by Jane Houston Jones
The dry lakebeds make a perfect place for a flight test facility. One of them - the Rosamond lakebed has a curvature of less than 18 inches over a distance of 30,000 feet. Edwards Air Force Base was chosen as the site to flight test the nation's first jet aircraft, the Bell XP-59A Airacomet in the early 1040's.
With a feeling of excitement, pride and awe Mojo and I joined our research team today on a mission to study the debris of another comet - comet P/Tempel-Tuttle. The 2002 Leonid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign has officially begun.
Our first duties were mostly bureaucratic: badging, security, briefings, paperwork and changing into our blue flight suits. A 5:30 p.m. test flight was preceeded by a mission briefing.
Then we strapped on our seat belts, and flew an "L" shaped flight over Shafter, Panoche, Bishop on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada range and back to Edwards. Each of the 12 scientific teams aimed their equipment out the optical glass windows and powered up. I saw one meteor - a slow bright Taurid, though my i-goggles. Two hours later we were back at Edwards.
Day 2 November 15 - a day of equipment testing and an evening flight to Offut AFB, near Omaha, Nebraska. Day 3 : to Spain!
http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/index.html