This book is a high-level view of the history of the Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) at Arnold Air Force Base (AFB), Tennessee, and contains reference chapters on many of the key aerospace systems that have been tested in AEDC’s ground flight simulation facilities.
It is by no means a complete list of all the aircraft and weapons systems, NASA spacecraft and commercial aviation products that have made use of AEDC’s unique test facilities throughout their development, improvement and sustainment life cycles. Rather, it is a sampling with overviews of the types of testing done. The material is based entirely on cleared news releases (References, page 207), which means in some cases there may have been actual test work that is not covered in these pages. To completely cover all the programs the center has supported would require several volumes.
AEDC works closely in cooperation with Department of Defense (DoD) program offices, NASA programs, aerospace industry and other ground and flight and armament test centers to create an integrated test and evaluation program. This begins with test concepts aimed at helping developers understand what AEDC can contribute to validate designs and reduce risk by building the right test plan for their program at AEDC. Many systems have benefitted from the center’s expertise and have tested in AEDC’s facilities from “cradle-to-grave.”
This book has been divided into chapters or profiles based upon the systems tested at AEDC. Each profile is a high-level summary of the testing or analysis work conducted on the system while in the center’s facilities. There are some gaps in coverage on some programs because of a lack of publically-cleared information.
