Growing up in what many call the “Aerospace Valley,” we have had front-row seats to many firsts that make our aviation accomplishments something the United States can be proud of.
Muroc and Edwards Air Force Base are two places that invoke visions of clunky research vehicles evolving into cutting-edge aircraft and becoming the vision of speed and space age conquests.
Over the years, many great people who became the heroes piloting the dreams of men with slide rules and pencils evolving on a work bench from concept to first flights, here in our desert home in the Antelope Valley and Mojave.
I volunteer at the Edwards Flight Test Historical Museum and wish I could spend more time in that capacity as I really enjoy being around the museum and the people who share the very best of American ingenuity when it comes to science and technology as it blossomed from blueprints to the wild blue yonder.
Today, driving that long road to Edwards, I was thinking about being a Baby Boomer whose dad came to the High Desert in 1954, the year I was born. My family rode that rollercoaster of the many projects that would make up flight test. We kids would just remember life as dad or mom going out the door early every morning before sunrise and getting home late in the evening. The roller coaster of our lives started out on what was that two-lane road our parents drove to work every day and returned on that same road at night.
Each day all the friends and family who drove that old road were part of a giant jigsaw puzzle of aerospace, crafting amazing craft to benefit our nation and the world. We would see the famous pilots of the day in our community as they received the accolades that they truly deserved while also knowing that it was a valley full of amazing men and women who made that first flight down a runway possible, and a trip to the edge of space (and space itself) possible.
Right now, the Flight Test Museum is trying to spread its wings into a new facility and, much like the aircraft programs of the past, it’s in need of those next generations of sons and daughters to make the new museum property a reality. The Flight Test Museum Foundation is crafting the possibilities that will mirror what our moms and dads did in past generations, overcoming difficult obstacles to reach benchmarks and to make the amazing take to the air.
Like many things in life, we can always look for the one miracle donation that can be the end-all answer to the problem, so we need not look any further. But we must also look at other possibilities to create a group-effort mindset to make the project take flight like our parents did back in the golden age of flight test.
I see this as an opportunity for our generation to pay tribute to our moms and dads who were just as responsible for all those records and achieved milestones as the pilots and engineers who came up with the ideas and flew them off the runways.
I’m just a museum volunteer and I don’t speak in any capacity for the museum, but I just wanted to reach out and try to inspire others of our and future generations to volunteer and help support the museum fundraising efforts. This work will honor all our valley citizens who through their hard work and sweat and long trips down an old desert road year after year, made the magic of Muroc and Edwards possible.
Funny, I was thinking how many times we seek the company and fame of the storied pilots and astronauts, but the real man or woman sitting across the dinner table in our homes over the years was the unsung hero in the trenches that made it all happen.
Let’s make this museum happen for them!
And now looking back, dang, I never asked my dad for an autograph.
I hope we can pull together and get that half-completed museum done. It is time to open its doors to the public and all the dreamers who someday will write their own history in the skies of the Antelope Valley and our American home.
Until next time, Bob out …
Editor’s note: For more information on volunteering at the museum, visit https://flighttestmuseum.org/volunteer/.
