The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautical research
center operated by NASA.
Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California and is considered
NASA's premier site for aeronautical research.
AFRC operates some of the most advanced aircraft in the world and is known for many aviation
firsts, including critical support for the first manned airplane to exceed the speed
of sound in level flight with the Bell X-1, highest speed ever recorded by a manned, powered
aircraft (North American X-15), the first pure digital fly-by-wire aircraft (F-8 DFBW),
and many others.
AFRC also operates a second site in Palmdale, Ca.
known as Building 703, once the former Rockwell International/North American Aircraft production
facility, at Air Force Plant 42.
There, AFRC houses and operates several of NASA's Science Mission Directorate aircraft
including SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy), a DC-8 Flying Laboratory,
a Gulfstream C-20A UAVSAR and ER-2 High Altitude Platform.
David McBride is currently the center's director.On March 1, 2014, the facility was renamed in
honor of Neil Armstrong, a former test pilot at the center and the first human being to
walk on the surface of the moon.
The center was previously known as the Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) from March 26,
1976, in honor of Hugh L. Dryden, a prominent aeronautical engineer who at the time of his
death in 1965 was NASA's deputy administrator.
It has also previously been known as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Muroc Flight
Test Unit (1946), the NACA High-Speed Flight Research Station (1949), the NACA High-Speed
Flight Station (1954), the NASA High-Speed Flight Station (1958) and the NASA Flight
Research Center (1959).
AFRC was also the home of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a modified Boeing 747 designed
to carry a Space Shuttle orbiter back to Kennedy Space Center if one landed at Edwards.
Until 2004, Armstrong Flight Research Center operated the oldest B-52 Stratofortress bomber,
a B-52B model (tail number 008) which had been converted to drop test aircraft, dubbed
'Balls 8.'
It dropped a large number of supersonic test vehicles, ranging from the X-15 to its last
research program, the hypersonic X-43A, powered by a Pegasus rocket.
The aircraft was retired and is currently on display near the North Gate of Edwards.
== Location == Though Armstrong Flight Research Center has
always been located on the shore of Rogers Dry Lake Bed, its precise location has changed
over the years.
It currently resides on the North Western Edge of the lakebed, just south of Edwards
Air Force Bases' North Gate.
Visitation to the center requires obtaining access to both Edwards AFB and NASA AFRC.
Rogers dry lake bed offers a unique landscape which is well suited for flight research.
Dry conditions, few rainy days per year, and large, flat, open spaces in which emergency
landings can be performed.
At times, Rodgers dry lake bed can host a runway length of over 40,000 feet, and is
home to a 2000' diameter compass rose, in which aircraft can land into the wind in any
direction.
== List of current projects == X-56
X-57 X-59 QueSST
Dream Chaser UAS in the NAS
TGALS
== Historic projects ==
=== Douglas Skyrocket ===
NASA's predecessor, NACA, operated the Douglas Skyrocket.
A successor to the Air Force's Bell X-1, the D-558-II could operate under rocket or jet
power.
It conducted extensive tests into aircraft stability in the transsonic range, optimal
supersonic wing configurations, rocket plume effects, and high-speed flight dynamics.
On November 20, 1953, the Douglas Skyrocket became the first aircraft to fly at over twice
the speed of sound when it attained a speed of Mach 2.005.
Like the X-1, the D-558-II could be air-launched using a B-29 Superfortress.
Unlike the X-1, the Skyrocket could also takeoff from a runway with the help of JATO units.
=== Controlled Impact Demonstration ===
The Controlled Impact Demonstration was a joint project with the Federal Aviation Administration
to research a new jet fuel that would decrease the damage due to fire in the crash of a large
airliner.
On December 1, 1984, a remotely piloted Boeing 720 aircraft was flown into specially built
wing openers which tore the wings open, fuel spraying everywhere.
Despite the new fuel additive, the resulting fire ball was huge; the fire still took an
hour to fully extinguish.
Even though the fuel additive did not prevent a fire, the research was not a complete failure.
The additive still prevented the combustion of some fuel which flowed over the fuselage
of the aircraft, and served to cool it, similar to how a conventional rocket engine cools
its nozzle.
Also, instrumented crash test dummies were in the airplane for the impact, and provided
valuable research into other aspects of crash survivability for the occupants.
=== Linear Aerospike SR-71 Experiment ===
LASRE was a NASA experiment in cooperation with Lockheed Martin to study a reusable launch
vehicle design based on a linear aerospike rocket engine.
The experiment's goal was to provide in-flight data to help Lockheed Martin validate the
computational predictive tools they developed to design the craft.
LASRE was a small, half-span model of a lifting body with eight thrust cells of an aerospike
engine.
The experiment, mounted on the back of an SR-71 Blackbird aircraft, operated like a
kind of "flying wind tunnel."
The experiment focused on determining how a reusable launch vehicle's engine plume would
affect the aerodynamics of its lifting body shape at specific altitudes and speeds reaching
approximately 750 miles per hour (340 m/s).
The interaction of the aerodynamic flow with the engine plume could create drag; design
refinements look to minimize that interaction.
=== Lunar Landing Research Vehicle ===
The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle or LLRV was an Apollo Project era program to build
a simulator for the Moon landing.
The LLRVs, humorously referred to as "Flying Bedsteads", were used by the FRC, now known
as the Armstrong Flight Research Center, at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., to study and
analyze piloting techniques needed to fly and land the Apollo Lunar Module in the moon's
airless environment.
== Aircraft on display == NB-52B Balls 8 NASA 008
Bell X-1E AF Ser.
No. 46-063 F-104N - NASA 826
F8 Supercritical wing - NASA 810 F8 Digital Fly-by-wire - NASA 802
F-15B ACTIVE - NASA 837 Grumman X-29 - NASA 849
Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird LASRE - NASA 844 Northrop HL-10 Lifting Body - NASA 804
Rockwell HiMAT
== Gallery ==
== Notable employees ==
Neil Armstrong Marta Bohn-Meyer
Bill Dana C. Gordon Fullerton
David Hedgley Bruce Peterson
R. Dale Reed David Scott
Milt Thompson
== See also ==
Gromov Flight Research Institute - the Russia counterpart of the Armstrong Flight Research
Centre List of aerospace flight test centres