Park. I first visited this collection in 2007, and I was pleased to see that in the intervening year, the collection has been added to, and there has also been some considerable restoration work undertaken on several of the aircraft.

On the museum website last year, it was suggested that the museum had acquired a B-52 for display, and I was surprised to see the speed at which the aircraft had been delivered and reassembled, having formerly been displayed at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds. The aircraft is a rare B-52F, currently the only one on display, and looks magnificent in its silver and white colour scheme.

The cities of Palmdale, and nearby Lancaster, are reliant on the aviation industry for much of their prosperity, and accordingly, they are proud of their aviaiton heritage. It was this pride which led to the establishment of the Joe Davis Air Park, and also to the displaying of several aircraft in the cities themselves.

The first of these is this F-4 Phantom, displayed in Boeing Plaza in downtown Palmdale.

The baseball team in Lancaster is known as the "Jethawks", and outside their stadium is this smart NASA coloured F-18.

The airfield in Lancaster is known as William Fox Field, and is home to the Milestones of Flight Museum. This is a small, but very interesting collection of aircraft, including one very unusual aircraft, a British built Argosy transport.

On being retired from RAF service, this aircraft flew for some years with a company in Lincoln, Nebraska, with its work even taking it as far as Fairbanks, Alaska! It ended up retired in Santa Monica in1992, intended for display in a museum there. The project failed to get off the ground so, in 1993, it was flown to Fox Field, where the engines were removed, and it was placed in the care of the Milestones of Flight Museum. The museum recently acquired and fitted 4 scrap Rolls Royce Dart engines from a local junk yard, but the aircraft still lacks props.

Displayed next to the Argosy, and providing an interesting comparison, is another twin-boomed aircraft, the Fairchild C-119 Flying Box Car, formerly a fire fighting tanker.

Also displayed outside is this magnificent former California ANG KC-97.

The Milestones of Flight Museum is an interesting collection, run by volunteers and funded by donations. Well worth a visit, I thoroughly enjoyed my tour with Jim, a retired Pratt and Whitney engineer.

Fox Field itself is an interesting airfield, and has fire fighting aircraft based there during the forest fire season. Sadly on the day of my visit there were no aircraft present at the tanker base. There were, however, 2 OH-58 Kiowas from the US Army making a transit stop on the ramp. One of the pilots kindly allowed me to photograph them on the ramp.

Another helicopter seen at Fox Field, was this unidentified early model (short fuselage) UH-1 "Huey".

Moving on from Fox Field, I headed up to Rosamund, just a few miles up the road. The road out to the East of Rosamund leads to Edwards AFB West Gate. Edwards is home to the Air Force Flight Test Centre, and the NASA Dryden research facility. Both facilities have museums, but access is strictly limited due to security concerns. However, recently, an enlightened base commander at Edwards has seen fit to move some of the AFFTC Museum aircraft to places where they can be viewed by the public without restriction.

Just outside the West gate of Edwards AFB is the Century Circle. Arranged around the former Edwards AFB control tower, this is a complete collection of the Century Series jet fighters of the 1950s. A sign advises visitors to stick to the paths, and gives an incentive to pay attention to that advice. It certainly worked for me!

Starting with the F-100, in this case a YF-100, the oldest Super Sabre still in existance.

Next up was this immaculate McDonnell F-101 Voodoo.

Looking very smart next to the Voodoo was this Convair TF-102, formerly operated by the AFFTC at Edwards for most of its career.

Next in the sequence is the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.

The sequence is completed by the Republic F-105 Thunderchief and the Convair F-106B.

Also on display in the Century Circle, and slightly out of place, but very welcome is this McDonnell Douglas YC-15. The YC-15 was produced in the 1970s, in competition with the Boeing YC-14 for a STOL transport contract that never came. The aircraft later provided valuable data for the C-17 program.

While I was at the Century Circle, I was lucky enough to catch one of the Lockheed C-5M Galaxy test airframes overhead, demonstrating the important test and evaluation work still going on at Edwards.

Moving around to the North gate of Edwards, and another aircraft recently placed on display, one of 2 NB-52 aircraft used as launch aircraft for various projects including the X-15.

This aircraft was known as "Balls 8" and is the sister aircraft to the famous "High and Mighty One" now preserved at Pima Air and Space Museum. After retirement it remained at Edwards and was recently moved to its current position to allow public viewing. Edwards AFB are to be applauded for making the effort to get some of their historic collection onto public display, and it is to be hoped that in the future more gems will be made more accessible.

It was there that my road trip ended, but I hope to return in the future, to see more that this superb desert area has to offer.

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