Plane Dealings

“The Keepers of the Right Stuff” is the motto of the Air Force Flight Test Center Museum, located north of Lancaster on the grounds of Edwards Air Force Base.

If you’ve seen the movie that motto refers to, you probably remember the scene in which Sam Shepard, portraying Capt. Chuck Yeager, escapes from the fiery crash of an experimental plane and strides toward the camera bloody but unbowed.

The museum is adjacent to the area that became world famous when the real-life Yeager, during another more successful flight, became the first human to travel at supersonic speed. “U.S. Mystery Plane Tops Speed of Sound,” was the headline in The Times on Dec. 22, 1947. A copy of that historic front page is among the fascinating Air Force memorabilia on display. The museum also has a full-scale reproduction of the bright orange X-1 rocket plane that Yeager flew that day. Other experimental airplane reproductions (where 1 inch of model represents 6 feet of fighting machine) cover an entire wall of the museum. They represent the first flights of 100 different jet-propelled warplanes from 1942 to the current decade.

On view at one end of this “First Flights Wall” is a breadbox-sized chunk of shiny twisted metal--a reminder of the harsh reality of airplane flight-testing. “This is serious stuff,” explains curator Doug Nelson. “There are an awful lot of crash fragments like this out there [in the desert].”

Capt. Glen Edwards, for whom the Air Force base is named, perished “out there” in a wreck of a giant experimental “flying wing” airplane in 1948.

Equipment designed to save pilots was also tested at Edwards, including ejection seats to get them out of planes before a crash. Museum visitors may be amazed to see evidence that one such device was tested using a California brown bear named Yogi. He survived. To reach the museum, take the Antelope Valley Freeway to the Rosamond Boulevard offramp, drive east for about 15 minutes to the base guardhouse and identify yourself (it’s military base protocol).

A short distance inside the base to the left is the Jimmy Doolittle Air Park with its outdoor display of jets, including a Vietnam-era B-52.

The X-1 rocket plane is visible through the glass doors of a new museum that is under construction. A park kiosk dispenses free maps to guide you to the current museum location several streets away in Building 7211 on Kincheloe Avenue.

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BE THERE

Admission is free. Hours 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Information: (805) 277-8050. Calling ahead is recommended to get exact driving instructions and to find out if the base is on a heightened alert status due to international events, which impose restrictions on visitors.